A fire has been slowly kindling in the adoption, foster care, mental health, and medical communities for some time. ACEs, which stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, has been quite a hot topic in these areas. As these groups of people have become more aware of ACEs, Childhood Trauma, and their devastating impact on our children, more research and training have been spreading with the goal of helping children who have experienced these adverse experiences.
What counts as an ACE?
Source: https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/
There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the ACE Study. Five are personal — physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who’s an alcoholic, a mother who’s a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and the disappearance of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment. Each type of trauma counts as one.
Essentially, ACEs are everywhere.
While we are busy trying our best to become trauma-informed and implement the best strategies for working with children who have experienced them, the actual adverse childhood experiences are spreading like wildfire, burning an astounding number of children faster than we can put out the flames.
It’s encouraging to know that many schools, therapists, medical doctors, and even churches are really beginning to understand the importance of being trauma-informed so that we can better serve the children around us coming out of hard places. Every single child that is in foster care or has been adopted will have endured many adverse childhood experiences which leads to trauma on some level. However, if you look at the list of ACEs, you will notice that even many children who don’t end up in foster or adoptive families experience situations from this list. But by the time a child ends up in foster care, the number is usually much, much higher.
Prevention is Key
The issue of ACEs and childhood trauma is incredibly complex, and though it is encouraging to learn that healing can happen, prevention is always better.
Prevention is not easy, but it is critical to work toward this goal as an increasing number of our society is impacted by ACEs.
There are as many ways to work toward prevention as there are causes of trauma. I want to highlight just one:
Safe Families for Children
Over the last couple of years, my family has journeyed toward adoption hoping to lower the number of waiting children just a little. Yet, as I watched the number of children in foster care continue to rise, I kept thinking, “There has to be another way! There has to be something to keep these numbers from climbing!” Trying to come up with ideas, I began to research. I was thrilled to discover there was something already in place that was in line with the vision I was beginning to picture. I discovered Safe Families for Children, a volunteer-driven nonprofit with the goal of keeping children safe while transforming families through radical, compassionate, support lovingly given by a community of extended-family-like volunteers. The goal is to catch problems low–before they escalate to the level where social services need to be involved.
The key to success? Relationship.
I was convinced this was a way we could help to prevent childhood trauma (more ACEs). So, over the course of a few years, I, along with a beautiful and dedicated team of individuals, was able to bring a new chapter of Safe Families for Children to the area where I live.
We have now been actively serving families through developing real relationships and are seeing beautiful results!
Safe Families is not the answer for every situation, and there will always be a place for social services, foster care, and adoption–but having another option to potentially prevent some families/children from going through more traumatic experiences is a wonderful thing.
Therapy and other professional services are needed and helpful in many situations, but an amazing transformation is achieved when we develop authentic relationships with the families we serve. Coming alongside parents, inviting them into our lives, walking with them in theirs, cheering them on while offering support and encouragement can change the trajectory of their lives– and the blessing of serving in this way is so worth the investment of our time and resources. 
Have you heard of Safe Families for Children? Feel free to contact me to learn more– I’d love to share my experiences and help you learn how you can get involved!