Community-building work and anti-violence work are both essential to creating a safer learning environment. To reduce interruptions in learning and increases in violence when students move schools, schools need to explore creating programs with older students acting as mentors for younger students and a range of supports to help new students adjust to all aspects of the new school community. When students are engaged in a process that addresses problems in the school - attendance, misbehaviour and complaints - their sense of justice and fairness can become an asset to their own learning and that of other students. "Space" is important. It is a tool to reduce tensions and violence. Possibilities for creating both psychological and physical spaces need to be explored.

Create a learning environment

A focus on teaching or accountability does not create an effective learning environment. This research reveals that the focus on attendance and narrow concepts of what count as teaching do not serve students who have experienced violence well, but limit possibilities for creating a viable learning environment. Students who have experienced violence need a range of supports. Easily accessible, trustworthy counselling, such as that offered by the Delisle Youth Services pilot project, is needed in every school and youth program. Supports are needed not only for students, but also for teachers, to enable them to understand and respond well to the range of challenging behaviours they may experience from students who have been through violence.

Helping students to hold onto hope, treating them with respect, and supporting them to value themselves are crucial elements in a successful learning environment. To create this environment, teachers and youth workers need supports themselves. They, too, must be able to hold onto hope, be treated with respect, and provided with the supports necessary to do their work and to show it is truly valued in society. It is crucial that students who have been through violence are not simply labelled as having learning disabilities or medicated because of diagnoses of "disorders" without recognition of the role played by violence in creating learning difficulties. Students with learning disabilities need a range of supports to help them learn, otherwise labels of disability become simply another way that students are dismissed and given the message they cannot learn.

Students need careful, supportive attention around absence and lateness. Rather than "consequences," they need help so they can reduce the consequences of missing or coming late. Responses must show that professionals notice and care that the student has a problem. Successful responses will help the student re-engage with learning wherever possible, rather than increasing their disengagement. It is enormously important that students are offered a range of supports before they lose connection with school and the possibility of successful learning. Students might be much more likely to be able to stay in school and focus on learning if they knew that their teachers were familiar with the effects of violence on learning and understood the difficulties they were having, if they had access to retreat spaces in the school where they could go when they needed to be alone or to feel safe, if they could get support to fill in the gaps in their knowledge caused when they were unable to pay attention, and if they were offered help to see that their reactions were ordinary responses to violence. If they were unable to stay in the class, an approach that focuses on how to help them catch up when they return - whether two days or two years later - would be crucial to avoid having them feel ashamed at their failure and to support their future learning.