The challenges of recognizing and responding to students’ social, emotional, and mental health needs are compounded in a distance learning environment.

To help educators use trauma-informed teaching practices in distance learning contexts, this brief offers strategies, with specific examples, for recognizing and responding to students’ social and emotional needs while teaching remotely.

The strategies are organized using neuroscientist Bruce Perry’s “3 Rs” approach to intervention: Regulate, Relate, and Reason.

Using the strategies in this brief to address students’ social and emotional needs for regulation and relationships can help educators ensure that their students are ready to reason and continue to thrive, even from a distance.

Visit the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety at WestEd for more information.