When I started my doctoral program in traumatology (how trauma impacts individuals, families and communities), I thought I had a pretty good handle on the research about adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs.  These include experiences such as various forms of abuse and neglect in one’s home, or a lack of stability in the family stemming from domestic violence, an incarcerated caregiver or one who struggled with substance use or mental illness, or divorce.  I had read articles on the profound effect these had on individuals’ mental and physical health and I knew the more ACEs one has the greater the negative consequences in adulthood. And from nearly 40 years of working in the child welfare space and observing the effects on kids as they aged into adulthood, I had seen some of this firsthand. 

However, I had only scratched the surface of what researchers have learned over the past 28 years since the first ACEs study was completed.  Things like having four or more ACEs leading to being:

• 6 times more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, 
• 11 times more likely to have used illicit drugs, 
• 11 times more likely to have been incarcerated, and 
• 12 times more likely to have committed suicide than individuals with no ACEs.  

And this list doesn’t begin to address the physical health issues that ACEs are strongly associated with like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders and cancer to name just a few. What happens in our childhood matters deeply to our overall health! 

But the painful consequences of ACEs aren’t just felt by the individual who directly experienced ACEs.  When individuals move into adulthood scarred by abuse, neglect and the toxic stress of living in a dysfunctional family, it makes lots of sense that they often feel unloveable, insignificant, and carrying a core worldview that others and their world are very unsafe and uncaring. With that as the backdrop and often having a less than positive “scripts” for being a mom or dad, is it any wonder that the generational cycle of ACEs starts again when traumatized children start having children themselves as adults?  Sadly, childhood trauma often begets more trauma.  

That’s pretty sobering, right?  It should be.  But there’s also hope and plenty of it. I believe that God created us with the potential to heal from some of the worst traumatic experiences in childhood as shown by the many evidence-based clinical treatments to significantly reduce the power and pain of those traumas. Simply having someone in our lives – including a trusted spouse, friend or counselor – who can help us process and make sense of the painful events in our lives can have a meaningful healing effect. To use an analogy, having someone like that takes away the poisonous effect that trauma is doing inside of us.    

And that’s why I’m so proud that FIVE18 has revised our services substantially over the past 20 years and become all about moving more “upstream” through our prevention services. We aim to help and train individuals and families to heal and be strong and stable families for the children in their care.  Our services not only help clients heal from prior trauma, but work to reduce the number of ACEs experienced by our local children and grow their resilience.  Why?  Because when we collectively get kids off to good starts in life, that’s not only great for them, it’s great for our community.