Source: Mike Miletich, WAND
Read time: 1.9 minutes
 
This Happened
The Illinois state legislature passed a law mandating the creation of a Child Adversity Index survey, training for teachers and school board members on trauma-informed practices, and a committee that will determine how data collection is rolled out.
The new law took effect January 1, 2024.
 
Who Did This?
The Illinois state legislature, led by the House sponsor, Carol Ammons (D), and Senate sponsor, Kimberly Lightford (D). Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) signed it into law.
 
The Premise
The new mandates are based on the theory that exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) causes a host of medical illnesses and mental problems, including permanent changes to the brain, commission of crimes, poverty, poor learning, and a huge range of other disadvantages.
Activists believe that collecting data on ACEs and implementing trauma-informed practices will somehow either prevent ACEs or remediate the impact of ACEs.
 
Analysis
The new Illinois law, Public Act 103-0413, essentially did six things.
(1) The Department of Education must create a Children’s Adversity Index for children 3 through 18 years of age by May 31, 2025.
(2) Days allowed for teacher training, called teacher institutes, must include instruction on trauma-informed practices and include this law’s definitions of trauma and trauma-responsive learning environments starting with the 2024-2025 school year.
(3) All school board members, beginning with the 2023-2024 school year, must receive four hours training on trauma-informed practices, which may include the concept of implicit bias.
(4) In-service trainings that are required for teachers must now include trauma-informed practices, and may include the concept of implicit bias.
(5) Licensure for teachers will require demonstrated proficiency in ACEs, trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and creating trauma-responsive learning environments or communities by October 1, 2024.
(6) The Whole Child Task Force was charged with an array of tasks to codify how the child adversity index data will be collected and reported, and other related reforms needed to shift resources and procedures.
 
The research evidence does not support the premise of the ACE theory. Since Dr. Vincent Felitti’s initial 1998 ACE study, one hundred percent of the ACE studies that have been cited by activists are cross-sectional studies, which have zero power to make causal conclusions. It is almost certain that these efforts at data collection and training educators will not improve children’s well-being.
 
Why Is This Happening?
Activists have been relentlessly pushing the ACEs agenda for years, and are finally succeeding at passing state-wide laws. California was the first. The activism is based on the moral foundation of progressive liberals that care for the disadvantaged trumps other moral concerns (such as tradition, loyalty, patriotism, and liberty) and that human nature is almost completely molded by life experiences instead of genetics. 
 
What’s Next?
The task force shall reconvene by March 2027 to review progress. It is probably a foregone conclusion that these data collections and trainings are a prelude to the inevitable recommendation for expansion of new government social welfare entitlement programs to address ACEs.

​
Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices on this page.

Source: The Guardian
Read time: 2.7 minutes
 
This Happened
A commissioner with statutory oversight of government treatment of Australian children published an opinion piece on January 21, 2024 hinting that crime is caused by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
 
Who Did This?
Natalia Lewis has been the appointed Commissioner of the Queensland Family and Child Commission since 2020. Her Commission, and other regional commissions, are charged with oversight of government treatment of children, including child protection services and justice. Like other woke progressives, she is known to list her pronouns and begin a presentation with a land acknowledgment.
 
The Claim
For the juvenile justice system to be effective, we must recognize the rights of incarcerated youth, or as she calls them “young people in conflict with the law.” This includes believing that ACEs have a causal impact on criminal behavior.
 
Analysis
Lewis demanded changes for the handling of incarcerated youth because the recidivism rate is 90% in Queensland. One part of her wide-ranging solution was to presume that children commit crimes because they are disadvantaged, which includes health problems, undiagnosed or inadequately supported disabilities, and experiencing ACEs. We must, therefore, provide them with “restitution, healing and rehabilitation.”
 
The central premise of the ACE theory is that psychological stress damages the brain, alters anatomical brain structures, and permanently disrupts hardwired neurocircuitry to cause a vast array of physical diseases and mental dysfunctions, including criminal acts. The research evidence, however, does not support this conclusion. Since Dr. Vincent Felitti’s initial 1998 ACE study, one hundred percent of the ACE studies that have been cited by activists are cross-sectional studies, which have zero power to make causal conclusions.
 
Why Is This Happening?
Her opinion was written to seize on a current controversy in Queensland (one of six Australian states with the population size of South Carolina) where juveniles are held in cells designed for adults, called watch houses, at police stations. Lewis seems to have viewed this as a crisis opportunity to promote broader ideological reforms.
 
What’s Next?
Lewis, like thousands of others who have promoted the ACE theory before, did not provide details on how to prevent and/or remediate the impacts of ACEs. A common denominator to all of them, however, is to expand the role of government with taxpayer-funded entitlement programs for interventions with no evidence base. If this philosophy is followed, it seems unlikely that the Commission will facilitate approaches that might truly be helpful to this population.

Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts here. Send comments and questions to (pending).

This is Happening
The Knowledge Center at Chaddock, a non-profit organization in Quincy, IL, will hold its third-annual conference to train teachers in trauma-informed approaches. The two-day event will be March 6 & 7, 2024.

Who Is Doing This?
The Center offers trainings, supervision, and publications, with much of its work based on their trademarked Developmental Trauma and Attachment Program® model.

The Premise
The premise is that when teachers learn how trauma impacts a wide range of children’s emotions, neurobiology, sense of self, learning, aggression (and much more) then they can implement new skills in classrooms to make children and schools more successful.

Analysis
Among the fifteen presentations, teachers will learn how to prevent burn out, use circles to transform classroom culture, connect with the whole child as a person, build a vocabulary to become truly trauma-informed on six core principles, play the Brain Architecture Game to learn how trauma and ACEs change children’s brains, use reflection to understand emotional responses, engage families, identify why kids misbehave, learn the Nurtured Heart Approach® to reduce aggression, use writing to help students turn pain into power, and hear from a keynote speaker who believes that “Every child faces a moment in life that determines their future self.”
     There is, however, no good evidence that implementation of a trauma-informed culture enhances well-being, reduces disruptive behaviors, or helps children learn better.
     The slogan “trauma-informed” was invented in the early 2000s for the purpose of trying to popularize a narrative, and is not a scientific term. There is no consensus on what it means to be trauma-informed. Trainings teach that becoming trauma-informed is a never-ending process rather than a specific outcome. Central to the narrative is that nearly all aspects of humans are molded by life experiences nearly to the exclusion of inherited genetic predispositions, which is captured in the catchphrase “What happened to you?”, as opposed to “What is wrong with you?”

Why Is This Happening?
 Empowering teachers to replace the rightful roles of parents as being responsible for childrens’ social and emotional education is in line with other controversial efforts by schools such as teaching progressive revisions of race (diversity, equity, and inclusion; critical race theory) and gender identity. 


Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts here. Send comments and questions to (pending).

Source: Alex Pope, BBC News
Read time: 1.5 minutes

This Happened
A United Kingdom national government fund has awarded £195,111 (US $248,378) to a Northampton charity to treat trauma in children in order to prevent them from going into care or committing crimes. The project will run through April 2025.

Who is Doing This?
The National Lottery Community Fund is a government fund that raises money from lottery players. It is the largest community funder in the UK.
The recipient, Crysalys Foundation, will partner with the University of Northampton, including Professor Eunice Lumsden, and several other local programs.

The Premise
The project seems based on the theory that trauma experiences can cause individuals to commit criminal acts. Under the postmodern trauma-informed model in which trauma can cause every type of dysfunction and disadvantage in life, treating trauma should therefore prevent crime.

Analysis
There are no good data, however, to support that theory. Many studies have shown associations between trauma and criminal behavior but they are of weak quality, being cross-sectional in nature. Cross-sectional data could also support the more likely theory that genetic reasons account for some children to both more frequently commit criminal acts and experience trauma. Criminal behavior does not happen at random. Parents who commit crimes do so for largely genetic reasons (i.e., sociopathic traits, lack of empathy), and they pass their genes on to children who are then more likely to commit crimes. These parents are also more likely to raise children in settings where trauma exposures are more likely. Crime and trauma exposure co-occur, but neither causes the other. It is almost guaranteed that providing resources for trauma care will have no impact on children’s future criminal behavior.
According to a BBC report, “up to 25 young people and their families will be offered free interventions that will include one-to-one support, group work, mentoring, life skills and professional therapy.” The tiny sample size is underpowered to find any reliable causal effects.

Why Is This Happening?
The National Lottery Community Fund supports a range of projects to build healthier communities and individuals. The Crysalys Foundation is focused on providing resources to care for psychological trauma victims.

What’s Next?
Details of the project are not yet available on the Community Fund website. We’ll keep checking and hope to report on the methods in the future. We‘ll be most interested in how the outcome of committing crimes is measured, and how the project is able to determine the cause of crimes.
​
 
Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts here. Send comments and questions to (pending)