Warning over childhood trauma follow ups

Routinely screening people who come into contact with police for the impact of childhood trauma could be potentially harmful, a study has found.

Dr Michelle McManus. Picture: Lancashire Police

There is growing interest in the subject of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), with research suggesting those who suffer multiple forms of trauma as children are many times more likely to commit violence or go to prison as adults.

The Scottish Government has begun the routine gathering of childhood trauma data as part of an ongoing pilot scheme, while Police Scotland has trained some of its officers to understand the impact of so-called “toxic stress” caused by ACEs.

There are ten commonly used ACEs, including emotional or physical neglect; emotional, physical or sexual abuse; divorce; domestic violence and living in a household where there is drug or alcohol abuse.

But an academic study published in the Police Journal warns there is a lack of reliable evidence about the benefits and potential harms of using questionnaires to count up the number of ACEs to work out an individual’s “ACE score”.

The report states: “The advantages and enthusiasm around ACEs offer great opportunities to drive the prevention, early intervention and trauma-informed agendas.

“However, there are valid concerns about the limited research base being misunderstood and yet translated into practice. Whilst a questionnaire or screening tool might improve a police officer’s confidence to raise the question ‘what’s happened to you?’, there is a dearth of reliable evidence about the validity of ACE questionnaires, their benefits and most importantly their potential harms.”

Dr Michelle McManus, the national research lead for public health and policing at Public Health Wales and one of the report’s authors, said giving police officers or other professionals a checklist would be a “horrifically bad” idea.

She said: “The experience of ACEs is complex, therefore a simple tick is never going to suffice. For some of these people, it takes years and years to understand their own ACEs, so for people on the frontline to be able in a moment to make an assessment and then any decisions that go from that, it’s dangerous.”

She added: “We can’t become wedded to this. A checklist is a horrifically bad idea to be using.”

While few deny that childhood trauma can have a profound and long-lasting impact, there is growing controversy over the adoption of the ACEs agenda, which some experts argue fails to take account of socio-economic conditions and can unfairly stigmatise children.

Child protection experts have raised concerns the Scottish Government’s collection of ACEs data using “routine inquiry” – where health or social work staff ask adults questions about their experience of childhood trauma – could lead to increasing numbers of families being identified with only depleted services in place to provide support.