Traumatic experiences can influence day-to-day behaviour in social interactions. Strengthening relationships is key to supporting students to overcome adversity and flourish at university.

There are certain strategies we can use to respond appropriately to people who may be affected by trauma, which focus on building safe, trustful, supportive, collaborative and empowering relationships. More on this later.

People are like an iceberg you only see what s on the surface and you don t know what s going on underneath and how it may impact on what you observe and experience from them.

We don t need to know the details of what s going on below the waterline, but we do need to understand that we don t have the full picture, we should avoid making assumptions and we should show compassion.

We can only see what we can see