Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1388499

STRYV365 peak team and Brain Agents: Teacher Perspectives on School Impacts of a Trauma-Informed, Social Emotional Learning Approach for Students Facing Adverse Childhood Experiences

Provisionally accepted
Abbey Stoltenburg Abbey Stoltenburg 1*Madison Mcguire Madison Mcguire 1Elizabeth Liverman Elizabeth Liverman 1Paula Lumelsky Paula Lumelsky 2Garrett Bates Garrett Bates 1Constance Gundacker Constance Gundacker 1Brandon Currie Brandon Currie 2John R. Meurer John R. Meurer 1
  • 1 Institute for Health and Equity, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
  • 2 STRYV365, Inc, Milwaukee, WI, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have significant impacts on child and adolescent school performance and overall wellbeing, while positive childhood experiences limit the impact of ACEs on wellbeing and health. Trauma-informed and social emotional learning (SEL) programming in schools may address the impacts of ACEs and school staff are critical to the success of these programs and school outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement of STRYV365 peak team and Brain Agents programs to refine implementation and determine the preliminary impacts on students, teachers, and school environments at participating schools. Four focus groups were conducted after programming concluded with 17 school leaders, administrators, and teachers at four urban schools with programs for fifth to ninth grade students. Audio transcripts were obtained from a professional transcribing service. Four co-authors coded major themes and subthemes by inductive analysis using Dedoose. Three major themes were identified from transcripts: schoolwide perspectives of STRYV365 programs, strengths and impacts of STRVY365 programs, and opportunities for program improvement. School staff reported peak team was engaging for students and helped students learn SEL skills and form peer-to-coach and peer-to-peer connections. STRYV365 programs also positively impacted student-teacher relationships and staff relationships. Teachers overwhelmingly indicated interest in becoming more involved in future programming. Overall, this study highlights the importance of teacher and administrator support for SEL activities, consistency for urban youth, and suggests that 4-week SEL programs may have a positive impact on school culture, student-teacher relationships, and teacher-teacher relationships.

    Keywords: Social Emotional Learning1, trauma-informed2, childhood experiences3, physical activity4, video games5, teacher perspectives6

    Received: 19 Feb 2024; Accepted: 17 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Stoltenburg, Mcguire, Liverman, Lumelsky, Bates, Gundacker, Currie and Meurer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Abbey Stoltenburg, Institute for Health and Equity, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 53226, Wisconsin, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.