Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences

1. How would you describe what Adverse Childhood Experiences are and how do these link to frontline children's safeguarding?

Adverse childhood experiences refer to potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood, particularly between the ages of zero to seven years. Some of these traumatic experiences include bullying, violence, neglect and abuse. Unfortunately, these ACEs are linked to chronic health problems, including mental health and drug abuse problems in adulthood. Similarly, the ACEs negatively impact education and individual job opportunities. Besides, these conditions are often common among the middle-class population and often increase diabetes, heart disease, depression, and obesity.

The Adverse childhood experiences link to frontline children's safeguarding in that, while the ACEs impact children's health, frontline children's safeguarding is critical in assessing risk to children living with domestic violence. With the knowledge of the ACEs, the safeguarding team is critical in supporting and strengthening families to reduce social exclusion and minimize the risk of violence and separation or neglect. Similarly, the frontline children's safeguarding team needs to be competent thus requires skills to build rapport and follow mandates to keep children safe. Therefore, understanding the most common adverse childhood experience (ACE), causes, and prevention measures are critical skills to prevent these traumatic experiences, impacting children's future. Moreover, when a safeguarding team understands the ACEs' causes and progress, they create increased collaborations across sectors which promotes effective referral of children, especially those impacted by trauma. Also, knowledge of ACEs is critical in dealing with adverse effects of trauma, especially when they occur. For instance, with adequate knowledge of ACEs, a safeguarding team can detect trauma among children by looking at their educational performance, occupational achievement, depression, suicide rate and substance misuse, thus helping reduce the impact of trauma in the community. Also, knowledge of this field can help detect trauma impact without the victim narrating it.

2. What are some of the challenges a child/young person growing up in Hackney might face?

Hackney is a London Borough located in Inner London. Besides, in Hackney, 28% of children live in poverty. Also, some children are being adopted to foster families.

One of the major challenges that the children in Hackney might face is poverty. Most families in the area are struggling to provide their children with quality food and medical coverage. Also, some children might come to school without having had enough sleep and sometimes breakfast. Therefore, it is evident that these children might be facing significant family violence, abuse, neglect, and inadequate clothing. Similarly, due to poverty, they might not pay for extracurricular activities and trips, indicating a high rate of depression and neglect, which might impact them in the future. Besides, these children might face homelessness due to poverty as most homeless families live in shelters in rural or urban areas.

Moreover, due to the high poverty level, children might experience bullying. Bullying is becoming popular in the United Kingdom, impacting children's physical and mental health during school years and into adulthood. Studies show that fifth of young people in UK have been victims of bullying and this trend is intense in London. Similarly, children who are bullied might experience anxiety, depression, and sometimes long-term low self-esteem. The rate of bullying in London has continued to increase, especially among the poor children who experience bullying.

Children discrimination and exclusion of children with disabilities. Most students with disabilities and those from minority communities have lower attendance rates, and most of these students might leave school before completing primary education. These students are expelled or suspended due to discrimination compared to their native counterparts. Therefore a combination of discrimination and lack of training makes this group uniquely vulnerable to being denied their right to education.

Other challenges include

Child labor

Toxic stress

Danger on the way to school- increased abduction, kidnapping and accident

Natural disasters

Gang violence

Cyber Bullying

When we talk about 'communication skills' - what do we mean, and what are some of the different types of communication?

Communication refers to contact with other people and sharing ideas and opinions. Communication is a critical life skill, and without communicating with others, an individual becomes isolated. However, effective communication is more than talking with other individuals. Effective communication help in understanding phenomena and situations, solving problems and creating trust between people. Also, communication improves relationships in various settings and creates an environment where creative ideas can flourish. Communication involves reading, speaking, writing, and listening. Also, communication is dictated by pitch, world delivery and body language.

Some of the communication skills which are vital in communication include listening, clear and concise taking, non-verbal communication, stress management, emotion control, being persuasive, being confident, having an open mind and respect.

Types of Communication

Verbal Communication. This kind of communication occurs when an individual engages in speaking with other people. It is commonly known as face-to-face communication and can also be over the telephone and Zoom. Some of the application of verbal communication includes scheduled meeting. However, regardless of the kind of communication involved, in verbal communication, words are used.

Non-Verbal Communication. This is a kind of speech that other than the actual words. Besides, Non-verbal communication includes facial expressions, hand movement, eye contact, and touch. These kinds of communication are often observed felt while individuals communicate.

Written Communication. This form of communication includes writing in a context such as a memo, social media, book, letter, and other forms of writings. In most cases, poor writing skills lead to embarrassment and confusion. Also, poorly constructed sentences and careless errors

Other forms of communication include listening, where individuals listen and sometimes without necessarily talking. Also, visual communication is another form of communication which individual see like in televisions and social media. For instance, when television show news, sometimes people act like in floods.

Take a deeper dive into Debt Management and Legal Protections with our additional resources.