Workshop after workshop asks people to check off their ACE's. Then, presenters tell you about your odds of having all sorts of adverse, unhealthy, or worrisome outcomes. You face doom without mitigation, as the story is told. As a clinician and behavioral scientist, one needs to take a sip of water and some steady breathing before resigning one's self or to affected individuals to the dung heap of life. I recall the first time I heard a breathless clinician talking about ACE's about shortened or troubled lives, as if it were a spiritual curse. ACE's are a cottage industry—without deep understanding of mitigations that abound in Randomized Control Trial and/or Longitudinal Literature. Here are just a few longitudinal studies that provide practical agency:
- Prinz, R.J., et al., Population-based prevention of child maltreatment: The U.S. triple P system population trial.Prevention Science, 2009. 10(1): p. 1-12. That study reduced child-maltreatment at a population level for about $7 per child.
- Kellam, S., et al., Effects of a universal classroom behavior management program in first and second grades on young adult behavioral, psychiatric, and social outcomes,. Drug & Alcohol Dependence, 2008(Special Issue): p. 24. This is the Good Behavior Game® primary classroom strategy that has lifetime benefits, and our colleagues are implementing this a population level in multiple states and countries. The classroom strategy also reduces ACE's of the young child and later life.
If folks are interested in population-level reduction of ACE's, send us an email at info@paxis.org. It happening in multiple states, provinces, and countries. And, yes, I know first hand as child who had a bundle of unwanted ACE's. I also had many wonderful adults and age-mates who nurtured my talents, while knowing my parents were abusive to each other, alcoholic, in trouble with authorities, etc. The exposure to ACE's can be mitigated, with documented in behavioral science. Do you know what that science is? And how to spread it? Happy to help: www.paxis.org
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