When the history of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) prevention is written 100 years hence, we wouldn’t be surprised if the conclusion comes down on the side of technology connecting us in profound ways that leads to a compassionate society that prioritizes all its children.
As someone who is often referred to as the "IT guy" on ACEs prevention projects, I love technology. But before I start gushing about the promises of technology, a sober assessment is in order, especially when it comes to a knotty social issue like ACEs and childhood trauma.
We should tread carefully. Getting swept off our feet and distracted by an industry whose interests, financial and otherwise, don’t necessarily align with America’s kids, won’t help the cause one bit. Still, we can imagine a long list of fascinating ways that technology could potentially help our kids avoid and recover more efficiently from ACEs.
Artificially intelligent coaches/therapists: Maybe future kids and parents in need of talk therapy could converse with a really intuitive, expertly designed, trauma-informed chatbot (one that knew when it was in over its little artificial head and would refer you to a behavioral health care human). Even if it’s only half as good as a well-trained human, it would be extremely cost effective as a link to a real behavioral health care provider in the school or community. The possibilities are profound. Is this a controversial arena (as apps and video conferencing already provide “life coaching” with no oversight)? Yes. It is also worth debating and exploring? Another big yes.
Mapping and visualization: One reason the problems related to lack of quality family-friendly services for our most vulnerable children and parents remain unsolved is that we as a society have a hard time understanding where gaps in services exist and why they exist. But thanks to mapping software, democratized graphic design, and troves of digitized data, illustrating those gaps in services in every zip code has never been easier and will only get more so. In the very near future we will go on our mobiles, type in a zip code, and know instantly where it’s tough for a family to find counseling, medical care, safe shelter, food, and other vital survival services. Just like TripAdvisor, we will also see how every community service is rated by clients with comments that can be very instructive.
On that subject: Mapping doesn’t have to be a matter of some experts collecting and presenting information in a beautiful way. It can actually be a collaborative project. The New Mexico Department of Transportation recently launched a project where bicyclists can get online and attach comments to a map of state bicycle routes. It’s the sort of feedback that used to require a big meeting and paper, but it now happens from the convenience of everybody’s home. The same thing could be used to monitor and comment on the infrastructure that is supposed to help kids.
Institutional tracking software: This is where Silicon Valley really shines. Thousands of people labor every day over software packages that basically promise nothing more than the ability to efficiently keep track of stuff (though they will of course not explain it so simply). It’s the real secret to success for the likes of FedEx and Wal-Mart and Amazon, because it means they be maximally productive with the least amount of effort/money. Good tracking software is easy to use, shows you what is going on with (sometimes downright beautiful) visualizations, and generally causes you to wonder how the hell you ever got by without it. (Hint: We used to call up taxi dispatchers and hope a car showed up at some point.) State and local bureaucracies in charge of tracking the health and safety of kids and parents could use this software to do their jobs much more efficiently, and, in turn, help more at-risk families.
Attitude adjustment: Though they can come off as arrogant little know-it-alls with their incessant talk of disruption, blockchains and the internet of things. We do, as a general rule, like how the tech industry thinks. (Full disclosure, some of my best friends are tech nerds.) There have amazing tools at their disposal that they themselves are just beginning to understand (See Zuckerberg, Mark – 2016 election), that they maraud about the world trying to fix things with and make a pile of money on the way.
What if that sort of talent, venture capital backing, and unflinching experimentation were turned loose on the problems related to ACEs and trauma faced by our kids? The answer: Who knows. But we enjoy thinking about it sometimes while wistfully looking out toward the horizon. We must invite the tech community into ACEs prevention in every city so that all our work is made transparent in a citywide ACEs prevention system, tracking all our steps toward measurable progress.
Tempered enthusiasm
And the list of tech ideas could go on. So yes, our technological future may also hold great promise for the fight against childhood trauma and maltreatment. But before we go overboard, there are a few reasons to exercise caution.
First, these technologies may well cause new problems for our kids as they solve other things. There’s some evidence that social media leads to increased anxiety in children, since they feel pressured to measure up against the perfectly curated non-reality in the Facebook newsfeed, where everyone is always happy, traveling somewhere, or eating something delicious. Bullies have always been around, but now they have fancy new technological venues to pursue their predations. To the extent that technology takes us away from face-to-face communities, it leaves vulnerable those relationships with friends and family that function as a kind of social insurance against ACEs. And as technology reshapes the labor markets, it creates economic losers whose kids are more vulnerable to ACEs.
Again, this is not to say that technology is bad, just that it can be a double edged sword. And it would be in poor taste to obsess about the sheer awesomeness of it all while ignoring the problems it creates, even if they’re smaller and more manageable than the original problem.
Our second reason for caution relates to the nature of the alleged miracles that technology has worked. Simply put, there’s reason to be awestruck, but there’s also reason to see those victories as limited, because the problems they solved were not that challenging in the first place.
All over the United States, for example, classified ads efficiently matched up willing sellers of lawn mowers with willing buyers. The system featured some considerable friction (pulped and compressed trees, intricate machinery, etc.) and some time delays (the trip to the newspaper office, publication prep, delivery time), but on the whole, it worked pretty well. ACEs are a national scandal right now, as everyone who pays the slightest attention to the issue already knows, but nobody in 1975 considered the allegedly laborious process of paying five bucks and chatting with a friendly newspaper receptionist to be a fundamentally tragic process. It wasn’t exactly efficient in our modern eyes, but again, it worked, and also paid for the reporter in the newsroom to attend city council meetings and put bothersome questions to politicians who were thus a little more honest in their everyday dealings.
Enter Craigslist, and now the whole process is more efficient and basically free. But they didn’t fundamentally change anything. Before, newspapers aggregated classified ads and then published them. Craigslist does the same thing, but uses new tools. AirBnB was not the first service to aggregate rooms for rent, Amazon was not the first flea market, and Uber was not the first taxi dispatcher. They all just used new and fascinating tools to speed things up and make life easier for people interacting with the service, replacing something that was working well with something that worked even better.
We shouldn’t hold our breath that technology will solve ACEs for the simple reason that there is not currently a well-functioning system to digitize and make faster. The prescription instead calls for systematic change: things like getting nurses into the homes of all newborn babies, universal preschool, and a big brother or big sister for all kids who need one. It calls for politicians to give a damn where they didn’t before, and for their constituents to make them give a damn. And it calls for several government departments to act as though the enlightenment happened and they’re on board with it.
These are not things that can be packaged into an app, even if there was some obvious profit motive to be found. Present someone with the option to do something easier and cheaper from the comfort of home and without making any phone calls, and they’ll do it, which is why Craigslist is a hit. But fighting ACEs will take money we’d rather not spend, time we’d rather not devote, and a campaign to change minds that would rather not change.
It’s like the difference between being offered a delicious dessert and being asked to cook an elaborate four-course meal from scratch. There is not as of yet a good app to make sure every baby gets a good start in life. That will take political pressure, a willingness to get out there and change hearts and minds in a saturated media landscape, and the ability to say yes to being a youth mentor.
So by all means, use every piece of cool technology at your disposal. It may well make your life and work a little easier, but it won’t negate the need for elbow grease. I am up to my neck in tech, working on new versions of the web-based Data-Driven ACEs Prevention Course, and new ways for a city to set up our Resilience Leaders tech-infused ACEs Prevention project.
This article was adapted from the chapter on technology in Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment by Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello, published by Safety+Success Communities. Download complimentary professional copy here: www.AnnaAgeEight.org.
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