Do the Academy Awards Point to an Awakening on Adversity?

I am unbearable company during the Oscars. Like most US-based Brits I can’t help but do football stadium style cheering every time someone from the UK wins anything. Worse still I can’t watch films like Judy or Rocketman without analysing the”underlying messages” on insecure attachment. Nor can I enjoy The Joker, Harriet or Honeyland without giving a droning commentary on how toxic stress ruins lives. The invitations are drying up.

In case you are not clued up on the lingo: Insecure attachment is the term used to describe how poor early parental attachment undermines our ability to form healthy and nourishing relationships . Toxic stress is when prolonged childhood trauma chronically activates our stress response systems. Robust recent research now shows how people with either do worse in education, employment, physical and mental health and inter-personal relations throughout life.

From a rough estimate, about a quarter of 2020 Oscar nominee productions feature a story line with the following formula: Child trauma minus healing/soothing relationships = train wreck adulthoods. Does the proliferation of these story lines in films mean our recognition of the link between early trauma and poor life outcomes ? It is not just happening in Hollywood. In the sober UK BBC Question Time a couple of weeks ago. Decorated former Police Chief Mike Barton told a studio audience that we can only reverse the London drug and crime problem if we address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Research in the USA shows how media coverage on the theme has dramatically increased in recent years.

Our shared narratives should never be deterministic about the pathway from childhood trauma to adult dysfunction. Sometimes those with high childhood adversity flourish. But the most recent evidence suggests those with higher levels of trauma are much more likely to have poorer life outcomes. As Mike Barton may concur, they are the ones most likely to be targeted by criminals, groomers and radicalisers alike. As the US Centre for Disease Control has shown, they are also do much worse on almost every health and wellbeing indicator. The costs are huge and quantifiable. The UK Based Overseas Development Institute modestly estimated that violence against children alone (excluding the devastating global costs of child neglect) cost 8% of GDP. Conversely Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman argues that if we invest in prevention in the very beginning of childhood-the return on investment through life is up to 13-fold.

Film scripts don’t always end with trauma. They can also inspire us with recovery and resilience. Gus van Sant’s Good Will Hunting had nine Oscar nominations and won two and is one of America’s most popular films. It is perhaps the most compelling cinematic representation of how a young adult overcomes debilitating childhood trauma through connection with an empathetic witness . When the film was made, recovery through connection was only a common sense proposition. Now that proposition is firmly backed up by science base. Human connection and a sense of belonging in family, school or community provides a buffer against toxic stress. It calms the stress response system and helps rebuild the attachment model. It enables the child to build the resilience to navigate future shocks and see a lifeline to a better future. We call this science of resilience.

The opposite of Good Will Hunting’s story of recovery is the inter-generational emotional neglect suffered and transmitted by Elton John’s father in RocketMan. Deep in middle age he sings: “I can’t love, shot full of holes, I don’t feel nothing, I just feel cold“. At the extreme end of this spectrum is the character played by Joachim Pheonix in The Joker. Severe childhood trauma with no empathetic witness on the path to adulthood is costly for the individual, their family and society as a whole.

Film and literature critics often tell us that fine writing gives a tangible narrative to feelings the viewer or reader has, but could never put into words. The research shows that between 50 and 80% of any given population have experienced one ACE and between 10 and 20% have experienced 4 or more. Everyone, everywhere is affected by childhood adversity. We don’t talk about it easily. We could assume it has been taboo for most of human history. But if we are not affected by it directly, our spouse, neighbour or colleague is. It is often manifested in their decisions and behaviour. It’s why we identify so much with these stories. It’s one of the reasons Good Will Hunting is held in such affection and why so much of our popular culture alludes to this theme. This is our story. Our broken childhoods and our struggle to overcome them are a central theme of human existence and spirit. But a marginal theme within our national and international conversations. Could that be changing?

From an advocacy perspective I hope so. More public openness to the theme could drive the political will and public demand needed. A good public policy start would be investment in 3 things. Trauma prevention though early parent outreach and support. Recovery and resilience through trauma-informed communities and schools. Open and taboo-busting public discussion on adverse childhood experiences. These interventions could close the costly gap between what we know and the policies we do. Imagine how much trouble could have been prevented if Gotham City had had better childhood policies. In Pinner and Philadelphia too.

And that brings us back to Elton and his Oscar nominated recovery anthem: “Find the wind to fill my sails, Rise above the broken rails, Unbound by any ties that break or bend, I’m gonna love me again” How rich our world would be with an opportunity for everyone to rise above those broken rails.

The Networking of Trauma

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

“What You Have Been and Still are for Me”

The Power of Teaching

I have a favourite teacher story and it goes like this. As a child, Albert Camus was asked by his impoverished single mother to quit school and start work. Camus’s teacher visited the family home and convinced her to let young Albert continue his education. The teacher’s name was Louis Germain.

Albert Camus went on to become one of the 20th centuries most important novelists. Many decades after leaving school and upon being awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature, Albert Camus wrote a letter to Mr Germain entitled “What You Have Been and Still are for Me”. He wrote “Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened.”

How many of us have life journeys that are profoundly enriched and transformed by the hand of a teacher? Sometimes as children we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders through poverty, abuse or neglect. In all of that fragility and wrenching pain, it often takes a teacher to make us believe we matter and to unlock the opportunities to exercise curiosity, collaboration and cultivate character

Two thirds of us have had teachers who made a difference in our lives, according to research from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Yet the research also shows that these teachers are outliers in their own school settings. Even the university professors who produce the most impactful teachers are outliers in their faculties. Our education systems do not incentivise modern-day Mr Germains at all

The research now shows what common sense should have always told us. children only learn from teachers they love. We once saw reasoning as being the opposite to emotion, but neuroscience tells us something different. It is only through a deep network of relationships, belonging and collaboration in school and life that we can have an ecosystem for learning. To motivate and organise ourselves for learning, we have to engage the emotions. Emotions are not compartmentalised in a different part of our brain while we deploy rationality and reason to absorb facts.

In any given classroom of 25 children, at least 4 or 5 may experience multiple forms of severe trauma at home. Such trauma chronically activates their stress response system. This doesn’t switch off when they enter the classroom. An attuned teacher in a trauma-informed classroom can soothe the stress response system. They can help the child to learn, trust, connect and build resilience and attachment. And here is where the healing, and therefore the ability to learn, begins. Trauma-informed schooling is potentially one of the most impactful strategies for reducing child trauma in general.

A few years ago attended a lecture by Harvard Professor Tony Wagner on outlier teachers who help kids recover from a broken start . It inspired me to track down a teacher who had transformed my life. At 15 I lived in state care in an inner-city area blighted by drugs and crime. I had been kicked out of three schools and had wound up in an education centre for those at the very end of the line. In every sense, my life prospects were incredibly bleak.

Jan Rapport was an idealistic teacher working in the most difficult of education settings. She gave me a chance. She is the only adult I could remember having a real conversation with during my entire childhood. She instilled in me a lifelong passion for learning and particularly for literature. My imagination soared and I began to see a different path forward. I now know, it was probably the calming attachment and connection, the relationship itself that made the most difference.

When I the school at 16, I lost contact with her. When I finally found Ms Rapport over 25 years later there was so much to talk about that we didn’t really know where to begin. She was now a pensioner and I was well….er…middle aged. We caught up on what we had done with our lives. Nobody expects someone from my background to have a job in the UN, though somehow she thought I would turn out okay. I needed to tell her that she saved me-that I would not be here and I wouldn’t have done all of this without her. I didn’t have any words in my vocabulary that could adequately convey how grateful I am. I was in awe to look into the eyes of this person who saw things in me that I did not see in myself and helped me beat a pathway to places I could have never imagined. A teacher. The power of a teacher.

It is often said that when you are teacher you don’t know where you legacy will end. Louis German commitment stayed with Albert Camus through his life. A part of it passed onto to others through his work, friendships and family. Imagine if we could deliver a global legacy on teaching. If we could take what inspirational, life-changing teachers have and dispense it through entire teaching workforces. Every teacher emotionally present for children. Every child made to feel like they belong and matter as an individual. Every school dedicated to learning, curiosity and trauma-informed healing. We could and we should celebrate the power of teaching and harness it to touch the lives of every child.