By Vivian Watts, The Virginian-Pilot, May 6, 2020
In my career as the former executive director of Fairfax CASA, as well as my work as the former secretary of Transportation and Public Safety and in the Virginia House of Delegates, I have fought to protect vulnerable children from abuse and exploitation knowing that our failure to do so has catastrophic consequences.
For more than 20 years clinicians and social scientists have studied the impact that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and early childhood trauma have on a child’s development and life outcomes. These traumatic events include physical, sexual and emotional abuse; physical and emotional neglect; domestic violence; parental separation; household substance abuse; mental illness; and incarceration. Studies have shown that children who experience four or more of these traumatic events are 2.3 times more likely to not graduate from high school and to be unemployed; children who experience two or more are four to 12 times more likely to suffer from alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and suicide attempts; and children who experience five or more are 8.3 times more likely to experience sexual violence as an adult.
Until recently the trauma experienced by some of our most vulnerable children — those in our criminal justice system — largely went ignored. However, in 2014, a study published by the DOJ found that approximately 90% of children in the justice system had suffered at least two traumatic events in early childhood, and nearly one third of boys and nearly half of girls had suffered five or more. The data reveals a tragic truth: We often failed to protect the children who ended up in our justice system long before they ever failed us.
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