Global progress requires three things. A laser-focus on results, measurable targets and ability to find common ground. In the period between the end of the cold war and the global economic crisis, child mortality was halved, primary school attendance doubled and Polio cases reduced by 99%. This accompanied a near-global endorsement of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and UN Development Goals. Such a consensus is always contingent on a shared view of human rights and global development as a Common Good. The aspiration is that this progress must be universal, not selective.
After the global economic crisis, populism soared and health and education results stagnated. A sense of common good gave way to growing inequality and polarisation. Populists tried to shift from a universal view of human rights to a selective one that tied rights to identity. Culture warriors present a unique threat to universal progress. They suck the oxygen from public discourse without providing any improvement in the lives of the people they claim to serve.
Our vulnerability to the pandemic was turbo-boosted by surging inequality. When schools closed in New York city, the poorest 300,000 children did not have access to online learning. Globally 40% of families had no consistent means of hand hygiene. The virus mutated while those in poorer countries who wished to be vaccinated could not be. In rich countries the misinformed fought for air in hospital beds having refused the jab. Vaccine inequality and vaccine refusal are mutually reinforcing pandemic prolongers driven by bad politics.
Despite all of this, it is a moment to be optimistic. There is the knowledge and technology now to end preventable childhood death and disease and dramatically reduce abuse, neglect and harmful practices. It is possible to deliver fairer and more relevant education in countries currently suffering what the World bank has termed a Learning Crisis. With better global collaboration and leadership we could uphold the protection of the one in four children currently living in conflict zones. Equally, it is not a moment to be complacent. Climate change and population growth bring new challenges which require hard work to maintain prior progress and build out from it.
When we think about the leaders we love, they carried themselves with an abiding sense of the common good. They served all constituencies and took responsibility for what they said and the secondary impacts of how it may be interpreted by others. They delivered results by producing policies that may not have been loved by anyone, but which were acceptable to all.
Reimagining a post-pandemic world needs to bring focus back to a universal common good that appeals across constituencies. We need to talk about how nationalism, isolationism and inequality made us vulnerable to the pandemic. To reward politicians for humility, service and delivering progress for the people they serve. Building a better world, based on values of human rights and a common good is more possible now than it has ever been.
It would be impossible to forget Antonio. His abandonment and isolation had been so complete, nobody even knew how old he was. We guessed about 8 or 9. He lay in a cot, lifeless and listless in a dark corner. The lack of animation was the not the outcome of his severe disability and blindness but rather caused by extreme neglect. The institution “housed” around 150 adults and children. It reaked of human waste and human disregard.
My index finger gently brushed against his palm and he gripped it tightly as his face broke into semi-toothless smile. He had lived a life cut adrift from love, attention or even basic human acknowledgment .
Antonio’s story inspired a shared effort by the government of North Macedonia and the UN to end placement of children in large scale institutions. Children like him would be provided with family-based care, connection and stimulation in community settings.
The plan was knocked off script when locals in the town of Timjanik angrily refused a mayor’s request to accommodate some of the children . We went there with the minister to find out why. On arrival, we sustained a three hour volley of abuse and hostility from several hundred protesters. There was violence in the air. People watching this back in the capital on livestream were horrified. Pundits, influencers and activists began lambasting the protesters as primitive, callous and hillbilly.
We listened carefully. Their’s was a small town in decline. It could have been in Oklahoma or South Yorkshire.The townsfolk had previously been dependent on industry and agriculture. For generations their income and opportunities had been on a modest, upward trajectory. But they now feared their children would have a much more precarious future. They had lived with years of unfulfilled promises to fix their roads, improve their schools and provide a pre-school. They longed for someone to give a voice to them, alongside the regular campaigns they heard from human rights activists for migrants, sexual minorities and people with disability. Like Antonio, in their own way they felt abandoned.
But why did these two different forms of deprivation and abandonment compete with each other? Broadly speaking there are three catastrophic burdens in childhood that drive lifelong inequality:
Discrimination or Exclusion based on race, gender or disability for example. It creates barriers that exclude one from opportunities, justice and often the basic safety that others take for granted.
Income Poverty through a lack of the basic means to survive, thrive and access opportunities to reach one’s potential.
Emotional Poverty through the absence of the basic nurturing and protective parental relationships due to violence, neglect or other forms of dysfunctional parenting (also known as childhood adversity). This is often transmitted inter-generationally and unintentionally.
If you look at Black Lives Matter, Hillbilly Ellergy and Good Will Hunting through the lens of identity, they seem so different to each other. When we look at them through the lens of fairness and dignity for all, they seem the same. It sometimes feels like we have forgotten a sense of ourselves as a whole, we are looking for the differences and barriers. This fragmentation polarises us into differing sides in a counter-productive culture war.
People in places like Timjanik perceive human rights champions to be selective in the injustices they seek to address. Those living with rural and town poverty feel both politically and economically abandoned. They are at the fag end of a painful transition from an industrial to a knowledge economy. This transition has concentrated opportunity in large cities at the expense of almost everywhere else. Those same champions scratched their heads as populists have hoovered up support in poor and abandoned communities. Despite their best intentions, they must bear part of the responsibility for the growth in populism and polarisation.
I felt this recently back home when I took a group of young adult care leavers for lunch in London. They had each lived with all of the three catastrophic burdens described above. It is hard to think of a more deprived group in the UK. We walked past a protest march urging us to support the rights of an oppressed minority in a far flung country. The comparatively wealthy looking protesters obviously felt that from our position of privilege we should all support this vulnerable minority oversees and that this was the most important human rights issue of the moment. But whose privilege is it? One of the young people in our group said he could not imagine the same protesters marching for kids in care. To highlight injustice, without acknowledging it is not the only injustice is itself an injustice.
Coming back to the story of Timjanik. The following day at an unrelated press conference in the capital, we were asked by journalists about the events in the town. We were expected to join the public condemnation of the protesters behaviour. Instead we articulated the townsfolk’s grievances and their struggles and explained that we could understand them, though did not agree with them.
Within two hours our inboxes were flowing with warm messages from people in Timjanik. They had not expected that we would actually listen to them and tell their story. They had needed to be acknowledged and heard. To understand that we think they matter too. From a collective refusal to host the small group home just 24 hours prior, it was now back on.
From that moment on, we numerically balanced our public facing advocacy. We gave equal attention to the situation of the overall population and to those living with one or more of the three catastrophic burdens . If we did a public event on exclusion of Roma minority or children with disability one month, we made sure we also had an event on poverty or a population-wide issue like education or health the next. This struck us as fair, just and effective.
A few weeks after the protest, the government agreed a strategy to transfer all children out of large scale institutions through family re-unification, foster care and small group homes. The government named the strategy “Timjanik” in testimony to what we had all learnt from these events.
On October 15th last year, the last remaining children were removed from large scale institutions. The situation may have improved for children in state care in North Macedonia, but there is still so much to do to prevent exclusion, poverty and adversity in the lives of children the world over. We can only do this when everyone finds their place in a shared story of justice and fairness. We need to “re-universalize” our human rights story.
And the children in the story? Antonio is out of the cot, living in a small group home with adequate care and stimulation and for the first time in his life, he is enrolled in school. Today in Timjanik, the locals visit with cakes and play with the children at the small group home. Just ordinary people in an ordinary place with the extraordinary courage to reimagine a better tomorrow in a world that protects all of our dignity.
Amidst the fear and uncertainty of the Covid19 lockdown in China, 26 year old Lele experienced something more terrifying than the virus itself. Her husband fashioned a weapon from a kitchen stool and beat her semi-conscious as she held her 11 month old baby in her arms. There was nowhere to go, no services to support, no possibility to flee. She had to spend several more weeks with her abuser before she could reach safety.
On the other side of the world in Greenland, the capital city banned alcohol sales to prevent growing child abuse during lockdown. In India the were 92,000 calls to a child abuse helpline in the first 11 days of lockdown. France experienced a 34% increase in abuse helpline calls by children and an even bigger increase in the number of peers and school mates calling on behalf of friends. . As closed schools and stay at home orders spread, so did the risk of abuse.This pattern played out across the world, in three ways:
The first is the way that lockdown piles pressure on households . Even the calmest, securely attached and ‘child development-aware’ parents are being tested by ‘pandemic-parenting’. Often they are working in uncertain jobs while teaching ‘cabin fever kids’ while adapting to loss of space and privacy. But most will not suddenly become abusive or neglectful. In more volatile families however, this stress can spill over into violence or exacerbate existing abuse patterns. The biggest beneficiaries of #StayAtHome are the serial abusers who practice coercive control and other forms of psychological aggression. the lockdown increase the likelihood of adverse childhood experiences.
Secondly, the means of reporting severe child abuse or neglect have been dramatically reduced. According to the US Department of Health & Human Services child protection interventions are initiated by reports from teachers, social workers or nurses. Social distancing measures have reduced reporting. From the 1980s onwards increased reporting of family violence was a major mark of success and progress in protecting the rights of women and children. Momentarily, reporting is in decline.
The third issue, is complex but equally serious. In normal circumstances less than 1 or 2 % of children are subject to interventions by social workers. Yet Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) research across populations suggests between 15 and 20% of children are affected by chronic, multiple forms of abuse, neglect or dysfunctional parenting at home. This 15 to 20% of children are now in a state of isolation. Children have a biological imperative to have protective, soothing relationships with an adult and are simply not built to be isolated. When a positive relationship at home is absent, the child interprets it at risk. It over-activates their stress response system which wreaks havoc on all aspects of healthy development. Unaddressed it can lead to catastrophic health and wellbeing outcomes throughout life. But when the stress is buffered and soothed by a healthy relationship with a teacher, grandparent or friend and the child is made to feel they matter on an individual level-then the recovery can begin. Right now around the world, hundreds of millions of children have been cut off from those relationships.
This is deeply distressing. Accounts of childhood maltreatment often recall a despairing loneliness and unbearable slowness. Loneliness when the parent who should soothe the pain, is actually the source of that pain. Slowness during long pauses of waiting for a violent outburst or scarce moments of maybe feeling loved. The isolation of the pandemic amplifies this pain exponentially. It is malleable with no end in sight. Relationships with teachers, grandparents and friends were cut off suddenly with no date for restoration.
We need to act with urgency on all three issues. Governments and communities could appoint ministers or local leaders to coordinate child wellbeing during lockdown. A priority must be engagement with parents on managing stress, home schooling and positive discipline, tailored to lockdown conditions. Online and media platforms could be adapted to facilitate a conversation with families and disseminate pandemic-specific parenting tips, similar to the global UNICEF parenting hub. Social protection and housing support must be adapted to reduce the stress on vulnerable families. Behavioural insights and technology innovations should be used to understand how we can best support parents and protect children.
Expanded helplines and channels that enable neighbours and friends to report maltreatment anonymously need to be provided . Equally we need to encourage extended family and friends to maintain regular communication with children in lockdown with abusive or neglectful parents. One of the most moving stories of the pandemic so far is the upsurge in calls by friends of victims reporting maltreatment in France.
Innovation and adaptation could help teachers and social workers restore normal levels of communication with children, despite lockdown. If they are not giving lessons, can they call each child for five minutes? These measures need to be population-wide and not just targeted to 1-2% of children who are child protection cases.
Decades ago, it became normal to ensure every child was immunised against deadly disease with a vaccine. In the future we could hope for a world were every child is buffeted from trauma by a calm and predictable adult connection. A world in which we improve prospects for parenting in every family at the earliest possible stage and maltreatment is managed and prevented as a part of routine public health . All we can do now is demand protection for Lele, her baby and millions of abused children and women locked down, unreported and isolated around the world as part of our immediate and shared struggle to defeat Covid19
A month of Pandemic measures and I already wince at a handshake or touched face on Netflix. Just yesterday, New York was bustling, packed and confident. Now it is cautious, dispersed and masked. If our relationship with the world around us has been instantly transformed, what about the impact upon children in their formative years?
It may be the single blessing of this ruthless pandemic that children are least vulnerable to the virus. But sadly not the potentially deadly ricochets and aftershocks it leaves in its wake. This week the UN Secretary General reported that health and food system impacts will increase other childhood diseases and malnutrition. The number of children living in extreme poverty is projected to increase from 386 to as much as 450 million as a direct result of a new Covid19-induced economic crisis. Extreme poverty is always a killer and likely to take more children than the virus itself. Perhaps reversing 2-3 years of global progress on preventable childhood deaths.
There is barely a child on the planet whose life has not been affected by the Pandemic in some way. 1.5 billion are at home and not school. At least tens of millions of children will be born into this crisis, mostly in conditions that would have been different if it weren’t for the pandemic. Children cannot see their friends and suffer major disruptions to learning, life and play. Sports tournaments, excursions and hackathons all shelved, teenage romance on hold. A recent study suggested that prolonged quarantine in general can make a person 4 times more likely to have poor mental health. The pandemic shocks touch all children .
Fortunately many children have the shock absorbers of a safe home, loving family and freedom from poverty, social exclusion or war. If just one from the set is missing, the impact of the pandemic is likely to be deeper and life-changing. There is now a new single thread of additional vulnerability tying together children in tightly packed slums in African cities with those in camps in Syria and Yemen. It extends to the low income children in rich countries like the UK and US and those at risk of severe acute malnutrition in the poorest countries. It also hits the approximately 5% of the world’s children with disability and the 15-20% in seriously dysfunctional, neglectful and violent homes. This pandemic has been merciless in piling more pressure on to those least able to absorb it.
The bottom billion have no means for social distancing or hand washing. Their health systems often have just a few ventilators and Intensive care beds. They are not thinking of flattening the curve, but rather a couple of dozen cases flattening their entire health system. Prevention of other childhood diseases is already disrupted, including vaccination programmes on hold in 23 countries. 30 million conflict affected children are dependent on humanitarian assistance which is likely to be battered as supply chains buckle and aid financing and fiscal space contract. 40% of the world’s children don’t even have hand washing facilities.
Remote learning is a great solution for most children, but even here in New York city it is estimated that 300,000 low income children don’t have the digital means to participate. School closures will widen the two main learning gaps. The first between countries with high performing education systems who have the agility and means to switch and those countries which cannot run their education system effectively at the best of times. The second gap is between the learning outcomes of wealthy and poor children within countries. 368.5 million of those poor children have also been cut off from essential school feeding programmes which are often the only source of nutrition. Children in need of special learning support at school or dependent on relationships with teachers and friends to mitigate the pain of violent and neglectful homes are suddenly adrift. All against a rising backdrop of increased reporting of intimate partner violence and child abuse from India to Greenland to Australia and all points in between.
If the Coronavirus was a pantomime villain waiting behind a curtain for an opportune moment to pounce, it did so with precision. Thus far, dwindling internationalism has made us too weak to address the Pandemic in the whole. But you cannot partially address a pandemic. Even during the Cold War, the USSR and the West realized this and joined forces to end smallpox. And thats what our polarised world needs to do now. If everyone is not safe, no-one is safe. The virus shows our interdependence and in the end, maybe thats its virtue.
This is not insurmountable. WHO, UNICEF, the Red Cross, scientists and artists have joined forces in the Solidarity Fund to mobilise resources for a vaccine and for prevention and response work in low and middle income countries. Scientists shared the genetic sequencing on the virus very early on and are collaborating across borders despite nationally-minded governments. There is also a global initiative to galvanise leaders into more collaborative and internationally-minded policy-making in response to the pandemic.
We have also seen national governments and societies prioritise children. 83 countries have adapted their social protection systems to help shield poor families and children from the crisis. Health, education and social work systems have often adapted to maintain basic services. Armies of school and health volunteers are helping minimise the impact of the pandemic upon children.
We should now see maintaining supply chains, aid flows and health systems in poor and humanitarian contexts as a first line response for us all, even though it seems far away. Look how far the virus has already travelled. We may also need to invest in social protection to help the bottom billion socially distance, particularly those in densely packed and poorly resourced urban slum and refugee/migrant camps.
In wealthy and poorer countries alike we should support adaptions for teachers and social workers to have exactly the same amount of contact with children as they had before the crisis and for school feeding programmes to be delivered to homes. When adapting education we need to prevent remote learning widening the gap between wealthy and poor.
Albert Camus may have appreciated the importance of teacher contact and continued learning. In 1957 he dedicated his Nobel Prize for literature to the teacher who was there for him in the midst of poverty and adversity. His masterpiece The Plague is once again a bestseller and remains a testimony to our interdependence and collective strength in the face of this crisis. In it, he wrote: “No longer were there individual destinies, only a collective destiny, made of the disease and emotions shared by all.” .
Its progress we rarely acknowledge. Today across the world, in savannah and steppe and in city and village, most children will go to school. A few decades ago, this was a pipe dream. Access to education is a hard-fought human right which makes our world a better place. It is an accelerator for every other form of progress in any society. For example, half of the global reduction in child mortality over the past 20 years is attributable to the first generation of mothers in many poor countries receiving an education. A third of the world’s poorest girls continue to be out of school with huge societal costs. In total, 9% of the world’s children still don’t go to school. By 2030 we must achieve the goal of basic access to universal education.
Now the global discourse is expanding from access to quality and relevance of what children learn. From this lens, global education is in a learning crisis. 53% of children in low and middle income countries cannot read a basic text by the time they are 10. This is a benchmark described by the World Bank as learning poverty. Education spending has increased in many low and middle countries. Yet it is not directed towards the poorest children who need it the most. In low income countries, almost half of education budgets go to the wealthiest 10%. Against a background of fast-paced technological change in the labour market, poorer children will be left behind.
We now know that brain development is most prolific before the age of 5. Primary and secondary school are hugely important, but not the most impactful institutions for social, emotional and cognitive development of the child. The family in infancy and then pre-school from 3-6 years of age yield the most influence on learning and life outcomes. Yet, the poorest families have little guidance on early stimulation and brain development. Research has shown that 3 year olds from families on welfare hear around 600 words an hour. Those from professional families hear over 2000. This gap in language acquisition is an indicator of huge inequality even before the child enters pre-school.
Such early disparity could most obviously be addressed by a pre-school education starting at 3, as the child’s brain continues to develop rapidly. But in many countries most poor children just do not go to pre-school. The gap in pre-school access between the wealthiest 20% and poorest 20% is vast. The OECD Pisa survey shows that much later at 15 you can see the outcome of this early inequality. 15 year olds who attended pre-school are on average between one and two years ahead in maths science and language. Together, these early disparities drive an intergenerational cycle of poverty. This harms the individual child, exacerbates inequity and undermines economic and social development.
Even many well-resourced primary and secondary education systems in wealthy countries struggle to keep pace in a changing world. Education reform is never a progression from one static position to another. It is an evolution constantly informed by two streams of change. The first is the changing labour markets and civic culture Education should prepare citizens contribute and gain from progress and prosperity. The second is our growing knowledge of brain development and how children learn. Systems creak and move slowly, and despite the amazing dedication of most teachers, schools are behind the curve on both counts.
All research shows the one thing that drives good education outcomes is the performance of teachers. Yet stakeholders including unions, parents and parliamentarians often focus on structural issues like class size or teaching hours rather than teaching itself. Children learn from teachers they love and who inspire a passion for their curiosity. The 20% of children affected by multiple traumas at home cannot learn at all unless the teacher provides a sense of safety, calm and belonging.
Most countries do not have a system to recruit high calibre teachers, keep them motivated and developing in step with a changing world. Many spend less than 1 % of their education budgets on in-service development. They are teaching for a moving target. A glance at todays vacancy pages shows jobs that did not exist when I started school millions of years ago. Teachers should be preparing children for jobs that don’t exist yet, and for working lives with much greater change than we have known before. Teachers need to shift from teaching kids stuff to teaching them how to think and create stuff. Children also need to learn how to learn and to be inspired to keep learning throughout the life course. For good citizenship they need media literacy too. Many countries are not adequately making these obvious changes happen. Pink Floyd railed against authoritarian teachers in the 70s. Today the threat is “authority-less” teachers with kids checking their smart phones in class to see if what the teacher is saying is up to date.
No public service institution can keep up with the pace of start-ups and tech. No country can address the learning crisis without engagement of the private sector. No private sector can flourish without a properly equipped workforce. Each needs each other, yet there is so little collaboration between them.
Both our evolving knowledge of adolescent brain development and of the labour market lead us to the same conclusion. The most relevant and rewarding way for a teenager to learn is through collaboration with peers in developing a creative solution to a problem. Yet most classrooms do not and cannot practice this.
Rutger Bremen questioned the mantra about educating children to find their place in the labour market of tomorrow. Instead he argued we should educate children to create the kind of labour market and society we would like them to live in. School informs character development, whether we intend it to or not. Inclusive moral and civic learning is a prerequisite for individual and societal flourishing. The UK-based Jubilee Centre has developed a framework for teaching integrity, respect, neighbourliness alongside core performance and intellectual competencies. The framework is being adopted in UK schools, and adapted oversees.
To address the global learning crisis we need to make sure that children are ready for three big transitions. The first is school readiness at 5 or 6. This requires narrowing the gap in early learning. All parents should receive knowledge of early stimulation through pre-existing primary health networks, at the same time they learn about vaccines and nutrition. We should pursue universal access to pre-school for 3-6 year olds as we have pursued access to primary and secondary education. Governments should invest at least 10% of their education budgets in early learning. They should also end the huge wealth disparity in pre-school attendance.
The second transition is at age 10. We need to eradicate learning poverty by ensuring that all children can read a basic text at 10. More than anything else, this will depend on the quality of teaching. We need behavioural science innovations to keep teachers motivated and systems where teaching practice can be informed by the evolving science of learning. Schools need to be trauma-informed so children affected by family or humanitarian trauma can be soothed, feel safe and make the important connections required to enable learning. Inclusion and gender-responsive school systems are also essential to end learning poverty.
The third transition is at 16 or 18 to work, training or higher education. This is about the relevance of education to both the labour marker and citizenship. We need a global commitment for teaching competencies, collaboration and character in an age of AI and fast-paced technological change..The public sector cannot achieve this alone and needs innovative financing and constructive technical collaboration with the private sector. As has happened in Finland, the teaching workforce needs to become an agile community of practice. This would enable it to adjust and develop teaching based on what it sees in the classroom and in the outside world. Creativity and collaboration needs to be at the heart of teaching.
Wherever we are, in addressing the learning crisis, our aspirations must be high. On the one hand we should work toward a world in which our children and then their children have a quality of life that is better than the one we had. On the other to ensure that they shape a society that is even fairer, kinder and a better place to live. Only a radical rethink of global education will help us get there. We owe our children nothing less.
Preventing Organised Crime and Other Exploitation Groups Preying on Vulnerable Children
Violent extremists, gangsters and groomers have a simple recruitment strategy. They network trauma. They can spot a vulnerable teenager from 1000 yards. It can be easy to pull them in by sating a desire for belonging or through initial kindness. But the intention eventually is always exploitation.
An Irish security expert once shared three observations about the Northern Ireland conflict. Firstly that at any given moment during the conflict, there were only ever a few dozen people who could actually kill someone. Secondly that they usually came from traumatic homes with fathers who had also killed. He concluded that it seemed political extremists and organised criminals knew exactly how to identify and recruit such people. I have seen similar recruitment strategies in lawless or conflict-affected countries from Afghanistan to Bosnia. It always has devastating consequences.
It’s not black and white. There are economic and structural determinants of violence too. Most people affected by childhood trauma do not turn to crime or violence. But the world is waking up to the impact of childhood trauma as a driver of recurring violence. It occurs in cycles. Data from Wales show that adults affected by chronic childhood trauma were respectively 14, 15 and 16 times more likely to be a victim or perpetrator of violence or use crack cocaine than others. Data on consequences of chronic childhood trauma is similar across continents
There is an underpinning neurobiology to this cycle. Children are dependent on a strong attachment with a parent. If the attachment is absent due to neglect or violence, a child will see it as a serious threat. That threat chronically activates the stress response system. It distorts the way they perceive danger, they way they see themselves as well as their attachments to others. If families, schools or communities cannot provide soothing connections to heal the trauma, the child enters adolescence and adulthood with unresolved chronic trauma. This leaves them extremely vulnerable to exploitation and with limited prospects for learning or finding a lifeline to a better future.
All of this leads to an obvious question for anyone reading this blog. In my neighbourhood are there more forces trying to exploit or trying to prevent the inter-generational cycle of violence? Prevention services, usually delivered through the health system help new parents develop a secure attachment with their child. That attachment is the best weapon against neglect and violence. it can help heal the parent at the same time as protecting the child. In an ideal world these services would be provided globally. As noted elsewhere this type of prevention provides the greatest return on investment for the public purse. No other intervention does more to prevent poor life outcomes including in mental and physical health, crime and productivity.
Response services provide a second chance to children who have already been traumatised. In Trauma-informed schools for example, the teacher creates a calming environment and a caring connection. This ensures every child in school is safe, seen, secure….and most importantly soothed. The four Ss feature in the excellent “The Whole Brained Child” by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. In a Trauma-informed school, the teacher makes the child feel they matter as an individual. Many who come from traumatic childhoods have been rescued by a teacher who did exactly that. Positive relationships and connections build resilience that help teenagers navigate away from poor decisions that bring bad life outcomes. And if a child is approached by a Fagin type exploitation group, they feel they can tell the teacher
A second important question is what is being done in my neighbourhood to prevent the cynical “networking of trauma” by exploitation groups.
Both in the UK and the US, Trauma-informed practice is also being adapted to policing and justice sectors. One of my favourite champions of this is Detective Superintendent Stan Gilmore of Thames Valley Police in the UK. He observed those arrested for “County-Lines” drug trafficking were almost always in their mid teens. He started to see them as much as exploited and vulnerable youngsters as offenders . Instead of pursuing a custodial sentence, the emphasis was placed upon diversion from a potential life-cycle of crime. This included curfews and supervision orders that stopped the gangsters reaching the child . It cut off their source. It also referred the child to services to help address the underlying trauma. The whole approach switches the question to the child from “What did you do?” to “What happened to you?
To me this is intelligent and effective policing. It recognises that the foundations of organised crime are built on networking trauma and vulnerability and if you prevent that networking, you can break the cycle. Childhood trauma is not an excuse for crime, but to effectively reduce crime we need to be trauma-informed.
Just imagine how societies would flourish if we not only prevented the networking of trauma by exploitation groups, but also prevented or mitigated the trauma itself. We now have enough evidence and knowledge to work towards this goal. We just need the political will and the resources
Parenting, education & environment in childhood drive wellbeing in adulthood everywhere. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) including 1o different types of neglect, violence and dysfunctional parenting in the home during childhood, harm the economic, social & democratic development of any society.[1]
Recently global development collaboration efforts have expanded beyond the visible challenges of disease, hunger & illiteracy to also tackle the less visible emotional, social & psychological barriers to human development. The current UN sustainable development goals call for an end to all forms of violence in the lives of children everywhere by 2030.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are much more prevalent than policy makers previously imagined and are distributed within a similar range across continents, classes and races. They include emotional, physical or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect & chaos at home including domestic violence, mental health, addiction & crime .
There are ACE or similar Violence Against Children (VAC) surveys from at least 33 countries and 32 US States. These included the UK[2],, Canada[3], China[4], Russia[5], Brazil[6], Poland [7]and countries in Africa[8]and Asia[9][10].
Looking at the data from 11 European, 12 African, 6 Asian, the US, Brazil and Canada (the 1st, 2ndand 5thmost populous countries of the Americas) and the Solomon Islands, the first thing that is striking is the similarity in prevalence of ACEs. On average about 60% of adult populations have experienced 1 ACE. Some countries such as Brazil and Russia are closer to 80% and some such as the Wales and Serbia are closer to 50%. But almost all countries fall somewhere between 50 and 80%, most hovering around the 60% mark, Similarly the prevalence of 4 or more ACEs is on average around 15%, though some countries have less than 10% such as the Czech Republic and some have more than 20% such as Vietnam.
This is a relatively new form of research and relying on subjective responses to a questionnaire. ACE research in the US shows little difference in prevalence of 1 ACE in social class or ethnic groups. However, a link between prevalence and poverty is clear when it comes to 4 or more ACEs.[11]
When we think about violence against children in the family often the first policy intervention we think of is a targeted social work response. But lets think again. . In a country like Wales, the prevalence rate for 1 ACE is 50%, the prevalence rate for 4 ACEs is 14%, yet the total number of children who are subject to targeted social work intervention for example on a register or in care, it is 1%[12]. To achieve the UN global target to end violence-we need to massively expand universal efforts through prevention & mitigation through health, education and policing working alongside social work.
There is no one reading this blog whose life is not affected by ACEs in some way. ACEs don’t just affect individuals, they affect societies
We know this because where ACE studies have been undertaken they always show a dose response correlation between the number of ACEs you have experienced and poor outcomes in almost every single wellbeing indicator in health, education, crime violence, mental health, addiction and much much more. throughout the entire life cycle
Perhaps the starkest illustration of the inter-generational transmission of violence, criminality and addiction is in the graph below from a 2015 study from Public Health Wales in collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University highlighted a high correlation between adults who experiences four or more ACEs and negative life outcomes[14]:
Compared with people with no ACEs, those with 4+ ACEs are:
4 times more likely to be a high-risk drinker
6 times more likely to have had or caused unintended teenage pregnancy
6 times more likely to smoke e-cigarettes or tobacco
6 times more likely to have had sex under the age of 16 years
11 times more likely to have smoked cannabis
14 times more likely to have been a victim of violence over the last 12 months
15 times more likely to have committed violence against another person in the last 12 months
16 times more likely to have used crack cocaine or heroin
20 times more likely to have been incarcerated at any point in their lifetime
The Wales data also show a much higher likelihood of becoming a victim of violence if you have higher ACEs. Recent work in England has revealed that grooming gangs have a tendency to go after young women with low self-esteem and what psychologists call “ambivalent attachment” as an outcome of inconsistent, neglectful and chaotic parenting in childhood.
The Welsh data is similar to what we see across societies globally. Health departments across US states reveal a similar dose-response correlation between higher aces and worse outcomes in health, wellbeing and decision making with regard to 40 different indicators[15]. The indicators include health outcomes but also behaviours related to addiction, criminality, mental health and unemployment.
Research from China shows a similarly graded link between ACEs and likelihood of alcohol abuse.[16]While ACE studies from Malawi[17] and the Solomon Islands [18]showed a similar graded link between risky behaviours, such as multiple sexual partners and high ACE scores.
Psychiatric evaluations of 1000 detainees at Cook County Juvenile Detention facility in Illinois revealed that 84% of offenders had experienced two or more ACEs and that the majority of offenders had experienced 6 forms of childhood trauma. [19]In a recent study in North Macedonia on ISIS recruitment all teachers, without exception, cited lack of parental care as a major factor for driving children toward radical extremism.[20]
Amongst children in school, if we take ACE data from WHO across Eastern and Central Europe and OECD data from the Pisa study, there is evidence of a correlation between higher than average ACEs and higher rates of school violence[21]. Coupled with the data from Wales showing a link between high ACEs and criminal and violent behaviour, this adds to a growing body of research showing the clear link between family and societal violence and criminal behaviour.
The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) suggest that periods of prolonged stress without respite in the home result in “toxic stress” or chronic activation of the stress response system[22]. Research shows that it is not just violence and chaos that creates toxic stress but also emotional coldness from the parent. This is because children are biologically programmed to seek strong bonds and attachments from birth for love and stimulation, but also for protection. As a species we are extremely dependent on parents for protection in early childhood. When the emotional attachment is absent, children see it is a threat and it activates the stress response system. This was also a finding of the prior research on attachment in psychology which revealed that while neglected children often stop showing outward signs of emotional need, their heart rate and cortisol levels are high [23]
Toxic stress derails normal development of all major systems of the fragile and evolving body and brain of the child. The impact affects the neurological, cardiovascular, immune and endocrinology systems and the way that genes are expressed. One of the impacts of toxic stress is that the body and brained is flooded with the stress hormone cortisol. Research showed that children who had been adopted in Canada but had spent their first year in a state of extreme neglect in children’s homes eastern Europe had much higher levels of cortisol than those who had been adopted earlier or who lived with their biological parents. This despite the fact that the high-cortisol children had spent most of their life in a secure adopted family.
Toxic stress also over-activates the amygdala region of the brain and the human fight or flight response and de-activates the executive function, impulse control and learning capacity of the brain. Children with high ACEs are likely to have problems with concentration, self-soothing and remaining calm and concentrated in the classroom. They are also likely to over-estimate the presence of danger and therefore are more prone to over react and make poor choices in the face of challenges such as perceived “disrespect” from peers or even adults.
This is particularly true during adolescent brain development-when personality and values begin to take shape and underpin individual identity, but also when there is a mismatch between mature impulse response and immature impulse control systems. All of this leads to poorer education outcomes and higher likelihood of
The UK Police are increasingly using ACEs to understand and prevent criminal behaviour such as drugs trafficking across country lines or urban knife crime.[24]It is widely assessed that criminal gangs or violent radical organisations on the one hand, and organised groomers and human-traffickers on the other-prey on young people from high ACE backgrounds. Knowing that there is a neurobiological pathway for high propensity for being a perpetrator or victim of violent crime has led to new levels of collaboration across police, health, social work and education sectors.
Some of the solutions to child trauma, adversity & violence are now known
The first is primary prevention. Nursing visiting where the nurse can demonstrate secure attachment behaviours and positive parenting strategies can halt intergenerational transmission at the moment when the relationship and the parenting style if being formed. The importance of the parent practising the behaviours with the support and guidance of the nurse is crucial. Often for new parents with high ACEs , for example for young women from state care backgrounds, having children in a supportive environment is the breakthrough which enables the parent to strengthen their attachment capability, self-soothe and overcome their own high ACEs background. This is important because the first step to preventing intergenerational transmission of ACEs is ensuring that the parent is okay, calm and without anxiety Through longitudinal studies in Jamaica and the United States, Nobel prize winning economist Professor James Heckman demonstrated improved productivity, more health-seeking behaviour and reduced criminality amongst young adults who had received home visits decades earlier as babies yielded up to a $ 17 return for every public dollar invested, and that this was the biggest return on public investment that any government can make. [26] This correlates with research done by the Overseas Development Institute which conservatively suggests that 8% of global GDP is lost through the long term costs of violence against children.[27]
The World Bank, UNICEF & WHO now cite the Heckman research to advocate for governments to create fiscal space for investment in perinatal care, parenting and also pre-school for three to six year olds. The pre-school component is also important in combatting ACEs because the absence of stimulation and presence of toxic stress at home in early childhood derails language acquisition and other key learning and concentration attributes which cannot be caught up later and further diminish the prospects of progressing through school thus exacerbating the negative impact of ACEs on human flourishing. Universal pre-school is crucial to mitigate the long-term impacts of ACEs.
The second policy intervention is building resilience. Studies from child survivors of the holocaust to present-day conflicts and ACE-based research has pinpointed resilience as the main antidote to toxic stress or chronic trauma[28]. Resilience in childhood is about having “development assets which mitigate the impact of toxic on the brain and body. While the 2015 Welsh study had a dose response correlation between ACEs and poor life outcomes, it also had a dose response correlation of children with ACEs “bouncing back” from trauma if development assets were in place.[29]
There are many environmental factors, a lot of research of childhood survivors from the holocaust for example pinpoints ability to form and maintain relationships as a key determinant. Having at least one positive relationship is perhaps the one determinant of resilience across all research[30]. Other key aspects of resilience are things like belonging, purpose and a capacity to self-soothe. It has often been noted that children in state care or other high ACE situations are more likely to do better in life if they engage in sports. There are generations of bar stool pundits who have suggested that this is because such young people have had a chance to “channel their aggression positively” however through the research on resilience we probably now know that the positive correlation with sports and overcoming adversity is rather about positive relationships, belonging and purpose. Another myth that the resilience research bursts is the concept of the resilient individual overcoming adversity through sheer, individual perseverance. In reality where resilience occurs, it is normally because of relationships, not the rugged individual operating by themselves.
A good policy target for governments wishing to promote human flourishing would be to ensure that every child has at least one positive relationship with an adult in their lives. Sometimes this may need to be a teacher, a sports coach or social worker if the family is not able to provide such a relationship. The approach of trauma informed schools in which children are able to regulate, relate & reason…in order words calm down the stress response system, have a deep connection with a teacher and then begin to learn…are increasing being mainstreamed in education sector reform.
For the first time in history, the sustainable development goals provide policy space to make parenting, resilience and violence prevention systems available globally by 2030. To maximise this opportunity, we need to build a global movement that can harness this knowledge into action everywhere and create common understanding across societies whilst maintaining the flexibility to graft these interventions on to local cultures and value systems. Through this approach we can create a world in which all children can have the optimum opportunity to grow free from trauma and thrive in societies which flourish.
[11] Gilbert et al. 2010 Childhood Adversity and Adult Chronic Disease: An Update from Ten States and the District of Columbia. American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 48(3): 345-349
[19]Karen M./ Abram et al North Western University Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Youth in Juvenile Detention Archives of general Psychiatry 61 April 2004
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