Hello,
I am wondering if anyone knows about or has any research to share regarding ACEs and that, yes, it is important to teach educators and students about them. I am looking for data that supports this. I know, of course, that it is important and I can find lots of articles that tell me so, but I'm not sure about data that says... yes, educators and students should be taught these things. This will help me in grant writing and program planning.
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Nicole,
i am away from my resources for a week, but if you will google the state of Georgia, they not only do a wonderful job with supporting school nursing, but also have a robust program for prevention if trafficking and sexual exploitation for our students. Iām a strong advocate for having an awareness and sensitivity for children of trauma and the need to have that topic covered in order to prevent it from happening- and it is everywhere.
Rhonda Hertwig, RN, CPNP
HI Nicole - The data from Washington State on Self-Healing Communities may be a good place to go. They should big impacts across sectors and a core component of their intervention is education/ raising awareness about ACEs. Good luck!
Gail Kennedy
Hi Nicole, You likely have heard about the movie Paper Tigers which highlights an alternative high school in Walla Walla Washington, however, some folks are not as familiar with the attached published report that discusses the interventions and data. Copied below is a bit of information - be sure to read the full (attached) report to see even more compelling data and analysis. Karen
Higher Resilience and School Performance Among Students with Disproportionately High Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) at Lincoln High, in Walla Walla, Washington, 2009 to 2013
Research Report, February 2015
The study systematically analyzed four questions:
Question 1: Did studentsā resilience increase while at Lincoln High, especially among those with high ACEs?
Question 2: Was improved resilience associated with student experiences resulting from trauma sensitive school practices?
Question 3: Did students with higher resilience do better in school: better attendance, improvements in performance on standardized tests and higher grades?
Question 4: Did resilience moderate the expected negative effect of ACEs on school performance? ACEs impacted school performance differently, depending on level of resilience achieved.
**********Please see the attached report for more details **************
Conclusions This study provides empirical support for the thesis that systemic changes in school practices, ones developed with the support of the community to be sensitive to students with high levels of ACEs, have significant beneficial effects for a majority of students by increasing student resilience and improving school performance, even among students with disproportionately high ACEs.
The results are supported by both quantitative factor analyses of student responses and multivariate analyses showing statistically significant relationships among resilience, school performance, and ACEs, and also by qualitative analyses of patterns and processes of student experiences, expressed in their own words. Both analyses provide similar results allowing us to suggest that changes in school practices may be replicable in other schools, located in communities with similar levels of community capacity, and may generate similar outcomes.
