ACEs outcomes measurement

Greetings Nafe, 

You might find some guidance in the Self-Healing Communities Paper out of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We are considering using average ACE score in various groups (we anonymously and optionally gather ACE scores) when we show the film Resilience. It is not a double blind study, but it provides information over time. Currently have collected from about 1700 participants. 

Other ideas in junior school (not sure if that is K-6 grade or 6-8 grade where you are) would be disciplinary actions, in school and out of school suspensions, expulsions and/or assessments of safety on the part of students and/or parents.

I look forward to hearing what others are using!  Ellen

Rafe Nauen posted:

I am involved in a junior school that has pulled together a multi agency group to tackle ACEs and they wonder if there is a good outcomes measurement device - suitable for use with young children

Rafe rafe@rafenauen.com

Hello Rafe!
Great question .... to find an answer, I checked out the Washington State ACEs Action community - then clicked on their "Research & Reports" tab, where I l found Washington-state-ace-s-group/set/research-and-reports 

The main ACEs Connection (home site) has a Resource Center as does each of the 300+ geographic or interest based communities on ACEs Connection (there are so many communities waiting to be discovered!). Within the AC Resource Center, there is a section titled, Trauma Informed Practice which may yield useful information.

Going back to Washington State, this report from Lincoln High School in Walla Walla WA may hold some useful nuggets. 

The study systematically analyzed four questions:
Question 1: Did students’ resilience increase while at Lincoln High, especially among those with high ACEs?
Question 2: Was improved resilience associated with student experiences resulting from trauma sensitive school practices?
Question 3: Did students with higher resilience do better in school: better attendance, improvements in performance on standardized tests and higher grades?
Question 4: Did resilience moderate the expected negative effect of ACEs on school performance? ACEs impacted school performance differently, depending on level of resilience achieved.
Conclusions This study provides empirical support for the thesis that systemic changes in school practices, ones developed with the supported of the community to be sensitive to students with high levels of ACEs, have significant beneficial effects for a majority of students by increasing student resilience and improving school performance, even among students with disproportionately high ACEs. The results are supported by both quantitative factor analyses of student responses and multivariate analyses showing statistically significant relationships among resilience, school performance, and ACEs, and also by qualitative analyses of patterns and processes of student experiences, expressed in their own words. Both analyses provide similar results that allow us to suggest that these relationships would be replicable in other communities and schools implementing similar practices.

I hope this wide ranging response provides insight into the rich resources which may be found on ACEs Connection (with a little digging!) and the complexity of the issues - there is no one right answer!

Please share your learnings, here on ACEs Connection! This is how we all help one another accelerate our efforts!
Karen