How can you create a safe learning environment for students with trauma?

Seek professional training and do not make assumptions. Mental Health First Aid from a culturally competent provider is key to empower you and ensure a safe environment is created for your students.

Knowing student personal traits is very important. A teacher should learn about the strength of students that easily get traumatic and come down to his\her level when teaching. Put more focus on the learning style they feel comfortable with and this could be by visual representation, Auditory, tactile or multimodal and when you identify their strength in learning you focus on that to avoid traumatizing because students often have their own ways of learning and understand and if a teacher can spot out that will remedy other situations.

To be able to create a safe environment for students with trauma, we have to first know what type of traumas there are. Only when we know, can we find a way to create a safe environment for them. We of course need to know what type of trauma they have experienced before. To do this, we have to find out about their history and background. If not, it will be hard for us to judge what type of trauma they could be experiencing. If we suspect that they have a trauma, we could ask them certain questions that could help us find out more about them. We could also ask their friends if we suspect that something is amiss with them. Actually, all we need is to get to know them if we need to know all about them and their problems.

I think those that have experienced about traumatic situations should be in the best position to help or handle children suffering from any forms of traumatic situations affecting their academics. Meaning, schools should at the point of entry or admission process asked parents or guidance to note or indicate some of the problem or challenges affecting their pupils. This will enable schools to prepared the right tools and experienced professionals to take charge of such children.

by giving the person a free no judgmental space where the person can talk about the feelings without any hesitation. The person can take as much as time to talk about the feelings. Just listening and empathy is all a person wants

To make traumatic students feel safe, we have to first be friends with them. This is the best way to build trust and rapport with them. Don't pull ranks on them. Make them feel as if they are on par with you. Try to make small talks with them. Ask them what are their hobbies and what are their likes and dislikes. This would make you more approachable to them. Be more caring about them. If you think that there is something wrong or are not feeling well, ask them. If they aren't willing to tell, don't force them. Always leave a door open for them to tell you when they are ready. And, try to help them solve their problems if they have one in school. This would make them closer to you.

If we find that the students experienced a trauma before, we have to definitely seek for professional help such as a child psychologist. Only they would know how to handle students like these. We shouldn't try to cure them by ourselves. This is because if we are not professionals, we might do it the wrong way or give them the wrong ideas. Professionals are needed as they can counsel these students. They would know if these students require medication or not and how severe their conditions are. It's hard for us to judge for ourselves.

In order to create a safe environment for traumatic students, we have to know what suits the type of trauma they have experienced. Do not do or say something that would remind them of the trauma. If the trauma is due to their parents, don't ever bring up the subject of family. Unless they are ones who said it first. If it's an incident that cannot be forgotten like a death or something, try avoiding talking about such topics. Talk about happy, weird or funny things. Try telling them about other things like food, travel or maybe even about a show(depends on their age). This would be a good distraction from their daily life. Try taking them to places like a zoo, amusement centre or wherever they like. This would make them happy.