Trauma caused by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, witnessing violence, and other traumatic exposures are associated with neurological impacts on the developing brain. These impacts are concerning to the brain’s responses to stress, with resulting impairments and functionalities leading to increased risks for depressive disorders in adulthood. To combat this issue, this proposed program seeks to provide preventative activities of expressive arts as a method of building resilience in children. This program will include various expressive mediums that allow emotional exploration. Administrators will be able to identify participants either at risk or are experiencing ACEs at the time of execution. Through this, the program hopes to intervene with children experiencing ACEs through creative expression of emotions garnered by trauma that might otherwise stay locked in the brain resulting in higher risks of depression and anxiety.
Trauma-Informed Principles Utilized
To achieve the goals of the organization the program will rely heavily on the trauma-informed principle, empowerment, voice, and choice (SAMHSA). The program is designed in a way that solely functions in the student or participant feeling empowered and that they have a voice. For example, if a student is emotionally triggered, it is the program's goal to empower the student to identify what is needed to make the student feel better. Of course, our expectation with the program isn’t that this will happen overnight, but we hope that through a series of guided expressive art activities, the student will have had time to explore their voice and be empowered to express their needs, emotions, and feelings. Through this expression, students will become more confident and in turn resilient and prepared to adjust to the inconsistencies of life.
Another trauma-informed principle that the program will employ is the principle of collaboration and mutuality. With this principle, everyone, including administrators of the program, staff, partnering practitioners, therapists, and artists will all be aligned with the core values of the organization, which are to ensure that the environment of the program promotes shared control and mutual dynamics between them and students we serve. Our goal is to use collaboration and mutuality to give the power back to students that were perceivably taken away from them during the experience of traumatic experiences.
Lastly, it is important that as our program seeks to empower children in communities that experience higher ACE scores, which statistically are representative of lower socioeconomic communities, we consider the trauma-informed principle of cultural, historical, and gender issues. Foundationally, our program will seek to increase the equity and access of these types of programs to demographics that experience shared trauma in their communities (i.e. racial injustices, gender oppression, etc.). Our program staff and administrators will be equipped to utilize this principle both formally in the program’s curriculum and application, but also administratively through various non-curricula settings.
Levels of the Social-Ecological Model
This project will use an evidence-based framework, heavily grounded in the CDC’s Social-Ecological Model (“The Social-Ecological Model: A Framework for Prevention | Violence Prevention | Injury Center | CDC”). Our evidence-based framework will use mechanisms that build self-efficacy, create personal and cultural resonance, curate aesthetic experiences, increase emotional engagement and empathy, and cultivate expression and voice through the use of meaning-making, and self-transcendence. With these tools, the program aims to increase health service equity and access, create safe, inclusive, and engaging environments for participants of the program, and support social, cultural, and policy change in future efforts of future developments.
Our program will focus on the individual level of the Social-Ecological Model (“The Social-Ecological Model: A Framework for Prevention | Violence Prevention | Injury Center | CDC”). On the individual level, the program will seek to address ACE exposure by incorporating vetted tools that are universal for students with current ACE exposure requiring resilience building and students at risk for potential ACE exposure. The expressive arts activities will incorporate tools to teach self-regulation, destressing techniques, emotion processing and communication, and more.
As mentioned in earlier sections, the outlined objectives and activities are listed in the ‘timeline’ section of the proposal. Essentially, the 16-week program comprises 4 Modules: The Emotions Module, The Discovery Module, The Relaxation Module, and The Happiness and Affirmation Module, all of which will address three main competencies for each participant upon completion of the program. These competencies are social connections, resilience, and social and emotional competence. This program requires that intention and focus be placed on the individual level of the social-ecological model to help mitigate the negative impacts that ACE exposure and childhood trauma have on the developing brain. Resilience, in this case, is very important, especially if the risk or occurrence of the ACEs isn’t capable of immediate termination.
Public Health Framework
The success of this program relies heavily on utilizing a public health framework. It is advantageous to approach the topic of ACEs with partnership at the forefront of every intervention, addressing the root of the implication. Working cross-functionally will allow more comprehensive solutions to develop, resulting in a holistic perspective of individuals with or at greater risk for higher ACE scores.
With this program, the goal is to utilize both trauma-preventative policies and trauma-specific policies (Feuer-Edwards et al.). Trauma-preventative policies will be important to this program as they will consist of resilience-building tools (Feuer-Edwards et al.). The program’s framework will not attempt to prevent ACEs as a primary goal, however, through its various outlined expressive art activities, students will develop ways to mitigate the impacts of current ACE exposure in hopes to prevent further toxic stress or other resulting mental or social behavioral impacts. We anticipate that because of the nature of the program, our framework will encompass the cross-sectors of mental health, early childhood, and education in the public health framework (Feuer-Edwards et al.).
Trauma-specific policies will be utilized in the program to help promote recovery among students who may require alternative interventions for recovery from traumatic events or ACEs (Feuer-Edwards et al.). For example, a student may be recommended to our program after the recent incarceration of a household member or guardian, sudden death in the family, or after reported incidences of abuse or violence. In this case, local policies for students identified as having substantial ACE Exposure will be encouraged to participate in the program as a preventative measure.
Resources
Haire, Cheri, "How Expressive Arts Therapy is being used to treat children with developmental trauma and its implications for treating community and systemic causes of developmental trauma." (2020). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 348. https://digitalcommons.lesley....xpressive_theses/348
Chapman, Daniel P., et al. Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Risk of Depressive Disorders in Adulthood. 15 Oct. 2004, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2003.12.013.
Chapman, MA, ATR-BC, Linda, et al. The Effeectiveness of Art Therapy Interventions in Reducing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptoms in Pediatric Trauma Patients. 22 Apr. 2011, https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2001.10129750.
“Home | Florida Behavioral Health Association.” FBHA, https://floridabha.org/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2022.
Navalta, Carryl P., et al. “Adverse Childhood Experiences, Brain Development, and Mental Health: A Call for Neurocounseling | Journal of Mental Health Counseling.” Allen Press, Oxford University Press, 1 July 2018, https://doi.org/10.17744/mehc.40.3.07.
“Transcript of CDC Telebriefing: At Least 5 of the Top 10 Leading Causes of Death Are Associated with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC.” CDC, 1 Jan. 2016, https://www.cdc.gov/media/rele...2019/t1105-aces.html.
Sarid, PhD, Orly, and Ephrat Huss, PhD. Trauma and Acute Stress Disorder: A Comparison between Cognitive Behavioral Intervention and Art Therapy - ScienceDirect. The Arts in Psychotherapy 37, 12 Aug. 2010,
“Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) - Child Welfare Information Gateway.” Home - Child Welfare Information Gateway, https://www.childwelfare.gov/t...0domestic%20violence. Accessed 18 Apr. 2022.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. HHS Publication No. (SMA) 14-4884. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014.
Comments (0)