How Do We Manage Students Who Have Been Temporarily Relocated to Our School?

8. How do we manage students who have been temporarily relocated to our school?

I think that what I would be doing in those situations is, outwardly treating those children as completely normal kids that have just come to the school and trying to get them into your class routine just like everybody else. But inwardly we need to, well if their school is closed and we all generally live close to our school, they might be in a house with a lot of flood damage and they might be at higher risk to emotional trauma than other children.

So outwardly treating them just as another child in your class but inwardly just being mindful of the fact that they might be more outwardly anxious, so obviously anxious or obviously vigilant, they might startle bit more easily or by the way the opposite more obviously more withdrawn and of course that’s a trauma symptom as well, or more behaviourallydis-regulated more behaviourally activated and that’s a trauma symptom as well.

Now, I would give them that grace of a couple of days because everyone’s allowed to be a little bit unusual on the first day of school in a new school, but if this pattern persists then they actually might have some flood related trauma and that’s a wonderful thing to talk to you guidance officer about or talk to the school nurse or the CYMHS Ed-LinQ person about because they might have a trauma symptom and we can actually offer their parent an assessment.

Now if there is children who you know are perfectly fine and are not attending school then that’s another issue and I think we need to be thoughtful about advising parents that, although you’re anxious about your child and you want your child to be safe and near you, the fact is your child’s anxiety will be much better served by going into school and getting into the routine of normal life, because we want kids not to be faced with damaged houses and large amounts of mud and damaged property. We want children to be exposed to the routine of getting back into life and that means going to school.

So if any parent waivers about should this child be at home or at school, I would be strongly arguing and advising them that going to school is good for their mental health.