Dear County and District Superintendents, Charter School Administrators, School Principals, and Classified School Employees:

Safe Spaces: Trauma-Informed Training for Educators and School Personnel

Our students’ well-being is foundational to their ability to pursue and achieve their greatest potential. As our schools tackle the daily challenge of supporting the mental health and well-being of all students, the need for quality resources continues to be more apparent than ever.

Thanks to California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative at https://cybhi.chhs.ca.gov/, there are new tools to support educators, administrators, and classified staff when the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences and other traumas show up in our school environments.

Safe Spaces: Foundations of Trauma-Informed Practice for Educational and Care Settings (https://osg.ca.gov/safespaces) is a free online two-hour training designed to help educators, administrators, and classified staff understand and respond to trauma and stress in young people. The training is available in English and Spanish and includes three modules for individuals who work with children and youth ages 0–5, 5–11, and 12–18.

Safe Spaces is skill-based and gives individuals tangible strategies to help students experiencing an overactivated stress response. It also includes strategies for education personnel—recognizing that self-care is key to creating trauma-informed environments.

We invite all educators to learn more, take the training, and share it across your schools and agencies. Please visit the Office of the California Surgeon General Safe Spaces web page at https://osg.ca.gov/safespaces/ to access the training and related materials.

It only takes one individual to make a difference for a child or youth who may be struggling. And together, our impact can have a significant and positive ripple effect—beyond the walls of our schools.

Sincerely,

Diana E. Ramos, MD, MPH, MBA, FACOG
California Surgeon General

Tony Thurmond
California State Superintendent of Public Instruction