6: Leading Trauma-informed Management of the School

The next key leadership practice we explored is how leaders planned and enacted strategic initiatives for resources to support the management and operational priorities of the school (Leithwood et al., 2019; Robinson et al., 2008). In prior chapters, we suggested there are pressing needs competing for limited time, resources, and attention for schools in communities contending with generational impacts of social and educational inequity. Leaders are continually squeezed into uncomfortable choices where they feel the stressors of service rationing. They must determine short-, medium-, and long-term priorities and goals for their investments and time, advocacy, and budget.

It was beyond the scope of our research to comprehensively investigate operational and managerial functions of participating school leaders. However, we next feature a compelling case study of one school’s visionary use of their management and resources to pursue a significant redesign of their school’s physical learning environment. In line with emergent findings in trauma-informed school design (Harte et al., 2022), the efforts featured in this chapter show how leaders led significant mobilisation efforts to unify interests in transforming their physical environment, while simultaneously gathering and maintaining an authorisation from their governing council and implementation supports from their staff.