Policy recommendations re Adverse Childhood Experiences - 4
In my previous blog, we looked at ACE-Aware policies that have been enacted in USA and Canada since 2014 and the second main policy consideration; Building capability and capacity in services and communities for trauma-informed best practice.
In this blog, I look at the third and fourth of four main policy considerations:
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Building knowledge and expertise of trauma-informed best practice
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Building capability and capacity in services and communities for trauma-informed best practice
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Collecting evidence of the extent of adverse childhood experiences
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Innovating new models
Let's look at the strands in the third of these:
3. Collecting evidence of the extent of adverse childhood experiences
Understanding the scope of trauma exposure. Requiring authorities to improve data collection on trauma prevalence and identifying barriers to coordination.
Major sub-strands:
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Understand the scope of trauma exposure. Government shall authorise local authorities, health organisations collect and report data on adverse childhood experiences through a standardised system.
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Introduce legislation to require age-appropriate developmental, social and emotional screenings for children as part of their school entry health examinations, developing rules and appropriate revisions to health examinations in conjunction with agencies representing school boards, paediatricians, school support personnel, children's mental health experts, school principals.
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Conduct and publish analyses re the prevalence of child, youth, and adult trauma experienced in the nation, including assessments of the types of the most prominent adverse childhood experiences, and disparities by race and ethnicity, by geographic distribution, and by socio-economic status.
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Analyse the public health impact of adverse childhood experiences, including the correlation of such experiences with trends in life expectancy and whether the scope of such experiences constitutes a public health epidemic.
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Measure and evaluate the utilization and efficacy of trauma-informed interventions, such as mental health services or other clinical or sub-clinical care.
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Report on what communities can do to mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences and how social service providers, law enforcement, health care practitioners, public health agencies, educational institutions, and other community stakeholders may collaborate to improve efforts to identify, connect to appropriate services, and provide treatment and support for children and youth, and their families as appropriate, who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing trauma.
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Identify through data collected, specific populations or geographic locations with a high incidence of measured Adverse Childhood Experiences, including by considering such data when awarding grants and contracts to entities serving such populations or locations.
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Identify the barriers to, and the opportunities for increasing, the early identification and treatment of children and youth, and their families as appropriate, who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing trauma.
This data is very sensitive and these measures could be controversial in a UK context.
And then there is the fourth main policy consideration:
4. Innovating new models
Evaluating new models. Funding to evaluate new strategies for improving trauma-informed prevention and care.
Major sub-strands:
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Award grants to, or enter into contracts or cooperative agreements with educational agencies for the purpose of increasing student access to quality trauma support services and mental health care by developing innovative programs to link local school systems with local trauma-informed support and mental health systems.
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Run pilots with primary and secondary schools in different types of locations that; fund the training of the teachers and administrators of the schools chosen regarding the trauma-informed approach and how to become trauma-informed schools, monitor the progress and report benefits.
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Make grants to agencies to conduct demonstration projects to test innovative, trauma-informed approaches for delivering early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services to eligible children.
It seems with this legislation already in place in the USA, after looking at its early results, we could short-cut to some legislation in the UK to help consistently and intentionally reduce adverse childhood experiences and help families and children thrive.
All the policy analysis in this 4 part series can be downloaded as 1 pdf here. Hope it helps guide and speeds up policy formation in other locations.
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Geoff Knott, 29/01/2020