THE ROLE OF SCHOOL COUNSELORS IN ADDRESSING STUDENT TRAUMA DURING ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL CRISES: STRATEGIES FOR RESILIENCE AND RECOVERY

Abstract

Around the world, environmental and social crises, like natural disasters, epidemics or social unrest, have increasingly occurred on a more frequent basis in schools. In this case, the students are at the risk of trauma and further mental problems. These people oftentimes have much anxiety, depression and lack of motivations to study. This points to the fact that schools should be involved in offering trauma-informed care. In this study, the qualitative and quantitative approach was used to test how school counselors have worked to help students go through this tough period dealing with trauma. It provides an overview of trauma-informed care and the resilience theory, as well as explore numerous solutions to the question of how counselors can be prepared to rise up. It analyzes the intervention measures of social and emotional learning, peer support and family/community partnerships. It also indicates the actual issues that the counselors must grapple with such as lack of resources, cultural differences and always operating in crisis mode. The conclusion is that counselors should be thoroughly trained, schools should provide ample guidance to them and give them access to long term measures of recovery to students. The research will also dwell upon the topic of trauma-sensitive education and present a strong argument in favour of the fact that the school counselling services should be fixed up in case of a crisis.