Lakeland School adopts Ukeru crisis-intervention training and expands multi-tiered supports

Principal Holly Smith, principal of Lakeland School, told the Walworth County Children with Disabilities Education Board on Jan. 22 that staff who attended an out-of-state certification course learned the Ukeru approach to nonviolent crisis intervention and that the school has formalized an Equitable Multi-Level Systems of Support framework to expand trauma-informed supports.

Ukeru is “a nonviolent crisis intervention” and “a Japanese word for ‘receive,’” Smith said, describing training that emphasized trauma-informed care, proactive supports, hands-off holds and techniques designed to avoid seclusion and restraint. She said Lakeland sent staff to a certification course in Crestwood,…