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photo provided by Akron Children’s
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Tiffany Swift
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Tiffany Swift
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Nicholas Morio, a community educational outreach coordinator for Akron Children’s School Health Services, is no stranger to overwhelmed educators. As part of the hospital’s program, he works with area schools to implement trauma-informed social and emotional learning methods — and to reduce the stress put on both teachers and students. That includes one language arts teacher who reached out to Morio about a disruption in her classroom.
“We called it the panic email,” he recalls. “She was having an issue with a student who was making noises throughout the class.”
Morio, whose hiring was made possible by Covelli Enterprises, recommended an essay assignment. Class members wrote anonymously about how the distractions affected their classroom experience — including the disruptive student, who was not on an IEP. (Individualized Education Plans are developed for children with disabilities.) Soon after, the teacher sent Morio a photo of that student’s essay.
“It started off like this: I am not distracted by anybody in the class, so I’m thinking I’m the one who’s doing the distracting,” Morio recalls. “He goes on to say, I didn’t realize I was having that kind of effect on the class, so I’m gonna try not to do this anymore.”
The exercise was therapeutic, allowing students to voice their feelings of frustration.
“The teacher told me, I was literally standing next to them with my arm across their shoulders as they were reading their essays, because they would tear up,” Morio recounts. “Some of the female students — they wanted to read their essays to the principal. … Building-wide, it was just like, Boom! That’s what you call restorative practice.”
In his role with School Health Services, Morio assists schools in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties with the application of trauma-informed social and emotional learning practices.
“What trauma-informed education is, it’s understanding that, just like the teachers are suffering trauma, the students have suffered real trauma — especially the COVID generation of students. It’s recognizing that trauma, and it’s investigating that trauma,” Morio says.
Others in the School Health Services program work with additional counties. Missy McClain, who has been working in the field for almost 20 years, covers Portage, Stark and Summit counties, while Lisa Riegel works with schools in Crawford, Richland and Morrow counties.
Through professional development seminars, strategy meetings and more, Morio works with educators and administrators to think outside of the box when it comes to learning and classroom supervision.
“We go into the schools, and we work with the admin and the teachers on a variety of things — social emotional learning, restorative justice and practices, PBIS [Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports], classroom management,” Morio says.
According to the Ohio Department of Education & Workforce, social and emotional learning standards emphasize individual student needs. The five pillars, says Morio, include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making. A positive behavioral interventions and supports framework, which can be placed under the wider umbrella of social and emotional learning, puts a spotlight on assisting students in overcoming barriers with the use of behavioral techniques — including positive reinforcement. These considerations help to create a trauma-informed environment and are strengthened through strategies such as restorative justice techniques, rapport building and expectation setting.
“That’s what the trauma-informed education is about. … This is information that, if the teacher knew, it would make their job so much easier because they would have a better understanding of why this kid acts the way they act,” Morio says. “If you know a child is being abused in some way, shape or form at home, and then they’re acting a certain way when they’re at school … you’re going to treat them differently. Your behavior plans are going to be different for them.”
Restorative justice practices move away from exclusionary punishments, such as sending students out of the classroom, and instead promote self-awareness and the healing of wrongs. This helps students to forge deeper relationships with their mentors.
“There was a fourth grader who, during lunch time, every single day, would throw his tray of food on the ground,” Morio says. “In this case, the student was not on an IEP, did not have disabilities. He was just getting a laugh from his friends, and, of course, making the custodial staff very upset.”
The student was initially barred from recess, an exclusionary practice — but Morio offered a different approach. The student spent a week assisting the custodians in cleaning up the cafeteria.
“He was able to put himself in someone else’s shoes, which was the two custodial gentlemen, realizing that this is a tough job,” says Morio. “He also built a relationship with the custodial staff. … There’s the restorative piece. There’s the relationship building.”
One educator who previously worked with Morio, former Boardman Center Intermediate School principal Mike Masucci, found that the practices made a difference. Masucci, who now works as a student teacher supervisor at Youngstown State University and a juvenile court student wellness coordinator, met with Morio in fall 2023. Soon after, the pair began working on strengthening these frameworks and tactics at the Boardman Center school.
“I slowly began to meet with Nick regularly — no staff, just the two of us — trying to explain to him what the culture of the building was like. He was so receptive and so knowledgeable, and always willing to share his thoughts and opinions in a non-confrontational way,” says Masucci. “Nick sits in that room and observes and watches how the teacher interacts with that child, and then suggests to that teacher, Hey, here’s what I would do.”
There’s good reason for Morio’s empathetic approach: He’s been on the other side of the whiteboard himself. Having worked as a teacher for 15 years and in administration for another seven, he understands the stress facing all those who work in the education system.
“Teachers are asked to fix and solve a variety of issues and problems, but they’re not given the education, tools or strategies to do so,” he says. “That’s what we do.”
From breaking up fights to comforting children experiencing loss, the day-to-day work of educators involves much more than simply teaching curriculum. “You’re not just a teacher. You’re a mentor. You’re a counselor,” says Morio. “Their trauma becomes your trauma.”
In the age of social media, gun violence and other stressors, kids may need additional help navigating the world as well.
“Our kids are struggling,” says Masucci. “It’s a variety of issues, all centered around mental health and anxiety. Certainly, the impacts, the negative ones, of COVID — and the gaps that that created with children — are notable.”
Thankfully, the implementation of trauma-informed social and emotional learning approaches, such as relationship-building and restorative practices, are effective. Masucci saw a positive shift in the morale of the teachers who worked with Morio. “Nick’s magic happens first with the teachers,” he says. “Then that’s transformed into what the teachers present to children.”
Though the changes Morio introduces require time to fully take root, they are proven to work. According to the Yale School of Medicine, students who participate in social and emotional learning programs are more likely to succeed both academically and socially.
“It works,” Morio says. “It doesn’t happen overnight. But when you start implementing these strategies, in six, nine months, maybe a year, maybe two years, you’re going to see the difference — not only in the students, not only in the classroom environment. You’re going to see the difference in yourself.”