It Takes a Village: Addressing the Challenges that Face At-Risk Youths in the Classroom

This month, The GGFF took a long, hard look at some of the factors that affect at-risk youths in classrooms worldwide. On August 9, 2025, a panel of expert educators from The USA, The UK, and The Caribbean came together to discuss and brainstorm some of the common troubles that plague and hinder at-risk students on their academic journey.

During that Webinar, the experts highlighted that systemic issues such as colonized-curriculums, food insecurity, gangs and the prevalence of violence all negatively impact the academic performance of at-risks youths worldwide. Other issues such as cultural biases, school policies, inadequately-trained staff and lack of quality resources were also identified as culprits that adversely affected at-risk youths in the classroom.

The experts shared that often times at-risks youths are mislabeled as indiscipline and treated harshly by educators and the entire educational system when in fact these youths are merely exhibiting trauma-responses. Trauma responses can easily be mis-labelled as “misbehavior”.  A child who refuses to participate or who misses class may be dealing with deeper issues such as violence in the home or food insecurity. They may be silently crying out for help. The experts suggest that while teachers are not psychologists, they should have sixth sense to pick up on and identify these trauma responses. Teachers should be taught basic trauma-informed courses and be able to identify youths who are responding to factor such as food poverty, violence in the home, or cultural differences in the curriculum.

Finally, the panelists shared that in order to move away from awareness to action, teachers, schools and communities must have systems in place to deal with and help these youths overcome their challenges.

Removing the barriers and challenges that at-risk youths face in the classrooms may start with efforts by teachers to correctly identify trauma responses in the classroom. But it doesn’t stop there. The solutions must include institutional changes such as decolonizing curriculums, developing culturally-sensitive teaching material and creating culturally sensitive learning environments. Even the way that society views and labels youths “at risk” as opposed to “at-promise” may need to be examined. Instead of assuming that something is wrong with these youths, stakeholders need to adopt new lenses that allow them to examine what may be happening to these youths.

The GGFF Webinar panelists concluded that addressing the challenges that face at-risk youths in the classroom takes collaborative effort. It requires the input of politicians and legislatures who make laws that affect food security, church leaders who teach youths about who they are at the core, and teachers who are usually the first points of contact for these youths in the classroom. In short, it takes a village.

See Part One of the Webinar here:  https://youtu.be/K2dtM1swjZs?si=ofIhm3KpVSWoNjTO

See Part Two of the Webinar here:  https://youtu.be/RmgZT13hhwE?si=8ZtFhIgjJJHEZLza