April is Child Abuse Prevention Month — a title that suggests it’s about, well, children. But the real population it pertains to is much broader. Abused children grow into adults: Statistically, some are in your office right now. And studies show that no matter how much time has passed and how old and distinguished they are, childhood traumas rarely heal completely.
In the late 1990s, researchers at Kaiser Permanente and the CDC conducted a landmark study on what they called Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, for short. ACEs are traumatic events that happen before the age of 18, including abuse, neglect, witnessing violence at home, or growing up with a parent struggling with addiction or mental illness. Nearly two-thirds of the 17,000 adults surveyed reported enduring at least one of these conditions in their childhood. One in six reported four or more.
The ACE study found these experiences didn’t stay in the past. Adults who grew up with multiple ACEs showed higher rates of depression, anxiety, difficulty with relationships, and instability at work. Because their nervous systems have adapted to survive environments that most workplaces don’t recognize or account for. The original study’s findings have held up in dozens of peer-reviewed studies since, and are considered the bedrock of trauma-informed care today.
This information concerns every HR leader and manager who wants to do their job well. It’s up to us to create a culture where people don’t have to white-knuckle through the day to function.
Family Preservation Alliance is honored to partner with the STAR Network Foundation who works with organizations to understand how childhood adversity shows up in adult professional life — and what a trauma-informed workplace actually looks like in practice.
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