Have you heard of ACEs?

[Captain Serious]

In the adoption world, we often talk about the trauma that had to occur for an adoptive family to form.  In infant adoption, this is often just the loss of the child's birth family, but in older child adoption and fostering, it can really expand to all sorts of situations.

Studies have found that the more types of trauma a person faces during childhood can have long-range affects on that person's outcomes in life.  This is not only emotionally, but is showing to be correlated with the person's physical health and other factors as well.  Here's a great article to introduce the basics, but there is a whole world of research surrounding this topic, and governments and non-profits are starting to build their policies with this in mind.

acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/

As the mom of two boys who were adopted at an "older" age, I am always on the alert for symptoms of the trauma they experienced to surface in their behavior and lives.  I thought knowing about ACEs might be helpful to other adoptive parents, too, so I'm sharing.

[gnomesweetgnome]

Yes, we talk about trauma and ACEs in our foster training a lot. More than almost anything else, really. But I know many many foster parents and adoptive parents don't have that kind of training and have no idea how much trauma is still affecting their kids.

[redandblue]

Jun 6, 2016 15:48:55 GMT -5 gnomesweetgnome said:

Yes, we talk about trauma and ACEs in our foster training a lot. More than almost anything else, really. But I know many many foster parents and adoptive parents don't have that kind of training and have no idea how much trauma is still affecting their kids.

We talk about the ACE's study in my professional world, which I often get mixed up with what I learned in our adoption training (so may or may not have went into that...I'm assuming not in great detail) .

At the risk of sounding judgy (okay I know it will) but it makes me feel sad and somewhat shocked (still) at how ill prepared and unwilling to be prepared and educated a lot of foster and adoptive families are regarding trauma, and even truly understanding attachment. I really believe that foster families probably have the most important job in our society (that directly impacts the most vulnerable people in our society) and should have strong skills, vast knowledge and endless compassion.

Okay I will step down from my soap box, preaching to the choir.

[gnomesweetgnome]

Jun 6, 2016 19:27:08 GMT -5 redandblue said:

Jun 6, 2016 15:48:55 GMT -5 gnomesweetgnome said:

Yes, we talk about trauma and ACEs in our foster training a lot. More than almost anything else, really. But I know many many foster parents and adoptive parents don't have that kind of training and have no idea how much trauma is still affecting their kids.

We talk about the ACE's study in my professional world, which I often get mixed up with what I learned in our adoption training (so may or may not have went into that...I'm assuming not in great detail) .

At the risk of sounding judgy (okay I know it will) but it makes me feel sad and somewhat shocked (still) at how ill prepared and unwilling to be prepared and educated a lot of foster and adoptive families are regarding trauma, and even truly understanding attachment. I really believe that foster families probably have the most important job in our society (that directly impacts the most vulnerable people in our society) and should have strong skills, vast knowledge and endless compassion.

Okay I will step down from my soap box, preaching to the choir.

I agree. Although you can never be totally prepared for fostering or adopting, I encourage anyone considering it to educate themselves as much as possible. Understanding trauma, loss, and their effects in development and long term outcomes is crucial to effectively parenting these kids.

[Captain Serious]

The thing is, even in all the research I did before and shortly after adopting the boys, and all the specialists and therapists we've worked with, not one mentioned ACEs to me. There was lots of talk about why they would have difficulty attaching, and past traumas they'd have to overcome, we even talked about PTSD. But none of them (nor any of the books) ever mentioned ACEs.

All my understanding of ACEs came from work, and it was like it all just fit together and made even more sense. It's almost like a secret society. Either you've been let in and know about it or you haven't, but since I've become familiar, I see information about ACEs everywhere.