Category: Leadership & Inspiration Article: 5 Priorities for Healing-Centered Leadership
Author: Sarah Martin
Source: National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), February 18, 2026

🎯 Executive Summary 

For more than a decade, trauma-informed practices have helped schools better understand how adversity affects student behavior, learning, and mental health. In her February 18, 2026 NASSP article, Sarah Martin argues that while trauma-informed leadership remains essential, it is no longer sufficient. Schools must evolve from reacting to harm toward proactively cultivating environments where healing, belonging, and collective well-being are intentionally designed into daily practice.

Martin describes this evolution as healing-centered leadership—a mindset shift rather than a new initiative. Instead of focusing primarily on what has gone wrong in students’ lives, healing-centered leadership emphasizes strengths, identity, agency, and connection. It reframes leadership as culture-building work rooted in humanity.

Below are the five priorities Martin outlines for principals seeking to move upstream.

1️⃣ Shift the Question from “What’s Wrong?” to “What’s Strong?”

Grounded in the work of Harvard scholar Shawn Ginwright, healing-centered leadership begins with language. The way leaders describe students and staff—particularly in meetings, emails, and policies—shapes school culture.

Rather than labeling a student “disruptive,” leaders might frame behavior as emerging regulation skills or a search for connection. Instead of stating that “teachers are struggling,” principals can acknowledge that teachers are actively adapting strategies and learning together.

This subtle shift moves schools away from deficit narratives and toward strength-based identity formation. Language signals values; values drive practice.

2️⃣ Start with Adult Healing and Psychological Safety

Martin emphasizes a powerful truth: schools run on relationships, and relationships depend on adult well-being. Psychological safety among staff is foundational.

Healing-centered principals create regular, non-evaluative spaces for staff voice—listening circles, affinity groups, or structured check-ins. These are not performance reviews. They are relational investments.

Importantly, leaders must participate as learners rather than supervisors. When principals model vulnerability, curiosity, and reflection, they normalize help-seeking and shared responsibility for wellness.

Adult healing is not peripheral to school improvement—it is the connective tissue that holds improvement efforts together.

3️⃣ Move from Self-Care to System Care

Quick wellness gestures—snacks in the faculty lounge, motivational posters, or one-time PD—do little to address systemic stressors. Healing-centered leadership asks a more courageous question: What systems are draining adult energy unnecessarily?

Martin encourages principals to audit schedules, meeting loads, initiative alignment, and communication practices. Is there initiative fatigue? Are priorities layered without coherence? Are meetings essential—or habitual?

Removing even one structural barrier and naming the change publicly signals that wellness is a leadership responsibility, not an individual burden.

System care builds sustainability.

4️⃣ Embed Predictable, Schoolwide Practices that Support Regulation

Healing-centered schools integrate regulation and belonging into daily routines. These are not sporadic interventions; they are predictable structures.

Examples include morning meetings, schoolwide grounding moments, weekly check-ins, or advisory circles designed in partnership with mental health professionals. When leaders protect time for these practices, they communicate that emotional well-being is foundational—not supplemental—to learning.

Students learn best when they feel safe, valued, and connected. Regulation is not separate from instruction; it is the prerequisite for it.

5️⃣ Lead with Intention, Not Urgency

Perhaps Martin’s most resonant insight is the call to slow down. School leaders operate in constant urgency—emails, crises, deadlines. Healing-centered leadership invites intentionality.

This means listening deeply before reacting, designing policies with humanity at the center, and resisting reactive decision-making driven by fear or pressure.

Healing-centered leadership does not replace instructional leadership—it strengthens it. Teachers teach best when supported and trusted. Students learn best when empowered and affirmed.

🏫 Implications for School Leaders

Moving beyond trauma-informed practice requires courage and patience. Healing-centered leadership is not a checklist; it is a cultural orientation. It will involve discomfort, reflection, and course correction.

Yet the return on investment is profound: stronger relationships, healthier climates, and more sustainable leadership.

Healing is not something done to students or staff. It is cultivated with them—every day.

As you reflect on your own leadership practice, consider: Are we reacting to harm, or intentionally building the conditions where healing and growth can flourish?

Original Article

Link: https://www.nassp.org/2026/02/5-priorities-for-healing-centered-lea...

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Prepared with the assistance of AI software

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (5.2) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com