Echo is committed to creating trauma-informed, systems level change in the educational system.

Sally Ride Elementary School

Echo chose this site to pilot our Whole School Initiative (WSI). The WSI is designed to engage the entire school community – parents, teachers, administrators and other staff – so that they can provide the trauma-informed, nonviolent environment children need in order to learn.

Sally Ride has become an incubator for the development of our trauma-informed schools programs. School disciplinary referrals have been steadily declining since Echo started working at the school, despite school enrollment increasing.

LAUSD School Mental Health

Echo partners closely with the LAUSD School Mental Health Department. Our relationship includes a 2-year trauma-training program conducted with all 300 of their Psychiatric Social Workers, which was the genesis of our train + coach model.

Teach For America (TFA)

Echo also works in partnership with Teach for America (TFA). Last year, we provided monthly professional development sessions in trauma-informed practice for the 200-strong cohort of TFA teachers. Responding to the changing political climate, we tailored our workshops to include ways to support teachers with the emotional challenges they were facing as a result of working with children who feared deportation for their parents.

In the next academic year, we will be partnering once more with TFA and working on creating a needs-driven coaching model and providing trauma-informed wellness workshops for their new cohort of teachers.

Trauma-Informed Compassionate Classrooms

Echo offers various forms of our introductory training for schools and school districts looking for a brief overview of trauma-informed education. We have trained Riverside Unified School District, Riverside Office of Education, Pomona Unified School District, and more. Twice a year, we offer the Trauma-Informed Compassionate Classrooms training as a LAUSD salary point class.

LAUSD Board Committee on Early Childhood Education

Recognition for Echo’s trauma-informed work in the educational sphere resulted in an invitation to present on childhood trauma to the LAUSD Board Committee on Early Childhood Education. We have been invited back at an as-yet unspecified date to provide further education and policy recommendations to the committee.