Hi all,
Advice sought please! We are a public health team in a UK local authority, and have been raising awareness of ACEs and trauma-informed interventions for some time, with some success. We have recently been made aware of an issue around ‘ACE training for enquiry’ and in particular the impact for those staff who would ask the ACE questions. We have a local centre that specialises in helping women experiencing domestic abuse (along with a wide variety of other complex needs and generally high ACE scores). Many of the staff at the centre are volunteers and some have had similar experiences. We have received feedback that learning about ACEs and their impact has caused distress to some staff – we have reports of some feeling guilt about having ‘passed on their ACEs’ to their children, especially having learned that this could potentially have been prevented. Obviously, these staff were taught about ACEs in order to be able to help their clients in a more trauma-informed manner, and the last thing we wanted to happen was for them to be upset themselves. We will be looking into this further to understand their perspective, but I was wondering whether any of you have had similar experiences and how you tackled any negativity or distress arising from education around ACEs. Many thanks.