Teaching curriculum topics linked to racism and handling racist world events

The UK Trauma Council defines trauma as ‘a distressing event or events that are so extreme or intense that they overwhelm a person’s ability to cope, resulting in lasting negative impact.’

When this event or events are related to race, it is sometimes known as ‘racial trauma’. 

Experiencing overt racism – for example being a victim of a racially-motivated hate crime - could cause a trauma response in young people. However, racism can have a traumatic impact even when it isn’t something that directly happens to you.

Racist and race-related events may occur in the wider world that may cause traumatic responses in young people; for example, the 2020 murder of George Floyd in the United States.

There may also be topics that are part of the curriculum – for example, learning about slavery or the Holocaust in history lessons – that may be painful for young people to learn about.

In this resource, we have created a lesson planning guide for teaching a curriculum topic that is linked to race and racism, or for when a potentially traumatic racist incident occurs in the wider world.