New Brunswick School Counsellor Framework

Culture comprises multiple facets of our being, including our cultural heritage (background, history, and traditions), visible and invisible dimensions of identity, language, values, beliefs, morals, codes, and orientations to time and space. Culture is contextual and learned, and it influences the way we engage with others and make meaning of the world around us. Intercultural interactions may shift cultures and lead to adapted systems of shared understanding or ways of being between interacting people/groups. We all have culture and as much diversity exists between cultural groups as within them.

Each learner has a unique identity composed of intersecting dimensions of identity, including their race, colour, religion, national origin, ancestry, place of origin, age, disabilities (physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory), marital status, family status, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity or expression, social condition, or political belief or activity. Inclusion is an ongoing process aimed at ensuring learners’ identities, language(s), strengths, interests, needs, abilities, and characteristics are recognized and affirmed. Equity is the process of identifying and addressing barriers faced by learners in support of their future success.

Inclusion and equity foster a complete school experience by affirming diverse identities, nurturing well-being, removing barriers as identified by affected people or communities, ensuring the active participation of the learner, and promoting social cohesion and belonging through positive interactions with peers and the school community.

School-wide PBIS is a multi-tiered framework to make schools more effective places. It establishes a social culture and the behaviour supports needed to improve social, emotional, behavioural, and academic outcomes for all students. PBIS is flexible enough to support student, family and community needs.

Response to Intervention (RTI), and PBIS tiers are models for providing high-quality instruction and intervention for academic as well as behavioural instruction and interventions. The tiers provide a flexible framework that allows for student movement between tiers. It is important to note that it is the interventions and supports that are tiered, not the students. Intervention is not to replace classroom instruction, but to supplement it. Progress is monitored closely and decisions about instructional needs are based on data collected from ongoing formative assessment. For more information, visit the Centre on PBIS.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) considers the how, why, and what of learning. Through intentional instruction and assessment design, this framework promotes access, participation, and progress for many learners’ needs (CAST, 2018). It considers not only how the learners acquire knowledge, but also how they engage with the content being taught. UDL acknowledges that the unique learning abilities of each individual learner are as different as their distinctive fingerprints.

Educators facilitate learning opportunities by:

• anticipating barriers and seeking solutions
• designing for accessibility by using an inclusive and equitable lens
• establishing clear goals with flexible means of learning and assessment

Educators implement the UDL framework to support all learners by using:

© 2018. CAST Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

For further information, please visit the UDL Guidelines by CAST.

Trauma-informed/-assumed practice is rooted in the belief that all school community members benefit when environments are universally designed with physical, emotional, and cultural safety in mind and when choice, active participation, and connection are prioritized. There is an assumption that trauma has been experienced by at least some people in the school community leading to practices being universally implemented. Specific trauma histories are not a concern, as the learning environment is universally designed to promote individuals feeling healthy, engaged, supported, challenged, and safe to learn, work, and grow.

Trauma-invested practice is a more intense commitment to engage in specialized learning on childhood trauma that is beyond the foundational level. Trauma-invested schools consider each person’s experience from a trauma lens. The environment is personalized via a whole-person approach to physical, emotional, and cultural safety with the prioritization of individual relationships to create a feeling of being safe to learn, work, and grow.