Trauma has a significant impact on many aspects of a child’s life. Trauma exposure has an effect on overall health and well-being, contributing to complications and concerns with emotional and physical health throughout the life span. Over the past twenty years, there has been more research and acknowledgement of the overall impact that trauma has from childhood through adulthood. At Benchmarks, we strive to develop and implement innovative programs and processes that mitigate the effects of these adverse experiences that will allow children and families to reach their full potential. One of the ways we do this is through the careful consideration of the impact trauma has on physical health.
Today, we have a better understanding of the importance of the impact trauma can have on health and wellbeing. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) took a closer look at how adverse experiences early in life can lead to disease, health issues, and mental health problems. There is a plethora of additional research that explains the relationship between toxic stress and poor physical health outcomes.
The ACES study suggests that adversities faced during childhood, can negatively affect one’s health throughout each stage of life. Adolescents who have a higher ACE score are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors. These behaviors include, but are not limited to, smoking, drug, alcohol use, hypersexuality, and other activities that could increase their likelihood of injury or death. As a person gets older, the impact of past traumatic experiences can increase the prevalence of illness and disease, such as heart disease, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, dental issues, autoimmune diseases, viral hepatitis, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) , asthma, and engagement in risky behaviors that could lead to physical injury. The research on toxic stress in early childhood also suggests that there is an increased risk of adoption of unhealthy coping mechanisms.. Toxic stress experienced in early childhood carries on into adulthood, also causing significant physical health concerns similar to those associated with a high ACE score.
Trauma and toxic stress can manifest physical health problems in many ways and may be overlooked for children who come in contact with the child welfare system. For younger children, trauma and toxic stress can cause literal pain along with other psychosomatic health issues. Children may present with complaints of headaches, stomach aches, tooth aches, vomiting, diarrhea, enuresis, or concerns with eating habits. At times, these can be pushed aside, or summed up to be a behavioral issue or strictly a physical health complaint, rather than considering if the physical health issue can be attributed to the trauma exposure. Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) provide child and family serving agencies with beneficial guidance for children and adolescents in foster care. This guidance provides professional health care standards to ensure that a child’s physical health is regularly monitored. The AAP and the Child Welfare League of America CWLA have published specific health care standards for children and adolescents in foster care. These standards are guidelines for practice to support healthy dental and physical health outcomes for the children directly in the care of the child welfare system.
The AAP & CWLA define these standards as follows:
“These standards are designed to help professionals from all disciplines understand the complexity of health problems and the quality of care issues in foster care. The standards specify the parameters for high-quality health care, and enable us to improve services and outcomes, as well as create an opportunity to measure the outcomes, provide a framework for child welfare to assess services for children and teens, determine the appropriateness of funding, and provide a foundation for health advocacy.”
How do we ensure that we adequately address the effects of trauma on children’s physical health so that we are contributing to the foundation of a healthy child? One person and system cannot do it alone. We recognize that multiple child-serving agencies completing multiple individual assessments can be exhausting and unhelpful at times. We can support the collaboration between professions through the use of holistic assessments considering both physical and mental health needs. Next time, we will dive further into the work that Benchmarks is doing to support this multidisciplinary collaboration to improve physical health outcomes for children across the state.
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