Date

4-17-2024

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)

Chair

Michael Weuste

Keywords

Vicarious trauma, students from the Northern Triangle, teachers, school counselors, mental health, Title I schools, immigrant children, secondary trauma, Hispanic students, trauma

Disciplines

Counseling | Education

Abstract

The present phenomenological study aimed to describe the lived experiences of school counselors and teachers working at elementary Title I schools in Maryland with students from the Northern Triangle (a region of Central America comprising El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). The assumption was that these education professionals may undergo struggles and demands that may put them at risk of vicarious trauma due to the trauma those students and their families have endured. The theory guiding this study was the transactional theory of stress and coping (Lazarus,1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and the stress theory (Cohen et al., 1997), which converge the bidirectional nature between individuals and their environment and how the individuals’ stress reactions depend on their social, psychological, and biological responses to that environment. The researcher engaged in extensive interviews to define how these staff members made sense of their experiences and how exposure to students’ traumatic experiences and needs may have made staff prone to vicarious trauma. The sampling included twelve in-depth participant interviews and a focus group to provide experiential statements. The literature review comprises the theoretical framework, emotional trauma, children's attachment, students from the Northern Triangle and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), effects on their academic achievement, vicarious trauma, and post-traumatic growth, and its effects on teachers and school counselors in Title I schools.

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