Toolkit for artists who didn’t like school (but want to work with schools)

During my Adobe Creative Residency at the V&A museum I organised trauma informed schools training delivered by Trauma Informed Schools UK. I invited 5 artists and creatives who didn’t like school but want to work with schools as creative practitioners to create a toolkit for other artists.

Artists and creatives involved:

  • Chris Webb
  • Elinor Solly
  • Helen Johannessen
  • Janine Marsh
  • Zsofia Hajdu

Thoughts and ideas to help you prepare and plan to work with schools in a trauma informed way. Suggestions to help you create a toolkit that works for you.

Post in notes (Jess) for our main reflections from the Trauma Informed Schools UK training.

Be Kind & Stay Kind – prompts to support trauma informed practice (Chris Webb) a book to help you prepare for the challenges, to think about trauma informed practice and what to consider. Including cards on how to guide you today.

Prompt cards included inside Chris Webb’s ‘Be Kind & Stay Kind – prompts to support trauma informed practice.

Script and icebreakers (Janine Marsh) a script to help you structure questions to ask the school to see if they are trauma informed. As well as icebreakers to use in the classroom.

Checklist for the morning and reflecting after (Zsofia Hajdu) create your own checklist for the morning, what do you need to fill prepared? here they are cards to write and place your thoughts. What space do you need to reflect afterwards? create stencils to reflect with.

Stencils (Zsofia Hajdu) created your own stencils to reflect with.

WHAT DO I NEED? exercise book with an emotionally available adult badge (Elinor Solly) create a workbook for you to prepare for your schools visit. How are you going to prepare yourself in the morning?, facts and thoughts to remember from the trauma informed schools training and space to plan your session.

Randomiser (Helen Johannessen) create a paper fortune teller to help randomise your thoughts when planning a schools session.

Kind, Seek, Play, Smile Dice (Helen Johannessen) a 3D dice with the words kind, seek, play and smile. Words that resonated during the training along with an eye for observation and an ear for active listening. Scan the QR code to see the dice in 3D.

Create your own 3D object using the words that you feel are most important when working with schools and embedding trauma informed practice within your work.