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Hello,

I am currently in an intern at Trauma Informed Oregon, and have been working on a project this year to promote the incorporation of trauma informed care into the School of Social Work at Portland State University. I saw the post this morning relating to trauma informed care in k-12 schools, and have been wondering if anyone is collecting ACE data on college/university level students who are going into the social service professions? 

Thanks,

Jennifer Smith

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Jennifer,

     The World Health Organization (WHO) used their ACE screening tool [modeled after the U.S. CDC 10 question version] on Turkish College and University students in a study they did sometime in 2014-2015. The WHO ACE International Questionaire is available on the WHO website. I don't know if WHO identified the professional aspirations of the Turkish College [presumably undergraduate] students, or fields of study/major declared.

This is strictly anecdotal, but I was at a conference where Dr. Anda was presenting. The audience was all types of mental health professionals, medical doctors, nurses, and drug and alcohol rehab counselors. We were polled by confidential questionnaires.  The average number of ACES was >4 for 40%+ of the attendees.

For what it's worth.

What a great topic to do some data collection on!  I am no help, but I would love to hear about what you find.  As an LCSW with an ACE score >4 I'm not surprised by Larry's experience at Dr. Anda's presentation.  I think it would be fascinating to look at risk and resiliency and what post traumatic growth has to do with career choice.  

Hey Carolyn,

As someone who has an elevated score, I blanch whenever the term "resilience" is trotted out. I understand the need quantify for research purposes, but it comes close to sounding like victim-blaming when it's said that a person lacks sufficient resilience to recover.

Just a thought here, but has any research ever been done to determine any positive characteristic or trait that might be common among those who are most affected by their childhood traumas? I mean, has anyone ever looked to see if perhaps those who experience the most severe adverse reactions might share the common characteristic of being highly empathic or introverted by nature? Maybe it's a characteristic that people deemed "resilient" LACK that explains their ability to recover so quickly.

Thanks.

 

Maybe Larry, there needs to be a different term/language for some other than resilience...  This seems to be an ongoing topic for those who have had a somewhat hefty amount of trauma.

There can be a huge gap between what the mainstream perceives as trauma, resilience, etc that makes those substantially affected, cringe.  Such as the overuse of the terms depressed, narcissistic, paranoid as they're bandied about in every day use now.  Yet to know someone who is truly any of those is to not so casually use them.  Eg when I'm talking about a narcissist, I'm talking full spectrum, who not only goes on about themselves, but desires to harm others, scenario...

And have you repeatedly read that those from severe trauma have NO empathy?!! When in fact the opposite can be true - too much!  Which mainstream don't get either.  I would guess that many would be introverted, but not necessarily...  I believe genetics plays a part in this and having your personality curbed, shall we say, means that some of your latent characteristics may not have seen fruition or have developed in different ways.  Who knows, cos you are what you are, now!

Apologies, Jennifer, this is slightly off topic. Pertinent maybe, but not relevant to what you seek.

 

 

Last edited by Mem Lang

Similar.  And your 'resilience' score?!  Of course, DON'T reply to this, but just highlighting if both scores are not... uplifting, then there's a reason for not liking the words trauma and resilience!  Or at least the way mainstream thinks of them. I do prefer child protective factors rather than resilience, as it is referring to childhood.  Now we just need a new word for POST child protective factors that can be used for adults who have suffered from low child protective factors and want to be more... resilient!!

 

Aha, I've just realised something rather telling.  I wrote don't reveal what you're resilience/child protective factors were, as if it were one's fault they could be low. It seems too... shaming/exposing.  Yet the 'resilience' wasn't in our control whatsoever really, as children.  Yet in so many ways I'm still 'owning' that. How powerful and pervasive is that. Wow!  Something to ruminate over!!!  I discuss the topic shame rather endlessly, yet haven't til now, really connected the intellectual understanding with the emotional.  I've merely circled around the topic trying to evade the feeling.

Does anyone else feel this way?!

Hi Jennifer:

Thanks for reaching out. I am a doctoral student in the Health Professions Education program at Simmons College and Instructor of Public Health at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences here in Boston, and I have been doing this work with health professions students for the past three years. Please feel free to contact me via back-channel here on the ACEs Connection site by sending me an individual message, or email me at ms.emwilson@gmail.com and I will be happy to talk more with you.

Best wishes,

Emily 

I haven't recently looked at the World Health Organization's (WHO's) ACE International Questionaire, but I believe they have more than the ten ACEs the U.S. CDC/Kaiser ACE study included. I don't yet know how and what they measure in their Resilience scoring, but I hope to explore it further-when I can avail WHO's website. I suspect my ACE score on WHO's ACE International Questionaire might be higher than the 6, which I got on the U.S. CDC/Kaiser ACE questionnaire. 

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