Podcast Season 4: Episode 5 – Adverse childhood experiences and their impact on later-life outcomes

Please note that this transcript is auto-generated and therefore will contain some errors and natural pauses in conversation.

[00:00:00] DAWN: Welcome to the Creative Life Story Work podcast, where we explore how to make life story work better for all care experienced children and young people. Creative Life Story Work is an approach which can improve children and young people’s lives and their relationships with others, both at home and at school.

[00:00:31] It’s based on the Rose Model of Therapeutic Life Story work. Every month, we’ll explore a different aspect of creative life story work, and we’ll give insights into how you can use this approach to help care experienced children and young people make sense of their past and build a brighter future. Today, we are focusing on Adverse Childhood Experiences, ACEs. and their impact on later life outcomes for care experienced children and young people.

[00:01:05] And I’m absolutely delighted to welcome back to our podcast studio today, Mary-anne Hodd. Mary-anne is a care experienced teacher, trainer and and she combines her lived experience and her background in psychology. Mary-anne works to support a deeper understanding of and improved outcomes for children and young people in care.

[00:01:28] She’s a training practitioner from Trauma Informed Consultancy Services which offers an extensive range of training sessions related to all aspects of how we can apply a trauma informed framework to settings, services and services. and systems. And very good morning, Mary-anne. Lovely to have you here today.

[00:01:48] MARY-ANNE: Morning Dawn. Thanks for having me back. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:50] DAWN: I wondered whether, first of all, we could do some definitions for people who might not understand the term adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. How, how would you define that for somebody who’s not come across that term before?

[00:02:12] MARY-ANNE: Yeah, sure. So at First Childhood Experiences, we’re essentially talking about, uh, well, really it can be under, it’s generally understood as a list of kind of 10 potentially traumatic events that happened before the age of 18.

[00:02:29] Um, so it can be categorized into three different areas, thinking of, um, neglect, abuse and household dysfunction. So, I mean, in a nutshell, essentially it’s this, a list, there’s a list and we can kind of critique this list the more you get into the research. Um, but it’s this kind of understanding that there’s these experiences.

[00:02:56] that might happen in early childhood that can be classed as adverse, potentially traumatic events, and they’re happening before that age of 18.

[00:03:04] DAWN: And again, just to set the scene almost, um, what are What are some of the significant long term impacts on a child’s health and well being? If some of those experiences on that list that you’ve just noted happened, what are some of the things that research is showing us has happened?

[00:03:27] MARY-ANNE: Yeah. So, you know, there’s kind of the research, which is over the last 20, maybe closer to 30 years now, um, has shown, you know, the, the higher number of ACEs. The more likely you are to have poor health outcomes later on in life. And so the more experiences of early adversity, the more experiences of neglect, of abuse, of dysfunction, the more likely you are then to have negative health outcomes related to, yeah, really well, negative outcomes related to health, wellbeing, behaviors.

[00:04:04] opportunities and experiences, right? Um, so there’s kind of a whole heap of associated outcomes that are quite heavy when you start to look into this. Um, you know, there’s things like increased stress hormones through the body. There’s the kind of experiential stuff of taking away sense of safety, creating a sense of hopelessness.

[00:04:30] There’s the kind of anxiety, um, and depression elements, so there might be kind of more, um, more likely to be diagnosed with depression and more likely to develop anxiety disorders. Uh, the, the list goes on really, there’s a whole heap of poor associated outcomes and I think for me, the one thing that, that helped me.

[00:04:54] When I was understanding this research was understanding that if you’ve experienced four or more of these experiences of early adversity, so if you’d experienced, for example, physical abuse, physical or emotional neglect, if you’d experienced mental illness within the household, violence within the household, substance abuse within the household, and you’d experienced four or more of these, then you are a lot more likely to have these poor associated outcomes.

[00:05:25] So things like, you know, more likely to, um, develop this, this, this crazy stuff. It goes, the list is so vast, you know, from developing things like, um, lung disease to using substances yourself, um, to. Yeah, the depression anxiety is a huge one. The one that really got me, and the one that kind of shocked me the most, I guess, when I understood this research, was that if I had a score of 6 or more, that there was, that I was linked to potentially, uh, dying up to 20 years earlier than my peers. So it can cut 20 years off your lifespan.

[00:06:11] DAWN: 20 years, goodness me.

[00:06:13] MARY-ANNE: Yeah, it’s intense, it’s, it’s really heavy stuff the more you understand this, like, for me it was this kind of light bulb moment between understanding, okay, so, what I’ve been through in my early years. might have an impact on who, who I am now, how I show up now.

[00:06:29] This kind of idea that maybe it’s not my fault, but yeah, 20 years is the one that really got me. Yeah.

[00:06:34] DAWN: So your work is around taking a strengths based approach when thinking about, um, adverse childhood experiences. So what does that, what does that look like? look and sound like? How, how do you define taking a strength based approach?

[00:06:53] MARY-ANNE: Yeah. So I think in a nutshell for me, from, from my personal lived experience of this, um, it links to kind of my own journey of my own ACEs journey. So understanding what the research meant to me. And when I first understood all of this kind of new terminology and language around ACEs and trauma and I kind of remember being this overwhelming feeling of part, part relief in understanding that what I had been through in my early years.

[00:07:26] This does have an impact on me as an adult, and it’s not my fault sometimes, maybe. Maybe it’s not my fault how I show up sometimes, but it’s because of, I’ve learned to survive, and that my body has learned how to survive in this kind of environment of toxic stress. And equally also, I was then also kind of met with this like wave of feeling doomed, a feeling like I have a high ACES score.

[00:07:54] And when I understood that, I remember running down to my husband and going, I’ve got a score of seven, you know, I’m going to die 20 years earlier than you. And he kind of looked at me and was like, Mary, that can’t be the end of it. You know, go back, do some more reading, come back to me when you know more.

[00:08:11] And I’m glad that he did say that because that was just the start of the conversation and what that led to is me figuring out, okay, well, why might I be okay when all of the research tells me that I shouldn’t be? Why might I not have 20 years cut off my lifespan? What made the difference? And so I think a strengths based approach to me is that understanding of Well, now we know about it.

[00:08:33] What can we do about it? It’s understanding the malleability of the brain. It’s understanding this idea of aspirational practice and, and environments that support young people to start to heal. And for us to be that space to, to counteract some of these early experiences in, in, yeah, I think that big, that big thing of, okay, well, now we know the potential impact of this.

[00:08:55] What can we do about it? How can we start the repair? Cause it doesn’t. A plus B doesn’t have to mean 20 years off your lifespan, you know, we can do something about that. And so it’s in that, it’s in that, what can we do about it? I think is, is the strengths based element for me.

[00:09:13] DAWN: I’m just, I’m just noticing the heaviness of some of the words that you’re, that you’re using there about doom and 20 years of life then, and just almost how much energy it must take to flip that on its head and think, instead of just concentrating on that, how can you find the energy and the resilience as opposed to use another word?

[00:09:39] To empower you to, to flip that almost, isn’t it? It’s flipping it on the head. Yes, this has happened, but those experiences can be flipped into thinking, what does this give me? What, what other things does this give me?

[00:09:52] MARY-ANNE: Yeah. I’m finding, you know, finding strengths within yourself over, you know, is this, it leads to this question of post-traumatic growth for me, which is really funny ’cause I bet we’ve all heard of PTSD, right? Post-traumatic stress disorder. We’ve all heard this terminology. When I ask the question, who’s heard of post-traumatic growth? Not many people often put their hand up at that. It’s not a conversation that we often hear, and it is this idea of not saying that, you know, I’ve been through bad stuff and so

[00:10:24] that’s okay because I can grow from it. It’s not making the bad stuff okay, but it’s saying, you know, I’ve been through these experiences and actually where, what is, what are my strengths in this? What is, what are my resolve and, um, how can that help me understand myself, my world, what I want for myself and moving forward.

[00:10:45] And as the adults in that young person’s life in creating spaces to give them what they never had. Um, whereas I think sometimes this conversation around ACEs is difficult because I’ve seen it almost weaponized against young people in the sense of, you know, well, they have a high ACEs score.

[00:11:09] They’re going to be difficult to manage or hard to engage, or they’re going to have challenging behaviors and all the language that comes with that. Right. And this idea of, you know, well, they’ve been through so much in their early years. They’re, they’re going to be doomed.

[00:11:23] Or I’ve had, you know, I’ve had a teacher say to me, you know, are you going to end up just like your dad? And this kind of language that comes with it because of what we’ve been through in our early years, whereas. It wasn’t my fault what I went through, I had no choice in that. But what I do have choice in now, and what the adults have choice in now, is how they helped me understand that.

[00:11:44] How I then helped to find the possibilities of potential change following that, I think.

[00:11:51] DAWN: So the using, um, where you’ve successfully navigated something really difficult, and then using that to reflect on it to think, So I do have the ability to overcome this in the future as well. And you talked about, you went, you ran downstairs and spoke to your husband and he said, go back, do some more research and then come back and have another conversation.

[00:12:17] Um, I’m just thinking there about the importance of those, uh, relationships with other supportive people, um, how, how, what sort of role they might play in you thinking about those adverse experiences that you’ve had as a child?

[00:12:36] MARY-ANNE: Yeah, I think, honestly, I think Dawn, that’s what it all comes back to with so much of this is it’s all about relationships.

[00:12:44] Um, You know, Karen Treisman, the educational psychologist who does lots of work around foster care, um, she sums it up really nicely for me and kind of summarizing part of what she says where when the harm is relational, so too must be the healing, right? And it’s this idea that so much of what has happened for us in these early years has been born out of relationships that have harmed us. Relationships that were supposed to protect us, supposed to provide for us, supposed to care for us, not doing that. So what we need to do now is, is work on the relationships. It’s on repairing those, the, the ruptures, the experiences that we missed out on and healing the stuff that happened to us that shouldn’t have happened to us, right?

[00:13:31] It all comes back to relationships. Um, and I feel so blessed to have, you know, my husband in that aspect to help give me some perspective. And to be that kind of person to go have that back and forth with and help me in that relational, that healing aspect. It’s so important. You can’t do it alone, right?

[00:13:53] DAWN: So, so building connections, um, with others who may have experienced similar challenges or not, but I’m almost thinking there of that role of, well, mentors almost, or role models, um, to, to build your own. We talked before about building your own network or a safety net as well.

[00:14:17] MARY-ANNE: Yeah, really, really important, you know, having people around you that, that you can connect with and this is interesting again, when we talk about ACEs and trauma and early adversity, because, you know, one of the definitions of trauma, I think it’s, um, Stephen Porges, I don’t know how you say his last name, but if you Google it, you’ll know who I’m talking about.

[00:14:38] Um, he, he can, he defines trauma as a, a state of chronic disconnection. So this idea that the, our experiences is a sense of disconnection, a disconnection from what, from oneself, right? From ourselves. And so what do we need then? What’s the antidote to disconnection? It’s connection. It’s belonging. Lisa Cherry actually does a lot of work on belonging there.

[00:15:05] The lady behind trauma informed consultancy, she um, There’s a lot of talk about belonging and it’s what it all comes back to, right? Relationships, connections, belonging, this in it togetherness, this kind of, um, safe spaces to learn and grow and share and connect through experience. And, you know, Bruce Perry as well, the trauma psychologist talks about, you know, being relationally present.

[00:15:31] So thinking about how we come into these rooms, how we, How we come into spaces with young people, what we expect of them and understanding how their previous experiences are going to impact how they show up in that space and how safe they feel because we can’t, we can’t learn if we don’t feel safe.

[00:15:50] DAWN: Let’s go for a short break so that you can hear about our Creative Life Story Work membership offer.

[00:15:59] Trailer: We want people to gain more of an understanding about what it’s like to be care experienced and to have a better understanding of what it actually means. Could Creative Life Story Work make a difference to the care experienced children and young people you work with?

[00:16:17] I think we forget at our peril that actually telling a child the story of their early life is one of the most profound uses of social work power that we could ever operate. You know, when they say it’s all about the child, it’s not because our experiences, it’s about the carer and the child. And it just gives a new angle to our relationship because we’re learning about each other together.

[00:16:44] A Creative Life Story Work membership will give you, or your whole team, access to resources. Including activities you can use in direct work with children and young people, training with life story work experts and lots more. And I think a lot of our children are looking for meaning. Looking for, you know, well why is it I feel this way when my, you know, my friends don’t?

[00:17:06] Why is it I get angry internally and my friends don’t? The greatest thing we see is when we are able to say to young people, this is your story, this is about who you are. And then children towards the end say, it’s not my fault that these things happened. For more UN videos visit www.un.org But it is something that I can do something about.

[00:17:22] And once we have that, then we know we can move forward. Find out about our membership for individuals and for organizations on our website, creativelifestorywork.com.

[00:17:37] DAWN: I loved all those words that you used there, connection, um, relationships, networks, and how different they were from the words that were being used. Um, earlier on in our conversation, and I’m just thinking there about changing that narrative, how I’m on my big questions again. And I’m just thinking about if you, if you have the focus on how people thrive after some of those experience and the approach that you’re taking, it’s almost, it’s shifting from, Being a victim to being empowered.

[00:18:14] And I’m just wondering about how you can almost celebrate some of those success stories that, that, um, that you’re describing you’ve had this, you’ve had this, you’ve had this, but actually look at me, I can do this. How do you celebrate those successes?

[00:18:29] MARY-ANNE: I think it can start with the really small stuff, right?

[00:18:31] I was talking to some foster carers the other day, talking about having high aspirations for their young people and being the place that, that dares to dream for your young people. Saying, you know, if the adults don’t dare to dream for us, how can we do it for ourselves? And we’ve had this conversation before Dawn, where, you know, that, it takes people around us, believing in us, sometimes for us to start to see the good in ourselves.

[00:18:54] And so celebrating small wins and, you know, what might be a high aspiration for one person will not be the same for another young person. So, you know, it might be from a really small goal of, you know, You know, brushing their teeth before they go to bed at night to, to a bigger goal of going to uni. But we start by celebrating the small wins and labeling the good, naming the good, pointing it out so that we can start to see that in ourselves.

[00:19:22] Because I think at first, and it’s something I’m still working on is this, when you’ve grown up in environments of neglect, of abuse, of dysfunction, it’s not likely that you’ve heard lots of good stuff about yourself, it’s not likely that the adults around you have praised you, have involved you in conversations, have, you know, created safe and trusting spaces, and so, by us labeling behaviors, naming them, talking about the strengths, building that in, we might then be able to start to talk about that for ourselves.

[00:19:57] Um, so yeah, I think really being really explicit with what’s good, finding something good in every day and finding opportunities to celebrate small wins throughout the journey is going to help. Our young people do that for themselves then.

[00:20:10] DAWN: Can you think of any ways that your experience have given you a unique perspective?

[00:20:16] MARY-ANNE: I think one thing that I’ve really got through my experiences in terms of a unique perspective is I have a real appreciation for the life that I have now because I’ve been through and lived in environments where I didn’t see this kind of life as a possibility for me. And so all of the kind of every day to day stuff of just feeling safe, of having a full fridge, of being blessed enough to live where I do and go and walk on the clifftops.

[00:20:47] I have so much gratitude for all of this and for like a real perspective on the stuff that really matters in life. And I think a lot of the stuff that I have experienced previously and kind of getting frustrated and wound up at. Now I’m on the other side of it. I have a real perspective of actually, no, do you know what, like a lot of that stuff doesn’t matter.

[00:21:11] What matters is that real core stuff that I was talking about is this sense of safety, of love, of, of feeling connection, of being able to go out and explore, um, where I live and, yeah, I feel very blessed for the simple, simple things in life, which I think is a really nice perspective to have, right?

[00:21:31] I feel very grateful to have that.

[00:21:32] DAWN: I’m imagining you walking along the cliff there.

[00:21:35] MARY-ANNE: Yes.

[00:21:35] DAWN: And, and I suppose my final question is just what message would you like to share? with others who have adverse childhood experiences or who are supporting young people who’ve had adverse childhood experiences. What message would you share about finding strength in their own stories?

[00:21:58] MARY-ANNE: One thing that comes up with this conversation, time and time again is this idea that, you know, that sometimes you can be doing from, from say, for example, a foster carer’s perspective, you could be doing so much with a young person to support them in this journey of growth or in, in providing a safe, trusting, caring, loving home.

[00:22:18] And sometimes you might feel like that you’re met with consistent challenges and you don’t see progress. And so I think keeping that in mind as kind of some of the challenges around this is this idea that first of all, for me, understanding that progress on this healing journey as I like to call it is, is not linear.

[00:22:40] It’s a bit of a roller coaster and sometimes you might not see that growth whilst you’re in it. Right. So having that stickability, um. Staying with your young people through the challenges, through the ups and downs, the round and rounds, um, and having that sense of withness is really, really important and kind of really know and understand that you’re planting the seeds for, for their future, the impact of, you might not see it right now, but every day we’re planting these seeds for what, what is coming.

[00:23:12] Um, and one day they will flourish and thrive, you know, so just kind of hold, hold tight in that. Belief and steadfast in the love that, that you’re giving and sharing each day and that the impact that that will have, even if you don’t see it at the time and same, you know, from a young person’s perspective.

[00:23:29] that compassion with yourself, that even if you’re not seeing all the leaps and progress right now, that doing what you can with what you have each day, you know, you, it will, you will get there. Yeah, I think I could, I could continue on on that conversation, but I’ll leave it there for now.

[00:23:46] DAWN: We’ll, we’ll leave it on the image of planting seeds.

[00:23:50] Um, And compassion for ourselves. Thank you so much for our conversation today, Mary-anne, I really, really appreciate your time and and your words today. It’s been lovely, lovely chatting to you.

[00:24:05] MARY-ANNE: Thanks Dawn. Thanks for having me back. It’s been really enjoyable. Cheers. Thank you.

[00:24:12] DAWN: Whether you’re a foster carer, someone who has experience with the care system, or you work with children and young people. We hope this episode has given you an insight into how we can make life story work better for young people and how you can use it in your own practice. You can find out more about Creative Life Story Work on our website, creativelifestorywork.com

[00:24:35] And you can find us on LinkedIn and X at CreativeLSW. Please do get in touch there with any comments or questions as we’d love to hear from you. If your podcast app allows you to, please do leave us a review as it really helps others to find our show. So until next month, bye for now.