Hi Anita,
I think you may have miss previous posts here and didn't realize we are talking about children in a school setting. Your comment seems to be based on an adult client who has choices and who's traumatic experiences are in the past. Mary Beth was speaking of children with trauma, who often live with the source of the trauma which is likely to be ongoing. "Willing to do the work" doesn't apply to children because they have little to no control. To quote Nadine Burke Harris, M.D., when you meet a bear in the woods, and you run away, your stress goes up, then returns to normal once the threat is gone. But when you're a child and you come home to the bear that lives in your house, your amygdala is constantly on hyper-alert and the stress doesn't dissipate. The problem becomes PTSD and often children not only lack the executive function to "do the work", they may be suffering from ongoing trauma. The other condition you mention is "they have the right clinician/therapist with the right tools". Again this discussion here has been concerning children in a school setting. Clinicians/therapists aren't available in a school setting and thus MaryBeth was advising against educators from "screening" students and creating a situation where trauma is triggered and left unresolved. I'm sure you'll agree that only trained therapists skilled in addressing trauma should be using the ACES questions with children and that schools should leave this to the professionals who can help the child.