BUILDING TRAUMA-SENSITIVE SCHOOLS

Social and Emotional Learning for Educators

FuelEd programs empower educators with the science and skills to build secure relationships, and to teach and lead with a trauma-sensitive lens — from a place of self-awareness, wellness, empathy and social emotional competence.

Our programs are...

Inspiring, uplifting, and informational

FuelEd trainings are rooted in the latest science of developmental psychology, attachment, neurobiology. Our science-based, trauma-informed frameworks give educators a springboard for building new knowledge, insight, and action.

Experiential and discovery-based

FuelEd’s trainings are designed to enable educators to reflect, personalize and apply the learning. Unlike traditional “sit-and-get” educator professional development, we help educators make meaning from their own experiences, leading to long-lasting change that is driven from within.

Therapeutic and personal

All learning happens through relationships but here's the thing: secure relationships can only be built by secure adults. That's why all of our trainings utilize insight-oriented activities that allow each educator to increase their self-knowledge and grow—not just professionally, but personally.

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Immersive multi-day training

Whole Educator Collective

Teaching, learning, and leading in schools is a relationship-driven endeavor, and the Whole Educator Collective prepares educators for this reality.

Our flagship training gives educators foundational knowledge on the science of attachment and trauma, practice with powerful relationship skills, and space to reflect on and unpack their own trauma.

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Participants will learn how to:

  • Develop new skills for building relationships
  • Recognize the impact of relationships on the developing brain and its capacity to learn
  • Identify the different types of attachment styles and how to work with them
  • Power up communication skills to handle challenging relationships and help others grow
  • Fuel self-awareness about why certain student or adult behaviors are triggering
  • Identify personal attachment styles, how they developed, and how they continue to impact life today
  • Cultivate emotional well-being by enhancing self-acceptance and self-compassion

One-Day Skills Training

Empathy School

Educators' empathy skills have proven effects on student outcomes, school culture, and teacher retention. But most educators are never formally taught the skills of empathy.

This five-hour in-person or online training in the art and science of empathic listening helps educators develop these skills, and leads to professional and personal relationships that are more productive, more satisfying, and foster healthy school cultures where adults and students thrive.

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Participants will learn how to:

  • Articulate the scientific benefits of empathy
  • Explore personal strengths and weaknesses in empathic communication
  • Recognize “empathy blockers” and learn how to avoid them
  • Demonstrate greater awareness of others’ feelings, thoughts, and needs
  • Activate and practice perspective-taking and empathic listening with adults and students
  • Identify how empathy moves educators toward being secure attachment figures

CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM FOR SCALING EMPATHIC COMMUNICATION

Growing Empathy

Growing Empathy is a powerful, cost-effective, capacity-building model designed to scale the use of empathic communication throughout an education ecosystem.

Growing Empathy helps education leaders build and sustain school climates where emotionally secure relationships drive teaching and learning, foster wellbeing, and create successful caring communities.

The FuelEd team provides training and ongoing support to a select group of on-site educators who then lead Growing Empathy professional learning throughout the school or district

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This capacity building program comprises

  • Two, 3-hour facilitator training sessions
  • Full access to FuelEd's Growing Empathy learning platform including new, rich video content, a comprehensive facilitator’s guide, and detailed participant workbook (8 hours of lessons)
  • Flexible delivery model for implementation - designed to fit within existing school schedules
  • Up to 8 hours of coaching support throughout the year for facilitators
  • Up to 3 hours of progress monitoring and implementation support for district leaders

SAFE & SUPPORTIVE HEALING SPACES FOR EDUCATORS

Empathy Circles

Empathy Circles give educators a continued experience of the healing power of empathy, the opportunity to practice empathic communication with their peers, and the ability to take what they discover forward into their classrooms and school communities.

Bring our Empathy Circles to your school or district to demonstrate your leadership's commitment to building caring, relationship-driven school climates and to improving teacher wellness.

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In FuelEd Empathy Circles, teachers and leaders:

  • Increase their capacity to offer empathy and care to others
  • Develop their perspective-taking skills by reflecting on their own problems, feelings, thoughts, needs, and values, as well as those of their peers
  • Experience empathy through empathic listening and mirroring—critical tools for trauma-informed practice and building relationships
  • Improve their ability to move from states of stress to calm through co-regulation
  • Practice self-compassion

Short Online Workshop

Trauma & Transitions

Students have tremendous needs related to widespread losses of safety and predictability and for many, trauma related to adverse childhood experiences. Prolonged stress can hinder development, derail emotional wellbeing, and impair learning. Educators have a critical role to play in providing emotional safety and co-regulation to students.

This 90-minute facilitated workshop provides educators with an accessible springboard of knowledge, skills, and sustainable strategies for building relationships and practicing self-care, in the face of collective trauma.

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Participants will learn how to:

  • Identify how stress and trauma impact physical and emotional well-being
  • Recognize the indicators of trauma and stress in ourselves and others
  • Reflect on and process one’s own experiences of trauma and loss
  • Develop strategies for self-regulation and self-care during stressful transitions
  • Develop skills to process and address student stress and trauma

What people are saying . . .

"The Whole Educator Collective did a great job of peeling back the layers of the individuals present. Our trainers were amazing at keeping us on pace as well as being upfront with each other. This professional development really should be required for first and second year teachers. Having this level of introspection at the beginning of every teacher's career would inherently make all teachers much better, more aware educators."

Jyme Roundtree

Teacher

"This was literally life changing. Thank you."

Denise Abellano

Administrator

"The Whole Educator Collective explains the science behind who we are, why we do what we do and how we can move forward to be the best version of ourselves. The training encouraging group work and partner shares, it creates a safe space for people to feel okay with being vulnerable and in tune with their emotions and thoughts. I thought it was wonderful!"

Claire Casuyon

Counselor

"Empathy School gives many opportunities for educators to practice the skills with real life situations. Additionally, it gives educators the perspective of both being the one showing empathy and being shown empathy. This training was not only informative, but cathartic and the timing was amazing!"

Tiffany Lee

Teacher

"Whole Educator Collective allows participants to get to know who they are and what drives them and their emotions which, in turn, allows them to translate their knowledge of self into action that better serves their students, colleagues, and peers."

Chwi Ghogomu

Teacher

"Whole Educator Collective did a great job of breaking down the different components of relationships in both personal life and at school. It was so incredibly helpful.

Gray Allison

Teacher

"This program does a really good job of communicating concepts I had heard of but did not have words for . . . I'm looking forward to doing FuelEd again!"

Kiara Aaguirre

Teacher

"Empathy School breaks the concept down into really manageable pieces — each workshop allows participants to completely engage and understand the concept. I am walking away feeling capable of implementing these things into my life."

Hannah French

Teacher

"The training makes you take a step back and realize all of the times you haven’t shown empathy as much as you really needed to. I’m really thankful for this training. I think that every educator needs this check to bring us back to the fact that we all need empathy."

Nicole Stringer

Teacher

“FuelEd helps you to see how relationships can be built to impact the culture of your school. I feel blessed to have been able to take part in this. It's a gift of time to reflect and grow in a way that I haven't experienced in ally other professional development.”

Sadie Edemann

School Administrator

"This training is of the most influential and meaningful trainings I have ever participated in. It does an excellent job at getting to the heart of the underlying issues impacting our abilities to develop and maintain healthy attachments and will have a huge impact on how I approach, repair, and strengthen relationships."

Deirdre Denis

Teacher

"This program really shows the proper way to communicate feelings, and to show empathy to others. The training is life changing."

Talea Essama

Teacher

“I had preconceived notions about students’ challenges and how they can "help themselves," but this training made me realize I need to first understand WHO they are. Empathy School helped me have a greater understanding that students see and experience things differently. This will help me slow down and spend more time letting my open up. Empathetic listening involves less of me and more of them. This training will change my approach to making my students feel comfortable and seen.”

Barbara Molaison

Transition Specialist

“Empathy School allows space for participants to feel and process, while giving us the technical pieces for building empathy. This made our teachers feel so good!”

Cherelyn Poe

School Administrator

“Whole Educator Collective was a very transformational experience. I've been to a lot of professional development and I would put this on top. Most trainings are for teachers to go back and do something with their kids, but this was about adults finding their secure attachment. This was refreshing. It was focusing on the soul of the individual.”

Annette Scott

District Administrator

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