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This article was published 25/8/2016 (1488 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A unique back-to-school guide offers tips on how to help Muslim students and refugee children hurt by world conflicts and "the Trump effect," so they don’t end up isolated and recruited by violent extremists on the Internet.

Helping Students Deal with Trauma Related to Geopolitical Violence & Islamophobia: A Guide for Educators is being released today in Ottawa by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA) and the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).

The 16-page guide (which is being made available online in English and French) is especially timely, with Syrian refugees settling in at school this fall and the American election on the horizon, says Amira Elghawaby, NCCM communications director.

"We’ve experienced an increased demand for information on how students are being impacted by issues around Islamophobia and how educators can support newly arrived Syrian refugees," she said. "There’s clearly a gap and this is what this guide is trying to do: put some basic resources out there and get them thinking. Sometimes, they aren’t aware, like what is the Trump effect on our students."

Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has stoked Islamophobia rhetoric, says the guide, which includes an Associated Press report on the impact it has had on American Muslim children.

"It has an impact on youth, and children don’t have the capacity to process that and shake it off," said Winnipeg-based ISSA president Shahina Siddiqui.

"We know the American election will have impacts here in Canada," Elghawaby said in Ottawa. "We want to make sure educators are attuned to how it impacts the students they’re caring for."

Syrian refugees who recently arrived in Canada will likely be confronted with Islamophobia in some form. "Many refugees are settled in, and now the real work begins," Elghawaby said.

When Muslim students face Islamophobia, they often find themselves under attack and on the defensive, the guide says. They may feel they have to stay silent or apologize for terrorists acting in the name of their faith to prove their loyalty to Canada, it says.

The booklet aims to help teachers and guidance counsellors understand the impact of hate, war, trauma and terrorism so they can support students dealing with fear, grief, and confusion, Siddiqui said.

"It is critical schools provide safe spaces for youth" and help them build confidence in their identity as Canadian Muslims, Siddiqui says in the guide’s preface. If they’re not supported and take hateful messages to heart, they’re more likely to act out in unhealthy ways, turning to drugs, alcohol or the Internet, where they’re targets for violent extremist recruiters, she said.

In an interview Wednesday, Siddiqui wondered if Aaron Driver (an Islamic State supporter who was killed Aug. 10 by police in Ontario while reportedly en route to committing a terrorist act) had received the emotional help he needed in school to deal with the grief over his mother’s death.

The guidebook aims to help children long before they’re isolated and turn to violent extremism, she said.

"It’s meant to reach children at the preventative and healing stage (and) to help teachers understand what they’re dealing with," said Siddiqui.

"Many of them don’t have the knowledge base or understanding," she said, adding two examples: at a Manitoba school, a girl’s hijab (head scarf) was pulled off by a teaching assistant; at another school, a student who complained about course material having an anti-Muslim bias was told she couldn’t graduate unless she completed the assignment.

"Do we want a society that’s cohesive and harmonious or one that’s about the ‘othering’ of a whole group of people?" Siddiqui said. "Unless it is stopped, it will escalate. Hate escalates and violence escalates when it is not responded to."

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca