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Building a Safe Place with Trauma Informed Tutoring

By Giulianna Larson


FORA’s mission to provide refugee youth with individualized tutoring services to prepare them to navigate American civic life self sufficiently wouldn’t be possible without the incorporation of trauma informed practices. 


Trauma informed practices address the impact of trauma by fostering a safe classroom culture, building relationships to build students’ self sufficiency, according to the National Education Association. These practices recognize students’ adverse experiences and discuss ways educators and advocates can build an inclusive classroom. 


Nearly three years ago the United Nations published an article urging educators to support traumatized students, citing schools play a key role in restoring a sense of stability. 


FORA’s former Head of Office, Arkhawan Saleh, integrated trauma-informed practices into daily practice at FORA, aiming to educate staff about methods to accommodate students. 


“Trauma informed care training is an active way to understand appropriate methods of providing services to people who experienced trauma without causing them re-traumatiation,” she said. Re-traumatization refers to when someone re-lives stress associated with a traumatic event when in a similar incident to the original traumatic event. 


One study from the University of California at Berkeley suggests close to 40 percent of U.S students have been exposed to at least one type of traumatic stressors, which often include -[[=assault, abuse, death of a loved one, natural disasters or war. 


However, refugee youth experience trauma from incidents of human rights abuse, lack of necessities, traumatic loss and separation from others such as family members. A study on traumatic stressors from refugee adults from the National Institute of Health concluded the most common types of traumatic stressors were near-death conditions (80%), forced separation from a family member (74%) and murder of a family or friend (72%). 


“It is essential for FORA professionals to understand practices of trauma-informed caste because in addition to any other traumas a person faces in their lives, refugees experience extra layers of trauma prior and after arriving at their new home,” Saleh said. 


And it isn’t all smooth sailing as soon as a refugee family arrives in the U.S. Families continue facing trauma from the resettlement process. 


“Being knowledgeable about refugee stressors such as social isolation, language obstacles, access to the U.S systems, financial instability and employment is a crucial part of rapport building between FORA tutors for students to achieve academic goals both parties work for,” Saleh said.  


Starting with staff, Saleh said she took a course about trauma-informed care in classrooms and pulled information she gained from previous experience to design a FORA trauma training. 


“I chose to incorporate trauma into FORA's approach because FORA was originally built in a way that automatically helped students overcome their trauma by building a kind and warm community for students that help them build relationships with their peers, find role models to look up to, and overcome fears they have faced as refugee children,” she said. 


Saleh’s professional background centers around helping organizations follow trauma-informed approaches in providing services to vulnerable populations. 


“When I learned about the amazing foundations and values practiced in the daily operations of FORA, I was excited and was honored to utilize my knowledge and experience in incorporating this approach of working to FORA's practices,” Saleh said. 


According to Saleh, one of the key aspects of trauma-informed care is empowering students to heal. 


“The key aspects of training about trauma-informed approach is to learn how trauma affects people, and how each FORA tutor and employees have power to help students to heal from trauma,” she said. 


Today, FORA’s Chief Outreach Officer incorporates the same training into FORA’s volunteer tutor orientation and training. The training contextualizes trauma and provides ways to re-frame a student’s mind from a stressor towards resilient learning.


Promoting resilience requires instructors to shift their focus from focusing on what is wrong to what actively advocating for the student’s needs, according to the study by UC Berkeley. A trauma-informed approach embraces classroom accommodation and social-emotional learning. 


In 2023 FORA established a social-emotional learning program to teach students about their mind and how they process emotions. Paired with FORA’s trauma-informed training for tutors, both the tutor and student advocate for the student’s healing. 


“Understanding trauma means knowing when trauma occurs, how it affects an individual's sense of self, their sense of others and their beliefs about the world,” Saleh said. “Redirecting the students' sense towards normality through consistent social connection, trust, and kindness helps in calming down the nervous system of a traumatized person and prevents re-traumatization. Repetition of this redirection over time leads to replacing awful and fearful memories in their nervous system that they might not know about to new positive memories and experiences that changes their senses and thoughts about life and their capabilities.” 

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