Trauma-informed Practices for Adult Educators and Service Providers

Similar to many English language providers across Utah, the English Skills Learning Center has worked with individuals from 86 different countries around the world, and all have experienced some type of adversity before, during, and after their journey to the United States.

This is not to say that all refugees and immigrants have experienced trauma. This is certainly not the case, and trauma also isn’t limited to those with refugee and immigrant backgrounds. The ESLC has board members, staff, volunteers, family, and friends who have experienced trauma as well. It is also likely that you have a personal understanding of the effects of trauma on an individual.

Trauma is much more about the individual than the experience. Because trauma is such an individualized experience, we are not entitled to make assumptions. We never truly know if someone has experienced trauma until they decide to share that information with us. It’s because of this that the ESLC chooses to operate as if everyone has experienced trauma.

Operating from this standpoint allows us to create a safe space for everyone. While we do feel that trauma-informed practices should be integrated into all organizational operations, we wanted to specifically share a workshop designed for adult educators since feeling safe and being comfortable enough to make mistakes are key components of the learning process.

When designing this workshop, we realized that we are only able to scratch the surface of these topics with the time we have. That said, we hope that this workshop can act as a starting point for learning the basics of trauma-informed principles as applied to adult education, and we hope you choose to continue seeking opportunities to learn more about these practices in the future.