Curated resources organized by role and format. Books, articles, organizations, and media to support your understanding.
Explains how the developing brain shapes children's behavior, and offers 12 practical strategies parents can use to nurture healthy brain development during everyday moments.
Reframes discipline as a teaching opportunity rather than punishment, drawing on brain science to show how to respond to misbehavior in ways that build connection and self-regulation.
Introduces the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions model, shifting the frame from "won't" to "can't" and providing a concrete approach for parents of children with chronic inflexibility or meltdowns.
Grounded in Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory, this book helps parents understand how the nervous system drives behavior, offering a compassionate framework for children whose regulation looks different.
Based on the Circle of Security program, this book translates attachment research into accessible guidance for parents who want to build safe, trusting relationships with their children.
A readable overview of how early experiences shape brain architecture and lifelong health, written for general audiences. Available free from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child.
Free ResourceExplains why consistent relationships with caring adults are the single most important factor in helping children overcome adversity, with implications for parenting practice.
Free ResourceDescribes three types of stress responses in children and explains why toxic stress, without a buffering adult, can alter brain development in lasting ways.
Free ResourceReviews research on co-regulation across development, arguing that adult support for children's emotional regulation is fundamental before self-regulation can take hold.
Offers accessible videos, guides, and infographics translating developmental science for families. The "InBrief" series covers core concepts in a few minutes each.
Focuses on the earliest years of life. Their parent resources address social-emotional development, sleep, behavior, and developmental milestones in plain, practical language.
Provides free, research-backed articles and guides on anxiety, ADHD, autism, behavior, and school challenges. A practical starting point for parents navigating a new diagnosis or difficulty.
Offers family-facing resources on childhood trauma, including guides for parents on how trauma affects behavior, relationships, and learning.
A short animated overview of how early experiences build or disrupt brain architecture. A good first video for parents new to this framework.
FreeA brief video series showing how back-and-forth interactions between adults and young children build neural connections. Clear, concrete, and immediately applicable.
FreePractical, nervous-system-informed parenting guidance delivered in episode format. Covers topics including tantrums, sibling conflict, anxiety, and how to repair after hard moments.
A widely shared explanation using hand gestures to illustrate what happens in the brain during emotional flooding. Clear enough to share with children.
FreeApplies the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions framework to school settings, showing teachers and administrators how to address challenging behavior without relying on consequences alone.
Addresses teacher well-being as a prerequisite to student regulation, drawing on research showing that a teacher's own calm presence significantly affects classroom climate.
Grounded in attachment and resilience research, this book makes the case that effective classroom management begins with relationships, not rules.
Guides educators through creating classrooms and schools that recognize the impact of adverse childhood experiences on learning and behavior, with practical implementation strategies.
A widely used curriculum framework for teaching children to identify and manage their emotional states. Originally developed for students with IEPs but applicable across general education.
Foundational study showing that the quality of the student-teacher relationship in first grade predicted social and academic outcomes through eighth grade, with effects particularly strong for children with behavioral difficulties.
Meta-analysis of 213 school-based social-emotional learning programs. SEL interventions were associated with an 11-percentile-point gain in academic achievement and significant reductions in behavioral problems.
Examines how Vygotsky's scaffolding concept plays out in practice, finding that the quality and responsiveness of adult support matters more than the quantity.
Policy statement and review explaining the biological mechanisms through which early adversity affects brain development, behavior, and school readiness, with implications for educational practice.
The primary research and advocacy hub for social-emotional learning in schools. Offers implementation frameworks, evidence reviews, and program guides for educators and administrators.
Provides educator-specific resources on trauma-informed approaches, including training materials and classroom guides for recognizing and responding to students who have experienced trauma.
An evidence-based approach to elementary education that integrates social-emotional learning with academic instruction. Offers professional development resources and practical classroom tools.
Resources for educators working with students who learn and think differently, including those with dyslexia, ADHD, and other learning challenges. Practical and accessible.
Explains what the research says about which early childhood programs and practices produce lasting outcomes, with relevance for educators choosing and evaluating interventions.
FreeA series of short videos showing teachers implementing trauma-informed strategies in real classrooms, covering everything from morning check-ins to de-escalation practices.
FreeAddresses the chronic stress that affects classroom presence and effectiveness. Covers nervous system regulation strategies teachers can use for themselves, not only for students.
Globally focused resources on social-emotional learning in early childhood education, grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Challenges punitive and compliance-focused school cultures, drawing on research to argue for approaches that support intrinsic motivation and deeper learning.
Provides school leaders with a framework for embedding well-being and strength-based practices across an entire school culture, beyond individual classroom interventions.
A practical field guide for school leaders implementing trauma-informed systems at the whole-school level, including staff training, data collection, and policy design.
The foundational text for the PBIS framework used in thousands of schools. Explains the three-tier prevention model and the evidence base behind it.
Argues that education policy needs to account for the biological embedding of adversity, and that school-based interventions must reach children when their brains are most malleable.
Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, which situates the child within overlapping systems (family, school, community, society), remains one of the most useful frameworks for school leaders thinking about systemic change.
Describes the ACE research and biological pathways from early adversity to long-term health and educational outcomes. Relevant for leaders building the case for trauma-informed systems.
Reviews research on school safety practices, distinguishing between approaches with strong evidence and those with limited or mixed support. Practical for policy and planning decisions.
Provides research-based resources on school climate, safety planning, and threat assessment. Useful for administrators making decisions about policies that affect student well-being.
The official resource hub for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, with implementation guides, outcome data, and professional development materials for school leadership teams.
Offers a comprehensive framework for whole-school trauma sensitivity, with tools for leadership assessment, staff training, and policy development.
Translates developmental science into policy briefs intended for decision-makers. Covers early childhood investment, ACE frameworks, and approaches to reducing inequality in outcomes.
A research-informed overview of what actually moves the needle on student outcomes at the systems level, rather than at the individual intervention level.
FreeConversations with school leaders, researchers, and policymakers on topics including student well-being, school culture, staff development, and evidence-based leadership.
Multiple short educational videos explain Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, making it accessible for professional development conversations about whole-school and community-level change.
Recorded presentations from researchers and practitioners working on systemic trauma-informed approaches in school settings. Relevant for leaders early in implementation planning.
A foundational text in interpersonal neurobiology, integrating neuroscience and attachment theory to explain how relationships shape brain development and psychological health across the lifespan.
Bridges Bowlby and Ainsworth's attachment theory with clinical practice, providing a framework for understanding how attachment patterns appear in the therapeutic relationship and how to work with them.
The clinical manual for Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), one of the most well-researched treatments for childhood trauma. Practical and structured.
Translates Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory into clinical tools for therapists working with clients whose nervous systems have been shaped by trauma, loss, or chronic dysregulation.
The comprehensive reference for attachment research. Includes contributions from Sroufe, Ainsworth, and other foundational researchers. Essential for clinicians wanting the empirical depth behind clinical frameworks.
The original theoretical framework for attachment science. Bowlby's three volumes remain the starting point for anyone working clinically with relationships, loss, or early development.
The empirical foundation for understanding secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent attachment. Ainsworth's Strange Situation methodology shaped decades of developmental and clinical research.
Sroufe's longitudinal work on emotional development provides clinicians with a developmental framework grounded in decades of observation, tracing how early emotional organization shapes later psychological functioning.
Reviews the randomized controlled trial evidence for TF-CBT across diverse populations and trauma types, addressing common clinical questions about adaptation and implementation.
McEwen's work on allostatic load and epigenetics offers clinicians a biological framework for understanding how chronic stress gets "under the skin," with implications for treatment planning.
The primary professional organization for psychologists, with a database of evidence-based treatments, continuing education, and clinical practice guidelines across populations and presenting concerns.
Maintains a database of evidence-based trauma interventions, offers free online training, and provides clinical resources on complex trauma, developmental trauma, and trauma assessment tools.
The leading professional organization for child development researchers. Provides access to the journals Child Development and Monographs of the SRCD, as well as policy briefs relevant to clinical work.
Offers clinical training and resources on complex trauma and dissociation, including guidelines for treating dissociative disorders in children and adolescents.
Recorded presentations and interviews with leading trauma clinicians and researchers, including Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, and Dan Siegel. Available as continuing education.
Porges explaining his own theory in accessible terms, with particular attention to clinical applications. A useful supplement to the primary texts for clinicians being introduced to the framework.
FreeLong-form conversations with practitioners and researchers on topics spanning trauma, neuroscience, attachment, mindfulness, and culturally responsive care.
Free web-based training in Trauma-Focused CBT, developed by the original TF-CBT researchers. Approximately 10 hours of self-paced content, with a certificate upon completion.
Free CEThe foundational text for ecological systems theory, arguing that human development can only be understood by examining the nested social systems in which it occurs. Remains essential reading in developmental science.
Vygotsky's collected lectures introducing the Zone of Proximal Development and the social origins of higher mental functions. A foundational text for developmental and educational psychology.
Integrates neuroscience and attachment theory to argue that the therapeutic relationship itself is the mechanism of change. Dense but important for researchers working at the intersection of affect regulation and development.
A landmark edited volume in resilience research. Masten's contributions, including her "ordinary magic" framework, have been particularly influential in understanding why some children fare better under adversity.
Situates developmental research within evolutionary biology, examining how universal patterns in child development reflect adaptive pressures across human history.
Synthesizes research on sensitive periods, experience-dependent development, and gene-environment interactions, with implications for intervention timing and design.
FreeMasten's influential review argues that resilience is not exceptional but arises from ordinary human adaptational systems, with major implications for how researchers design interventions.
Reviews the neurobiological effects of stress across development, including the roles of glucocorticoids, epigenetic modification, and allostatic load in shaping brain structure and function.
The landmark report synthesizing decades of developmental research. A primary reference for researchers and policymakers on the science of early child development.
Findings from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, one of the longest-running prospective studies of attachment and development. Foundational for understanding long-term effects of early relationships.
The primary professional organization for developmental scientists. Publishes Child Development and Monographs of the SRCD, and hosts biennial conferences where foundational and emerging research is presented.
A multidisciplinary group of scientists producing consensus reports on key questions in developmental science. Their working papers are available free and represent genuine scientific agreement.
FreeThe primary professional society for neuroscientists. Relevant for researchers working on the neural correlates of development, stress, and social behavior.
Focuses on the intersection of development and biology, including research on gene-environment interaction, epigenetics, and the developmental origins of behavioral differences.
Shonkoff's public lectures translate the National Scientific Council's working papers into accessible talks. Useful for understanding how the science is being communicated to policymakers and practitioners.
FreeMasten discussing the ordinary magic framework and its implications for research design and intervention, drawn from her decades of longitudinal work on resilience in high-risk populations.
Interviews with developmental psychopathologists on topics including attachment disorganization, early adversity, and the mechanisms linking early experience to later outcomes.
McEwen's recorded talks on allostatic load and the neurobiology of stress, spanning basic neuroscience and implications for developmental and clinical research.
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