Safety & Regulation | The Belonging Project

Safety, Regulation and Connection in Classrooms

This course provides educators with a foundational understanding of the neurobiology of regulation and its relationship to classroom learning. It explores how educators can design environments, routines, and responses that foster emotional safety and co-regulation. Participants will learn how to recognize dysregulation, reduce triggers, and support students’ access to learning through consistent, compassionate, and predictable practices.

Start Here

Welcome to the course! This learning experience is designed to help you explore inclusive education through a blend of practical strategies and powerful storytelling. Before diving into the course content, your first step is to choose the story that will guide your learning.

About This Course

This course supports you in building inclusive, flexible learning environments that recognize and amplify the strengths of every learner. While you’ll deepen your understanding through interactive learning interludes, everything begins with story.

Each course is anchored in a set of narrative case studies—realistic, practice-based stories that illuminate inclusive strategies in action. These stories will help you reflect, connect, and see how the course concepts apply in real school contexts.

Choose Your Story

Each story features:

A Prologue to set the scene
Four Chapters that trace growth, tension, and change
An Epilogue to reflect on learning and impact

Choose one story to follow throughout the course. Pick the one that most closely matches your role, context, or interests. This story will provide a consistent lens as you move through the learning interludes and activities.

Not sure which to choose? No problem. You can always return to this page to explore other stories. Many learners choose to follow more than one story to see how inclusive practices come to life in different settings.

What Happens Next?

Once you’ve chosen your story:

If you're learning independently, head to the Course Content section and begin with Learning Interlude 1.
If you're learning with a facilitator, they’ll guide you through the journey using the facilitation materials provided.

You're ready to begin. Scroll down to explore the stories and pick the one that will guide your path through the course.

Kamara’s Story: Co-Regulation in Action

Meet Kamara, a Grade 4 student at Harvest Hill Elementary School, whose learning journey has been shaped by a history of developmental trauma. She is quick to react, often overwhelmed by classroom noise, sudden changes, or perceived threats. Seemingly small events (a group partner disagreement, a substitute teacher, a missed routine) can result in explosive outbursts or complete shutdowns. These moments disrupt the learning environment, but they also leave Kamara feeling ashamed, misunderstood, and emotionally isolated.

Her teacher, Ms. Evans, and educational assistant, Jordan, care deeply and work hard to support her. But despite implementing traditional behavior plans, token systems, and consequence ladders, they remain stuck in a cycle of crisis and recovery. Each new strategy feels like a temporary fix, and the emotional toll is mounting for everyone involved. Kamara is frequently pulled from class, and her presence in the classroom begins to feel fragile. Still, Ms. Evans and Jordan sense that beneath the volatility is a child who deeply wants to belong.

The turning point begins not with a new intervention, but with a shift in perspective. Through professional development and honest reflection, the team starts to explore co-regulation, not as a behavior management tactic, but as a foundation for connection and safety. As they begin adapting the environment instead of expecting Kamara to fit the mold, something shifts. Transitions are softened. Tools for self-regulation are made available to all students. Vulnerability replaces control, and Kamara is gradually invited into a new kind of relationship with her team, with her classroom, and with herself.

This story traces Kamara’s journey (and her team’s) as they move from reactive strategies to intentional, relational, inclusive design. It's about more than managing behavior. It’s about creating a space where students who carry invisible wounds can feel safe enough to stay, connect, and learn.

Prologue - The Breaking Point ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 1 - Reading the Storm ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 2 - Designing for Safety ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 3 - Safe Together ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 4 - Learning, Finally ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Epilogue - A Classroom That Breathes ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Horizon Outreach School: Supporting Students at the Margins

At the edge of Summit Grove Secondary’s vibrant campus lies Horizon Outreach School, a small, specialized program designed for high school students facing significant barriers to traditional learning. Many Horizon students are navigating challenges such as anxiety, substance use recovery, trauma, caregiving responsibilities, or interrupted schooling. For these students, school has historically been a place of disconnection, where attendance and compliance are valued more than belonging and voice.

But Horizon is not isolated. It shares both a physical campus and a shared vision with Summit Grove. Students from Horizon are supported to access select courses, particularly in English Language Arts, at Summit Grove, bringing with them their strengths, stories, and needs. In turn, ELA teachers at Summit Grove partner closely with Horizon staff to co-develop plans that honour each student’s journey while still upholding high expectations for engagement and learning.

This story follows a growing collaboration between outreach educators and high school ELA teachers who began asking new questions: What would it take for students to see themselves in the texts they read and the words they write? How can we honour voice when voice has long been silenced by systems? And how do we design for regulation and trust in a subject rooted in communication?

Together, these educators build a bridge, not just between schools, but between compassion and rigour, autonomy and accountability, support and empowerment. It’s a story about shifting culture, redesigning access, and making room for students to re-enter learning with dignity.

Prologue - Out of Reach ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 1 - Unseen and Unready ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 2 - Space to Breathe ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 3 - Relationships Before Rigor ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 4 - Whole-Hearted Learning ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Epilogue - We See Them Now ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Mr. Sinclair’s Story: Rhythm and Relationship (Rural Grade 2)

In a rural school named Prairie View School, Mr. Sinclair teaches in a Grade 2 classroom filled with curious, energetic learners. But despite his years in the classroom, this year feels different. His students arrive carrying more than backpacks. They bring anxiety, dysregulation, and emotional needs that erupt in ways he hasn’t fully seen before. Each day begins with chaos: meltdowns during transitions, resistance to routine tasks, and emotional volatility that spreads like wildfire. He feels like he’s constantly reacting, firefighting behaviors instead of teaching content.

At first, he leans on familiar strategies (tight routines, firm consequences, and holding expectations high) but something in his gut tells him it isn’t enough. His students aren’t thriving. Neither is he.

Prompted by a hallway incident that leaves him feeling helpless, Mr. Sinclair begins to question what his students really need... and whether he can give it to them. With support from colleagues and new insights into co-regulation, he embarks on a journey of quiet transformation. He doesn’t abandon structure, but softens it. He doesn’t stop teaching, but he rethinks how learning begins, with rhythm, relationship, and safety.

Through small changes - a soft start here, a morning meeting there - his classroom begins to breathe. Students learn to name their feelings. They co-create emotional check-ins. And they begin to experience school not as a place of pressure, but as a space of possibility. In rebuilding his classroom from the inside out, Mr. Sinclair discovers something he hadn’t expected: regulation isn’t just for the students. It’s for him, too.

Prologue - Worn Thin ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 1 - Why Can’t They Just... ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 2 - Slowing the Start ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 3 - Feeling It Together ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 4 - Learning with a Beat ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Epilogue - A Different Kind of Busy ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Celeste’s Story: Designing with the Body in Mind (Occupational Therapist)

Celeste is an experienced occupational therapist who supports several schools across the Unity Pathways Division. Every week, she walks into classrooms filled with potential—and exhaustion. Teachers are doing their best with busy schedules and complex student needs, but too often she sees the same pattern: sensory tools used as emergency fixes, movement breaks granted only after students “act out,” and regulation framed as a strategy for individual behavior, rather than a design element for learning.

She starts to wonder: what if we stopped viewing the body as a problem to fix, and started designing with the body in mind from the start?

Celeste begins gently shifting the narrative. Rather than adding movement as a separate intervention, she works alongside teachers to weave sensory and regulation strategies into daily routines, transitions, and learning tasks. They explore how to make movement predictable, visual, and embedded—not as a reward, but as a right.

As classrooms begin to hum with more rhythm and responsiveness, Celeste sees a subtle but powerful shift. Students who were once constantly “sent out” are now moving with purpose and participating with greater focus. Teachers begin using visual tools, music, and sensory-informed seating not just for a few students—but for everyone. Regulation isn’t something that happens outside the classroom anymore. It’s part of the learning itself.

In guiding this shift, Celeste isn’t just supporting individual students. She’s changing mindsets. Her work helps educators see that when we include the body in how we design, we’re not adding complexity—we’re creating access.

Prologue - Fixing or Flowing? ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 1 - Out of Sync ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 2 - In the Flow ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 3 - Connection in Motion ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 4 - It Belongs Here ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Epilogue - Part of the Design ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Simran’s Story: Leading Culture Change (Middle School Administrator)

Meet Simran, the newly appointed principal of Wayfinder Middle School, a place once known more for its office referrals than its relationships. With rising suspensions, teacher burnout, and fractured trust between students and staff, Simran steps into a system in survival mode. But instead of doubling down on control, she listens—and leads with empathy.

Rooted in a belief that behavior is communication, Simran embarks on a schoolwide journey to reimagine discipline, not as punishment, but as an opportunity for understanding and restoration. She shifts the lens from student compliance to collective regulation—centering co-regulation, relational safety, and adult emotional literacy. Along the way, she learns that to transform a culture, you must first transform how people feel in it.

Her story reveals how a middle school can move from reactive crisis management to proactive design: redesigning transitions, building calm entry routines, investing in staff regulation, and embedding restorative practices. It’s a story of leadership that holds complexity with compassion—and walks alongside others toward a culture of belonging.

Prologue - This Isn’t Working ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 1 - Punishment or Pattern? ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 2 - Designing the Day Differently ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 3 - Regulation is Contagious ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Chapter 4 - Restoring the We ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )
Epilogue - Culture Shift ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )