There is nothing more important than the health and happiness of our children, and what they experience in their early years helps build the foundation for them to grow into strong, confident adults. But every year, more than 650,000 children across our nation suffer from abuse and neglect, and more than 1,500 die from this abuse. We are only recently becoming aware of the long-term impact of these preventable tragedies on our nation's physical and economic health.

We were honored to host the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities in Madison recently. The commission, formed by the Protect our Kids Act of 2012, is charged with developing a national strategy and recommendations for reducing fatalities. Members are currently working to raise visibility and awareness about the problem, review data and best practices to determine what is and is not working, and identify solutions. The commission will issue a report to the president and Congress in early 2016, complete with findings and recommendations that can drive future policy.

We were pleased to share with the commission the impact of Fostering Futures, which I helped establish in 2011 in partnership with Angela Carron of the Fostering Hope Foundation and Laurene Gramling Lambach of SET Ministry.

We launched this effort in response to research showing children within child welfare are exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of chronic toxic stress resulting from abuse and maltreatment. Furthermore, research shows toxic stress has a long-term negative impact on a child's healthy growth and development. This evidence-based research into Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is at the forefront of a new paradigm in child welfare called trauma-informed care.

The ACE Study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente's Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego, is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess the long-term impact of childhood adversity. The study looked at more than 17,000 patients who received a comprehensive physical examination at a health maintenance organization and correlated their childhood experiences of abuse, neglect and family stressors. The findings indicate that ACEs, a proxy for overwhelming stress, are major risk factors for the leading causes of illness and death across the nation.

When children are worried about getting enough to eat, living with an abusive family member or witnessing domestic violence in their home, they see the world as a dangerous place. As a child experiences ACEs over and over again, his or her toxic stress level continues to rise. These children develop defensive, aggressive behaviors and are less trusting of others. They cannot focus on learning or building healthy relationships with others because they are too distracted worrying about surviving.

The impact of this trauma is long-term and measurable. According to the CDC, the economic cost of child maltreatment and abuse was $124 billion in 2008. This cost was calculated as a result of impaired cognitive, language, and socio-emotional skills among abused children, disabilities resulting from head trauma and higher risk for diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Abused children were also more likely to engage in risky behaviors such as smoking, drug and alcohol abuse and high-risk sexual behaviors.

An estimated 80% of young adults who had been abused were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts and actions, according to the CDC. They were also 25% more likely to experience delinquency, teen pregnancy and low academic achievement.

For more on this article by Tonette Walker, Wisconsin's First Lady, Please see this link: http://www.jsonline.com/news/o...882z1-318503391.html