ACES Screen for TEACHERS and STUDENTS

This sounds like a really useful thing for many to have.  Could it be possible that we could also use this blog to create some polls for webinars its members might undertake, based upon popular request?  There's so much here, and I am grateful, forgive me if we already have such a thing! It would be so fantastic if this community could have its own TED-like videos/webinars. : )

I am a school nurse, and I have found lots of information of the internet about urban areas and the impact of ACEs. In addition the school district  offers trauma awareness programs to teachers thru "Lakeside Global Institute" <bkoons@lakesidelink.com>; . You could reach out to them to see what has already been done. 

I can't speak to screening teachers and students (and you may already have considered this idea) but I would encourage you to look at the more culturally-sensitive versions of the ACEs questionnaire and/or the ones that include additional traumas such as "Adverse Community Environments" - these include such experiences as being bullied, experiencing racism, living through a natural disaster, etc. I also think that screening for Resilience factors is important to pair with the ACEs screening so that you can see the a greater picture of the capacities and assets that already exist in your community(school). 

We brought info about ACEs, toxic stress, brain science, and building resilience when we did a parent training this year that we called Rise to Resilience. I think it helped us to not just offer the screening, but that background information that we know, such as the traumas they have experienced were not their fault and that while health risk impact can be predicted by knowing our score, it doesn't predict our futures.

My dissertation was on Teacher Efficacy and working with children in poverty.  It was a qualitative study.  I wish I had known about the ACEs screener when I was doing my research because I would have loved to have included that information.  One of my findings was that lower levels of teacher efficacy were correlated with disruptive student behavior.   The student behavior was included in a larger umbrella term of working conditions.  Being a former teacher and elementary principal in high poverty schools in Michigan I have found that the burden put on our teachers, (who are trained to teach curriculum and are not social workers or nurses) has significantly and negatively effected our teacher ranks.  Most teachers today stay in the profession no more than four-five years and because the pay is so low, we haven't been recruiting from the highest performing college students.  Young teachers, especially those working with children in poverty get a bit of shell-shock when they start in their own classrooms.  These young professionals are quickly overwhelmed and then not provided with meaningful supports because of budgetary restrictions but also because the onus has been placed on our teachers to 'handle' student behavior issues without sufficient, (if any) support from healthcare staff.   I would be happy to get more specific information for you if you would like.  This topic is near and dear to me.  Good luck!

Krys Cooper posted:

Hello All - I am currently working within a deeply impoverished school community in Philadelphia.  We would like to assess the impact of ACES in teachers and students in a 5th-8th grade school setting.  I am seeking advice and counsel from others who may have tackled this.  Thanks much.

Hi Krys, the Philadelphia expanded ACEs would be a suggestion you could use to determine the ACE score of this students. A quicker screen for preliminary assessment is the original 10 question survey. I have used this in Nigeria and can send you our poster presentation of the research done over 4years. Email me at info@suburbancares.com.  I am in Lagos at the moment but will be back to the States this Saturday if you need to have a chat. Cheers. Dr. Ogunkua

Sandra Hofman-Kingston posted:

My dissertation was on Teacher Efficacy and working with children in poverty.  It was a qualitative study.  I wish I had known about the ACEs screener when I was doing my research because I would have loved to have included that information.  One of my findings was that lower levels of teacher efficacy were correlated with disruptive student behavior.   The student behavior was included in a larger umbrella term of working conditions.  Being a former teacher and elementary principal in high poverty schools in Michigan I have found that the burden put on our teachers, (who are trained to teach curriculum and are not social workers or nurses) has significantly and negatively effected our teacher ranks.  Most teachers today stay in the profession no more than four-five years and because the pay is so low, we haven't been recruiting from the highest performing college students.  Young teachers, especially those working with children in poverty get a bit of shell-shock when they start in their own classrooms.  These young professionals are quickly overwhelmed and then not provided with meaningful supports because of budgetary restrictions but also because the onus has been placed on our teachers to 'handle' student behavior issues without sufficient, (if any) support from healthcare staff.   I would be hppy to get more specific information for you if you would like.  This topic is near and dear to me.  Good luck!

My last day - my nurse told me, “ You haven’t been a doctor; you’ve been a social worker. I went to IEP meetings as much as I could.  I did my best but I really wasn’t a doctor; I was a social worker.  3/4 of my kids had been involved with the MI child welfare system.  Parents were homeless, addicted, unemployed, been in prison, committed suicide, died of overdose.     They were doing their best under circumstances that are really tough. 

Doctors can’t fix this either.   The psychiatrists give psychotropic medications but there isn’t a pill in the world that can treat homelessness. It’s not simple to turn around generation after generation of disorganization and fear.   Parents are mostly doing the best they can - even when it doesn’t look good.  They try to get help, but when the help that’s available doesn’t resolve the problems, because the problems are massive and complex and came to be over generations and generations I wonder where are we going?    I worry that it will be another huge disappointment for parents who try but find out we “professionals” haven’t thought out our systems well enough to find and offer what works.   I worry that parents might give up.  

It’s important to talk about ACEs and especially about how families can make themselves stronger and hardy.   I’d also like to talk about the nuts and bolts of turning this all around and learning what works. 

I would recommend checking out ACEs Connection Resources Center's ACEs Screening list and ACEs Surveys list. These are not teacher and student specific but there may be resources that are useful to you. Hope this helps!