The LaGrange County Child Abuse and Neglect Collaborative is focused on ensuring our community’s children are safe while they are young, so they can grow up to be healthy and successful adults.
Thrive by 5, the early childhood coalition serving LaGrange County, is proud to be a member of the collaborative. Thrive by 5 is focused on ensuring children have what they need from birth through age 5. Ninety percent of neural connections occur between birth to age 3, so this is the most critical period of brain development. If trauma, including child abuse or neglect, occurs during the early years, it can have a lasting effect on a child’s coping skills, relationships, and mental and physical health far into adulthood.
Adverse Childhood Experiences, also called ACEs, track traumatic events that happen during childhood. Examples include: experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect, living with a parent who has substance abuse or mental health problems, or family instability due to parental separation or a parent being in jail. There are many more factors that contribute to ACE scores, as well.
Unfortunately, ACEs are common. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 64% of adults in the United States reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18. Nearly one in six (17.3%) adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs.
ACEs can have lasting effects on health and well-being in childhood and life opportunities well into adulthood. The higher a person’s ACE score, the more likely they are to experience chronic disease, and struggle with healthy relationships, finances, job stability, and depression or other mental health issues throughout their life.
When these ACEs happen in early childhood, the results can be devastating to brain development. To demonstrate the effects, the Brain Architecture Game was designed by developmental scientists of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and communication scientists at the FrameWorks Institute. It’s a way of to visualize the effects of positive and negative experiences on early brain development.
The goal of the game is to build a brain that is as tall and sturdy as possible. Positive experiences (such as a two-parent, healthy family dynamic) earn a pipe cleaner and a straw, which creates height and support. When a team draws a negative experience (such as child abuse or neglect), they get to build only with a pipe cleaner (no straw = no support). After a few rounds of choosing cards that indicated either a negative or positive experience, weights must be hung from the structure. A “developing brain” is more likely to collapse under the weight if it was built using more negative experiences than positive ones.
It’s a simple game, yet it’s definitely an eye opener when it comes to understanding how trauma can affect a child’s development.
That’s why the work of the LaGrange County Child Abuse and Neglect Collaborative is so important. When we can prevent traumatic experiences from happening to children, their brain can develop in a healthy way, leading to a more successful future.
Those who are interested in learning more or getting involved can join the LaGrange County Child Abuse & Neglect Facebook group or attend meetings. Members of the collaborative are also available to give 30-minute presentations to local businesses, churches, and community groups about how to identify and report child abuse, neglect, and human trafficking and how to connect families to resources. To schedule a presentation, please call/text (260) 278-0367.