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Children who suffer physical and emotional abuse are often scarred for life-a fact of which most educators are only too well aware. But the ways those adverse childhood experiences may manifest themselves, and their frequency, are just becoming known.
Researchers and physicians like Nadine Burke-Harris, a San Francisco-based pediatrician, are studying the link between trauma and disease, and seeing connections that have far-reaching implications for schools.
In 2011, Burke-Harris cofounded the Center for Youth Wellness, which provides a holistic approach to improving the health and well-being of children and youth in the Bayview-Hunters Point (CA), neighborhood where poverty and race present particular challenges.
She's not fond of the expression "failing schools," as it places the blame for low achievement on an institution that has little control over the stability of a child's family or its economic condition, known to correlate to student performance. BurkeHarris can see ways, however, that schools can help children cope with stressors in their lives.
For one, look for partnerships with the medical community to support children and their families, she urges, among other strategies she shares in our conversation below. It's an introduction to what she says is the "need to have a really systematic, system-wide approach for helping all kids."
Kristi Garrett (KG): What are some common causes of trauma for schoolchildren?
Nadine Burke-Harris (NBH): There are lots of different types of trauma that are experienced by schoolchildren. These adverse childhood experiences include things like physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect, parental mental illness, parental substance dependence, parental incarceration, and parental separation or divorce. Those are the adverse childhood experiences criteria, or the ACEs criteria, that we have used and have been tracking in my clinical practice. They're based on the Adverse Childhood Experiences study (www.cdc.gov/ ace) that was done at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego.
KG: How common is it for children to have these experiences? It is a growing issue?
NBH: The scope of the issue is huge-it's massive. It's a public health crisis. And it's been a largely unrecognized public health crisis, the link between trauma and health.
To give you an example: In the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, they [Kaiser] found that about 67% of their population had at least one...