ABSTRACT
One of the classes that many school counselors take in conjunction with mental health counselors is family therapy. This chapter discusses the topic of family counseling from the school counseling perspective. Childhood trauma has been shown to affect students’ academic achievement and their mental health. There can be a stigma that childhood trauma is only in low-income, urban schools but that isn’t the case. Trauma does not have an economic or ethnicity preference. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is a questionnaire that asks about childhood experiences with abuse, neglect, and other negative experiences. The ACEs do not substitute a comprehensive trauma screening, but it does aid in understanding the effects of trauma on a child. This information can help school counselors look at other outside factors that might be contributing to a student’s poor academic performance or poor behavior. School counselors can be trained in trauma and then provide training to faculty.
