MOUNT VERNON — Knox County is aiming to be on the cutting edge when it comes to dealing with toxic stress and resilience in children. That is why the Resilience Team of the Knox Health Planning Partnership, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Kenyon College, and the Knox Health Department partnered to bring the documentary, “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope,” to the community.
The one-hour documentary details a Centers for Disease and Control study on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs are extremely stressful childhood experiences that alter brain development and produce lifelong effects on a person’s health and behavior. Those childhood experiences range from parents divorcing; physical or sexual abuse; living with a person who was an alcoholic, drug addict, or had a mental illness; seeing a parent being abused or having a family member sent to prison. The more a child is exposed to those factors, the greater likelihood there is of that child experiencing social, emotional, and cognitive impairment; adopting health-risk behaviors; facing disease, disability, and social problems; and dying early. Research has shown that a person with six or more ACEs dies 20 years earlier compared to a person with none.
The doctors, therapists, and educators behind the study of ACEs believe those detrimental experiences can be preventable. Knox County’s Resilience Team believes so, too.
“There’s certainly a lot of interest (in ACEs),” said Janet Chandler, program evaluator for Mental Health and Recovery for Licking and Knox Counties. “After there’s an initial awareness about Adverse Childhood Experiences – maybe someone has seen the film or learned in other ways – the natural next question is now what do we do and how do we respond to this?”
The Resilience Team is still working on the right answer to that question, but it has made inroads within the health and education communities.
“In a way, Knox County is, in comparison to most communities in the country, we’re on the cutting edge of this,” Chandler said. “There are some communities that have really worked with it, but there aren’t that many. I think we kind of recognize that the way it’s approached in our community needs to be specific and right for our community. We’re kind of feeling our way through it.”
Peg Tazewell, a member of the Resilience Team and Executive Director of Knox County Head Start, said they needed to develop a way to inoculate the community from ACEs.
“Anybody can benefit from some of the strategies that were talked about,” Tazewell explained. “Meditation, mindfulness – anybody can benefit from that. If we’re beginning to implement some strategies like that and we happen to be having very positive impacts on children and adults that have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences, we’re doing some really strong universal precaution work.”
Tazewell likened it to washing one’s hands: doing so not only prevents you from getting sick, but it also helps stop the spread of germs. She argued that they needed to develop universal strategies particular to Knox County that would benefit everyone, but especially children and adults who have experienced ACEs.
Audiences attending a showing of Resilience are asked to take part in an anonymous ACEs questionnaire. The results are compared to the original CDC study and past Knox County totals. Numbers gathered from Tuesday’s afternoon screening of the film showed that 25 percent of the 16 participants reported two ACEs. By contrast, fewer people reported four or more ACEs (6 percent) compared to the CDC study (13 percent).
“One of the things that we learned on the Resilience Team when we began to research the Adverse Childhood Experience study, it has been replicated in a number of states,” Tazewell said. “The results are holding up and actually showing increases in Adverse Childhood Experiences in other states.”
Tazewell said additional research has shown that Ohio has a higher percentage of ACEs than was seen in the CDC study. She added that helping professions tend to have higher ACEs scores, as well.
“We are seeing people with an array of different levels of reporting Adverse Childhood Experiences. It can be disturbing or upsetting to people, especially if that has been your life or your experience,” said Chandler. She added that Knox County has a number of organizations that can support anyone who experienced trauma.
Emily Miller, who attended the film screening with her husband, Bill, said during the discussion session that she was surprised how ACEs can change a child’s brain development.
“Children who have those experiences come to us with brains that are not necessarily wired for success and we’ve got to figure what to do about that and how we can change that wiring,” Tazewell explained.
For Miller, attending the showing was a chance to understand how today’s issues are affecting future generations.
“It’s not what you are, it’s what you experienced,” Miller summed up. “It just kind of connects the dots for me of why these behaviors are occurring and why they are occurring in such great numbers. Is there any help? This gives me hope that there is help, and it starts person to person.”
Miller believed it would take a caring community to help support family members or friends who have experienced ACEs.
Breanna Hayes, a Central Ohio Technical College student studying human services, noted the simplicity of the solutions offered in the film, which included drama therapy and home visits with health professionals.
“I think the importance of this film comes from how it affects the entire community and how it has the potential to reshape how we deal with stress and the negatives in life,” Hayes said. “It needs to be shared because it not only helps professionals, but can also help parents and families.”
The Resilience Team will continue its work spreading the message about ACEs and the preventative measures that can be installed within the community. So far, the Resilience Team, which has been operating for nearly six years now, has hosted four showings of the film. Altogether, nearly 300 people have attended the film screening.
“I think it allows us a different way to look at so many issues and concerns and problems that we have in the community,” Chandler said. “It not only gives us a different way of looking at it – it gives us hope for things that can be done to address toxic stress and trauma in children. It gives us a way forward. It’s a very hopeful movie.”
A fifth showing is scheduled for 6:45-8:30 p.m. on April 4 at the Chapel Auditorium on the Mount Vernon Nazarene University campus.
