8: Leading Trauma-informed Improvement, Innovation, and Change

We now turn to how leaders in our research sites led trauma-informed improvement, innovation, and change (AITSL, 2014). Both Dinham (2016) and Robinson (2011) forewarn that if leaders cannot communicate and support their staff to share their vision, common goals will not be achieved. Beyond setting intentions towards finalising a school’s strategic plan – that is, the annual improvement plan or similar – effective leaders must have the tools to galvanise staff towards common purposes, encourage leaders from within to represent best practices, and, importantly, develop deliberate strategies to support staff who have complex needs of their own or may struggle to buy into the leaders’ vision for progression.