Responding to Adverse Childhood Experiences Across the Lifespan

Abstract

The adverse childhood experiences (ACE) study, including long-term health implications, is reviewed, followed by an overview of community approaches to addressing ACEs by building resilience in programs and communities. The restorative integral support (RIS) model embodies social work’s person-in-environment perspective and offers a framework to understand and respond to ACEs and their consequences. Social work’s role in addressing ACEs includes the importance of cross-disciplinary, interprofessional, and community-engaged strategies to enact community and system-wide change. Policy and practice implications to foster a culture of health and well-being are emphasized.

The Restorative Integral Support (RIS) Model: Community-Based Integration of Trauma-Informed Approaches to Advance Equity and Resilience for Boys and Men of Color

“…As a multidimensional approach to supporting the whole person, the RIS model responds to individual needs and characteristics within the context of community relationships and responsive systems. Emerging from a meta-theoretical perspective, the RIS model begins by raising awareness of both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adverse community events, then by offering a flexible guide for community members to bring together readily available resources and supports (healing modalities and protective factors) while advancing policy equity and system responsiveness [ 10 , 15 ]. Thus, the Pair of ACEs and the need for trauma-informed, culturally relevant, and community-based interventions for BMoC is presented next.…”

“…The original adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) research developed by Felitti, Anda, and colleagues [ 16 ] has been extended and integrated with knowledge on community adversities and historical trauma (e.g., poverty, racism, sexism, and discrimination), including the factors that influence human development across the lifespan [ 15 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Thus, in recent years, there has been a movement to acknowledge adverse community events and collectively understand trauma [ 20 ].…”

“…The left-hand quadrants (I and WE) are subjective and involve asking questions to discover individual and community values and to create meaning. The four quadrants evolve together, representing different dimensions of experience [ 10 , 15 , 52 ]. Perceiving how the four quadrants arise together and reflect one another facilitates a consideration of the varied aspects of the “whole person—whole community” for a multifaceted approach (see Figure 1 ).…”