Poor Children experiencing Trauma early in life are at High Risk to become Adults with Poor Life Outcomes: Element of Play to the Rescue [HuffingtonPost.com]

Samantha Sangenito 3/18/164:00 AM

OBJECTIVE: This study tests the association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and multidimensional well-being in early adulthood for a low-income, urban cohort, and whether a preschool preventive intervention moderates this association.
METHODS: Follow-up data were analyzed for 1202 low-income, minority participants in the Chicago Longitudinal Study, a prospective investigation of the impact of early experiences on life-course well-being. Born between 1979 and 1980 in high-poverty neighborhoods, individuals retrospectively reported ACEs from birth to adolescence, except in cases of child abuse and neglect.
Results: Those with ≥4 ACEs had significantly reduced likelihood of high school graduation (odds ratio [OR] = 0.37; P < .001), increased risk for depression (OR = 3.9; P < .001), health compromising behaviors (OR = 4.5; P < .001), juvenile arrest (OR = 3.1; P < .001), and felony charges (OR = 2.8; P < .001). They were also less likely to hold skilled jobs (OR = 0.50; P = .001) and to go further in school even for adversity measured by age 5.

While I was at a meeting in DUMBO Brooklyn on Monday, to pitch WWO’s Toy Library for high risk young children, I received an article in my email, published in Pediatrics April 2016. I stepped out into the gloomy rainy day, and felt refreshed from amazingly exciting back to back meetings with educators and passionate people from the community who work in education in Brooklyn. They believe in changing the lives of very young children so that they will in fact, have a great life as they grow up and become adults. One of the people in the meeting captured the essence of why we at WWO want to fight so hard to advocate for poor children and their communities around the world. Kate who is a parent of two young children ,helped us stop and think about the depression that she observes when she is with kids who are poor. That is just not acceptable anywhere in the world under any circumstances.

[For more of this story, written by Dr. Jane Aronson, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...encin_b_9485034.html]

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debbie alleyneMember

I love this article! Fun, play and joy are often not recognized as being important to the healing process.

It reminded me right away of a powerful experience I had as the guest leader of a relative caregiver support group for grandparents who were raising their grandchildren who had been removed from their birth parents due to abuse and neglect. I was facilitating their use of the Devereux Adult Resilience Survey (DARs) to help them reflect on the protective factors in their lives related to relationships, initiative, internal beliefs and self-control. They each reflected on the items on the checklist and every single person in the group identified the items on the checklist related to hobbies, laughter and joy as things they were lacking and wanted to bring into their lives. This led to an animated discussion about the healing power of having fun (with and without their grandchildren)...something that was missing for all of them!

Several weeks later I ran into the leader of the support group who told me that night was one of the most helpful and significant conversations the group members had ever had in terms of making positive and healing changes in their lives.

For more information about the Devereux Adult Resilience Survey and adult caregiver resilience visit www.centerforresilientchildren.org and click on Adults.

3/18/167:06 AM

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