MEADVILLE — Audrey Smith and Henry Nelson are trying to turn Crawford County into a “trauma-informed community,” a community where “everyone is aware of trauma and its effects, and can recognize traumatized individuals and get them help,” as Smith put it at a recent training session at the Arc of Crawford County.
Now part of Meadville-based Parkside Psychological Associates, Smith and Nelson have spent their careers treating disturbed teenagers, sexually violent predators and people with other disorders. Smith said that she noticed a pattern. While most sexually violent predators had not been sexually abused as children, almost all of them had been subjected to other forms of abuse. Similarly, they found that most of their other patients’ problems also stemmed from childhood trauma. This prompted them to start researching trauma in general. Through this research they found out about Tarpon Springs, Fla., and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.
The ACE Study was initially started by Dr. Vincent J. Felliti and Dr. Robert F. Anda of the federal Centers for Disease Control. Felliti ran a private weight-loss clinic, and he noticed that some patients who were successfully losing weight were dropping out of the program. When he interviewed some of them he found that all of them had been abused as children. Early on, they had learned that “to be overweight is to be overlooked.” They had kept this conditioned reaction even years later, when they were trying to lose weight. Shortly afterwards, he met Anda, and the two of them decided to investigate childhood trauma more thoroughly. They devised a survey study, and contacted Kaiser Permanente, an insurance and health care provider, to ask them to administer the survey to their clients. Since 1985, the survey has been administered to four 440,000 people, making it the largest study of its kind.
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