Help for the Helpers
Helping students deal with the trauma they’ve experienced is incredibly rewarding, and also can leave teachers and school staff feeling overwhelmed and under-resourced. The Stress-Less Initiative© gives school personnel skills to manage the secondary traumatic stress they feel so they can continue to provide the best support to students.
It is a collaboration of CHOP’s Center for Violence Prevention and Healthier Together Initiative, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania and the community-based provider Uplift Center for Grieving Children. Learn More
CHOP Helps Kids — and Those Who Support Them
The Stress-Less Initiative complements the CHOP-supported trauma counseling program for students, provided by Uplift, as way to improve mental health in the community.
School personnel who participated in the Stress-Less Initiative said:
We spend a lot of time transferring coping skills to the younger people who we work with, but sometimes neglect to transfer those same skills to our co-workers. And I think the Stress-Less Initiative was a good way in which to help us to do that.
I can say from my perspective, it’s helped me exercise a lot more empathy and not necessarily look as much at these children’s behaviors but look at what’s driving the behavior. So, if I could address the driver, then the behaviors will sort themselves.
Learn More About
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120
Youth and their caregivers received trauma, grief and/or social support services through GRIT. (FY22)
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90+
Staff members at two West Philadelphia schools participated in trauma-informed care and stress reduction workshops through Stress-Less.