Enhance resilience and well-being in those affected by trauma and adversity.

Resiliency-based & Trauma-Informed Practices

Gain a deeper understanding of trauma, build resilience, and foster positive youth development through trauma-informed, resiliency-based, and interprofessional practice sequences. Enhance your skills, collaborate with professionals, and make a positive impact on the lives of children, youth, and families.

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Program Snapshot

Spring Start Date

January 13, 2025

How Often

Every spring, fall, and summer

Cost

Contact an Enrollment Advisor

Learning Format

Hybrid

Duration

1 Year

VA Benefit Eligible

No

Scholarships

No

Credits

9 to 15 Credits

Overview

Trauma-Informed, resiliency-based, and Interprofessional Practice Sequences

UVM’s College of Education and Social Services offers this coursework to prepare educators and health and human service professionals to address the complex challenges associated with trauma and adversity using restorative, strength-based, and collaborative approaches that build resilience and encourage children, youth, and families to thrive and learn. 

Through 9 to 15 credits of graduate-level coursework, students will:

  • Gain a deeper socio-ecological understanding of the structural solutions inherent in equity, culturally sustaining partnerships, and resilience
  • Learn about the impact of trauma and adversity
  • Develop a toolbox of skills for fostering resilience through building and restoring relationships with families, schools, and communities

The program will include core coursework and then allow participants to select a track for specialization and complete a micro-credential in either:

Trauma-responsive and Restorative Practices (TRP) or,

Family-school-community Partnerships and Interprofessional Collaboration (FSC).

Through the course work students will:

  • Learn to effectively partner with children, youth, families, and professionals from other disciplines to enhance resilience and well-being in those affected by trauma and adversity.
  • Understand how social and cultural factors influence how children experience, identify, interpret, and respond to traumatic events.
  • Understand the relationship between trauma, behavior, brain development, and learning.
  • Recognize the signs of secondary traumatic stress among professionals and caregivers and learn prevention and coping strategies.
  • Learn how to build trauma-informed, resilience-fostering schools and organizations that can enhance academic success, social-emotional well-being, and positive youth development.
  • Gain new skills that harness interdisciplinary collaboration to build resilience and impact trauma and adversity.
  • Build a toolkit of evidence-informed strategies for effectively engaging children, youth, and families within and beyond school walls.
  • Earn credits that can stand on their own or may be applied to graduate degrees in education or social services at the University of Vermont.

What sets UVM apart

Gain new skills that harness interdisciplinary collaboration to build resilience and impact trauma and adversity.

Learn from experts at UVM’s College of Education and Social Services.

Foster resilience through building and restoring relationships with families, schools, and communities.

Earn credits that can stand on their own or may be applied to graduate degrees in education or social services at the University of Vermont.

Admissions

Our graduate courses are for you if you’re a: 

  • Child welfare worker
  • Educational leader
  • Health professional
  • Mental health clinician
  • School counselor
  • Social worker
  • Teacher
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Curriculum

Learn trauma-responsive, positive behavioral and restorative approaches

UVM’s Sequences in Resiliency-based & Trauma-Informed Practices provide targeted instruction on trauma-responsive, positive behavioral, and restorative approaches. This instruction aims to enhance social-emotional and behavioral well-being and promote positive organizational climates.

“Being Trauma-informed does not mean that you see trauma in everyone, it means that you see resilience in everyone. And then transforming the surrounding systems to support the growth of that resilience”

UVM graduate student

Benefits

  • Convenient online course format.
  • Earn graduate course credits that may serve as elective coursework toward Master’s Degree programs like Special Education (non-endorsement pathway), Curriculum & Instruction, Counseling, or Educational Leadership.
  • Students in the Master’s Degree in Social Work program may also take the sequence as a supplement to their degree.
  • Course credit may be used to earn CEUs to maintain your professional licensure.
  • Learn from accomplished faculty with experience in schools, child welfare, mental health, research, and state government.
  • Build a network of colleagues working across disciplines and professions.

Graduate Course Sequence

Resiliency-based Approaches Framework

Foundational
(Select 2; sample courses)		Advanced
(select 2; sample courses)		Applied Capstone
(select 2; sample courses)
Must take 5 courses; *Must select 3 of 5 from the core sequence: EDSP 6300; 6320; 6330; 6340 or EDCI 6310
EDSP 6300* – The Trauma Lens: Understanding core concepts of trauma and resiliency
EDCI 6310*: Society, Stress and the brain

Other classes with permission of CGS coordinator (EDSP 5250; 6320; CNSL 6770)		Pathway 1: Trauma-responsive and restorative practices
EDSP 6340*: Trauma-informed & Evidence-based Practices with Children and Families
EDSP 6180 (w/ permission of CGS coordinator) Behavior Analysis in Special Education
SWSS 6300: Assessment in Social Work (MSW students only)
CNSL 6520: Assessment in Counseling

Pathway 2: Family-School-Community & Interprofessional Collaborations
EDSP 6130: Collaborative Consultation
EDSP 6320*: Trauma-informed, Resiliency based, and Interprofessional Practices in Schools and Social Service Agencies

Other classes with permission of CGS coordinator (eg. CNSL 6770; SWSS 6360)		EDSP 6330*: Resilience oriented systems change in schools and human service agencies
EDSP 6990: Social Justice Teaching and Advocacy
ECSP 6550: Implementation Science in Early Childhood Special Ed
EDRM 6310: Mixed Methods Research
SWSS 6160: Integrative Approaches to Transformative SW (MSW students only)
CNSL 6991: Counseling Internship

Other classes with permission of CGS coordinator

2024-2025 Offerings

Core Sequence Schedule
Summer 2024Fall 2024Winter 2025Spring 2025
 EDSP 6300 (Core): Trauma LensEDSP 6130 (Core):  Special Education: Collaborative Consultation
EDSP 6300 (Core): Trauma Lens
EDSP 6320 (Core): Special Education: Fam,Schl&Intrprof Partnerships		EDSP 6300 (Core): Trauma Lens
EDSP 6340 (Core): Special Education: Restorative&Trma Pract w/Child		 EDCI 6310 (Core): Society, Stress, & the Brain
EDSP 6330 (Core):  Resilience oriented Systems Change

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Instructors

FAQ

UVM’s trauma-informed, resiliency-based and inter-professional graduate courses are designed for teachers, educational leaders, school counselors, mental health clinicians, social workers, child welfare workers, and health professionals in Vermont and out-of-state.

Yes. Courses may be taken individually or as a sequence. Register for one course from each of the focal areas (Foundational, Integrated and Applied).

Yes, it’s offered such that students can take one course per term, summer, fall, and spring.

For the most up-to-date listing of UVM’s tuition and fees, please visit the UVM’s Student Financial Services website.

Learn about options for discounts, grants, loans, scholarships, and more on our tuition and financial aid page or contact UVM’s Student Financial Services Office for more information on Federal and Institutional Financial Aid.

For more information about advanced study in this area, please contact Dr. Jessica Strolin-Goltzman at jstrolin@uvm.edu.