As the school year begins, educators may face the complex position of supporting students through challenging times while also handling personal stress factors. Educators who serve students and communities affected by traumatic events may develop additional challenges through the effects of secondary traumatic stress. This emotional reaction can occur when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another person. Individual, professional, and community-based stressors can combine to cause feelings of anxiety, depression, and exhaustion in educators. Knowing the signs of stress and secondary trauma can help mitigate their effects. Self-care and prevention strategies are essential for educators seeking to alleviate these challenges. The NCTSN offers organizational and personal stress prevention resources to support educator wellbeing and to promote self-care through awareness, balance, and connection.

Secondary Traumatic Stress for Educators
This webinar describes signs and risk factors for secondary traumatic stress in educators. It also provides educators with techniques for prevention of secondary traumatic stress and helpful self-care practices.

Pause-Reset-Nourish (PRN)* to Promote Wellbeing: Use as Needed to Care for Your Wellness!
Provides information about the self-care strategy of Pause-Reset-Nourish, or PRN. This fact sheet acknowledges the levels of stress that professionals may be currently experiencing and offers a way to address unwanted symptoms and promote and replenish wellbeing and enhance resilience. Also available in Spanish.

Psychological First Aid for Schools (PFA-S) Field Operations Guide
A guide to provide educators, school administrators, and staff with assistance in reducing distress in the immediate aftermath of an emergency. PFA-S is designed to foster short-term and long-term coping after an emergency and is appropriate for all ages. The guide can mitigate the development of long-term challenges in recovery by helping identify individuals who need additional support and connecting them with those services. 

Taking Care of Yourself
This fact sheet offers a list of ideas for self-care strategies to use after a difficult event. This checklist outlines the three basics aspects of self-care including awareness, balance, and connection. The fact sheet describes how to be aware of your needs and how to build supportive relationships, with a list of techniques that may work for you.

Supporting Schools to Test and Implement Tailored Trauma-Informed Practices
Highlights key elements of the NCTSN Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC) for Supporting Trauma-Informed Schools to Keep Students in the Classroom. The video series features the voices of school staff, administration, and NCTSN partners about how the BSC helped create trauma-informed cultural change in schools to better support teachers, students, families, and administrators.

Self Care for Educators
Offers tips for educators on self-care. This resource is a part of the Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators. Self Care for Educators includes information on working with traumatized children and provides tips for school staff who work with any child who has experienced trauma.

Creating, Supporting, and Sustaining Trauma-Informed Schools: A System Framework
Provides a framework for creating a trauma-informed school environment. The guide addresses the needs of all students, school personnel, and families who might be at risk for experiencing the symptoms of traumatic stress. This system framework aligns with the “4 Rs”: (1) realizing the widespread impact of trauma and pathways to recovery; (2) recognizing traumas signs and symptoms; (3) responding by integrating knowledge about trauma into all facets of the system; and (4) resisting re-traumatization of trauma-impacted individuals by decreasing the occurrence of unnecessary triggers and by implementing trauma-informed policies, procedures, and practices.

Coping in Hard Times: Fact Sheet for School Staff
This fact sheet discusses how challenging financial circumstances may affect school staff, teachers, students, and their families. Coping in Hard Times provides specific ways to help, including how to encourage connectedness and a sense of safety and hope in the school community.