Trauma Responsive De-Escalation: Evidence-Based Strategies That Work in the Classroom - Micere Keels

Dr. Micere Keels is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago, and the Founding Director of the Trauma Responsive Educational Practices Project (TREP Project). For over two decades, she has worked to integrate mental health promotion interventions into educational systems and structures, from early childhood centers to high schools. The TREP Project works to develop the individual and organizational capacity of educators and schools serving children growing up in neighborhoods that have high levels of toxic stress, such as violent crime, concentrated poverty, concentrated foster care involvement, and housing instability. Through the TREP Project, she has supported the professional development of over 200,000 educators through school district partnerships in Delaware, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island, and through work with many individual schools across the U.S.