Unaccompanied Refugee Youth: Shifting from PTSD to PTG through Trauma Informed Education Practices

• In Event: Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Unaccompanied Refugee Youth: Shifting from PTSD to PTG through Trauma Informed Education Practices

Proposal

Refugees often endure violence, sexual assault, separation from family, displacement, and loss of identity, with many facing a combination of these traumas. When working with refugee youth, these traumatic experiences can profoundly impact their educational outcomes by hindering language development, disrupting self-identity, and impairing focus, memory, and information processing (Cole et al., 2005). While professional mental health workers are best suited to treat trauma, access is often limited due to cultural taboos (De Jong, 2006) and fears, particularly among unaccompanied minors in shelters, where psychologists and legal representatives overlap. It is therefore crucial to identify solutions that address the barriers created by trauma and improve educational approaches.

In this poster, I examine PTSD of children in schooling and present ways to improve trauma-informed teaching strategies. I also propose integrating lesson planning that nurtures Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG).

My poster is based on two research questions:
1. How does trauma impact the learning process and what evidence-based strategies can educators implement to mitigate these effects?
2. What factors contribute to the transition from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) and how can these be fostered in educational settings?

To answer these questions, I draw on nine years of experience with refugee youth and insights from interviews with educators and students in Greece to explore how trauma appears in classrooms and how teachers respond. My poster emphasizes reevaluating trauma’s impact on learning and using it as a catalyst for growth. Factors promoting PTG include emotional sharing, cognitive processing, and positive coping, with social support playing a key role (Henson, Truchot, & Canevello, 2020). Educators can foster PTG by incorporating these elements into lesson plans. Instead of avoiding trauma triggers like family or travel, educators should design flexible lessons that consider trauma while supporting both emotional processing and academic goals. Training on trauma’s effects on the brain—such as hyperarousal and amygdala hijack—and strategies like grounding techniques and hippocampus engagement (Feminenza, 2021) can help teachers guide students through "stop" moments and refocus on learning.

The significance of my poster lies in its exposure of PTSD in refugee youth and the urgent need to improve curriculum design to address it. PTSD and trauma are complex, and often under-discussed, or misunderstood, especially in international contexts.

References
Cole, S. F., O'Brien, J. G., Gadd, M. G., Ristuccia, J., Wallace, D. L., & Gregory, M. (2005). Helping traumatized children learn: Supportive school environments for children traumatized by family violence. Massachusetts Advocates for Children. https://aztrauma.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Helping-Traumatized-Children-Learn-to-be-used-as-material-support-for-CFTP.pdf
De Jong, J. (Ed.). (2006). Trauma, war, and violence: Public mental health in socio-cultural context. Springer Science & Business Media.
Feminenza. (2021, May 27). Managing mental trauma: STS project diary 4 – The anatomy of trauma in the brain. Feminenza. https://www.feminenza.org/post/managing-mental-trauma-sts-project-diary-4-the-anatomy-of-trauma-in-the-brain
Henson, C., Truchot, D., & Canevello, A. (2020). What promotes post-traumatic growth? A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 269, 317-328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.03.064

Author

• Stephanie A Martinez