Adverse and protective childhood experiences: A developmental perspective.

Resilience During Pregnancy: How Early Life Experiences are Associated with Pregnancy-Specific Stress

“…Also in support of our hypothesis, exposure to a greater number of PACEs was associated with lower levels of pregnancy-specific stress among our participants. Previous literature (Hays-Grudo, & Morris, 2020;Wright et al, 2013) documents the positive impact of early protective factors on various outcomes in adulthood, and our results lend further support with regard to benefits for pregnancy-specific stress. Importantly, resilience mediated the observed link between PACEs and pregnancy-specific stress, wherein greater exposure to PACEs was associated with higher levels of resilience, and in turn, higher resilience was associated with lower levels of pregnancy-specific stress.…”

“…Similar ACE scores have been noted in other samples of disadvantaged pregnant women (e.g., Howell et al, 2020). Protective and compensatory experiences (PACEs) were also coded as a sum of 10 items reflecting protective experiences including being loved unconditionally, having a safe and clean home, having enough food to eat, and having prosocial relationships with peers and adults (Hays-Grudo and Morris, 2020).…”

“…Consistent with the developmental literature, experiences such as having access to a safe and loving caregiver, close friends, a stable home environment, and community opportunities (e.g., social clubs and educational resources) have been found to be promotive of favorable health outcomes that extend into adulthood (Masten, 2001;Morris et al, 2014;Wright et al, 2013). Specifically, early social interactions such as secure attachment with caregivers, relationships with peers, teachers, and supportive adults have been shown to promote feelings of safety and security and lay the foundation for later positive relational experiences (Hays-Grudo & Morris, 2020;Sroufe, 2000;Sroufe, 2005).…”

Adverse Childhood Experiences: A 20‐Year Content Analysis of American Counseling Association and American School Counselor Association Journals

“…The results of this study suggest that those in the counseling field may benefit from clarity in the definition of ACEs and clients may benefit from counseling scholarship exploring implications of ACEs. Scholars in other fields (CDC, n.d.-b), such as psychology (Blogett & Lanigan, 2018;Hays-Grudo & Morris, 2020) and social work (Cprek et al, 2019;Hunt et al, 2017;Nurius et al, 2019), have begun examining the impact and implications of ACEs for their fields. For example, schools and health practitioners who are considering using screening tools for ACEs would benefit from exploring the ethical implications of doing so (Finkelhor, 2017) within their particular environment.…”

“…Furthermore, the American Psychological Association (APA) is coordinating efforts around ACEs. The premier APA journal, American Psychologist, recently had a call for papers for a special issue on ACEs research, practice, policy, and programs (Maravilla, 2019), and this year, APA published a book focused on developmental perspectives related to ACEs (Hays-Grudo & Morris, 2020). Thus, although related mental health fields have begun to explore the implication of ACEs within their practice, it is less clear how intentionally the counseling field has undertaken the issue of ACEs.…”