According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), approximately 16% of school-aged children experience interruptions in their social and academic lives due to mental health concerns. This number is only worsening due to the isolation and fear caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, school faculty must be equipped with the resources necessary to address mental health with their students. As students transition to college, addressing any mental health concerns will be an important part of their ultimate success.

The TEA’s Project Restore, a trauma-informed training video series, aims to address these extraordinary and unprecedented needs. Designed for educators and professionals working in education, Project Restore connects participants to strategies that can help in addressing one’s own emotional needs, and those of one’s students and colleagues.

Beginning with addressing how to recognize trauma in oneself, Project Restore then walks through resilience-building strategies before shifting the focus to students. With specific insights on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the third video outlines the challenges students face, and how educators can build relationships with their students to foster resilience. The fourth video delves more deeply into student-teacher relationship building, and provides strategies for deescalating students exhibiting stress-induced behavioral issues. Video five takes a step back with a look at classroom culture as a whole, and the final video of the series steps back even further to address educators’ relationships with student families.