Indiana University Faculty Develop Programs to Help Indianapolis K-12 Students Cope With Violence and Trauma

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has selected two faculty members from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) for its Clinical Scholars program, an initiative that will provide funding and leadership training to implement a project that will help thousands of K-12 students in Indianapolis cope with violence and trauma they experience in their lives.

The project will focus on students in Washington Township’s 12 public schools as well as two charter schools, Indianapolis Metropolitan High School and Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis. The Clinical Scholars program will provide $420,000 for the project team to implement the project, “Responsive Schools: Building a Trauma Responsive Learning Community for All Children.”

The two faculty members include Wanda Thruston, a clinical assistant professor in the Indiana University School of Nursing, and Barbara Pierce, an associate professor in the IU School of Social Work.

The Clinical Scholars program is an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Under the initiative, teams of interdisciplinary health care providers are selected for intensive leadership development so they can acquire the skills needed to bring innovation and transformation to their local communities that impact root causes of inequity in health.

Pierce tells IU.edu, “In Indianapolis, the team will address problems stemming from the community violence, other forms of trauma, poverty and inequality children are exposed to at fairly regular intervals. While we can’t change the city in which they live, we can change how kids respond to what the environment throws at them and help them learn to respond in a more resilient way. We can teach things like social-emotional responses and coping skills to be resilient. We can help kids deal with bullying and trauma.”

To learn more about Wanda Thruston and Barbara Pierce, the two IUPUI faculty members selected to develop programs to help Indianapolis K-12 students cope with violence and trauma, visit here.