Recently the issue of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) has come to the fore – again. An ACE is defined as any traumatic incident that impacts on the brain development of the child, impacting on both cognitive (thinking) and affective (feelings) development and maturity.
For an aauthorative review of this see the World Health Organisation webpage: https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/activities/adverse_childhood_experiences/en/
A common example of an ACE type trauma being Domestic Violence. Living with Domestic Violence also means you are living in a Coercive Environment which in itself is chronically stressful.
I have no problem with the importance of ACEs and other coercive factors. My concern is that when assessing a child’s behavioural or mental health state there maybe a tendency to check for ACE’s and if found to stop looking elsewhere and to assume knowledge of the causal factors.
The methodology of the Early Assessment Pathway for Child Mental Health states that not only should a history be taken but that evidence/proof must be identified to link the behaviour with the supposed causal factor/s. If this is not done then the child maybe treated as being an ACE client when that is not the case and some other issue remains unresolved.
Which simply demonstrates we need to check carefully all the possible causes and not just that which is being talked about.
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