Housing is set to play a key role in tackling Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Wales, TAI 2017 heard on Monday.
In a joint presentation, Bonnie Navarra, assistant police and crime commissioner for South Wales and Welsh Government adviser, and Janine Roderick, policy lead for public health and policing at Public Health Wales explained the impact of ACEs and what can be done about them.
‘We need to work at how we can develop work with housing as a sector and recognise work that is already going on to tackle ACEs ,’ said Bonnie Navarra.
She said the ACE Hub had agreed that housing will be a key player and that it will be the first sector to get a lead within the hub.
And she also offered social landlords in South Wales the chance to work with the police to share information and map their properties.
Janine Roderick set out the compelling evidence on the impact that ACEs can have in later life.
ACEs can be either things directly experienced by children themselves such as verbal, physical or sexual abuse and things experienced within the household.
Almost half the population of Wales has had at least one ACE but 14 per cent have had four or more.
Having four or more ACEs dramatically increases risks in later life, making it 20 times more likely to have been in prison at some point, 16 times more likely to have used crack cocaine or heroin and six times more likely to have never felt useful to anyone.
ACEs can affect your brain chemistry. For example, the feeling of constantly feeling under threat in childhood over-develops the life preserving part of the brain and makes people react aggressively.
But Janine stressed that nothing is inevitable about this. Healing can happen and safe, stable nurturing relationships at the heart of this.
So too can raising awareness of the ‘ACE lens’ in housing, health, the police, education and elsewhere – and above all among parents.
For more on ACE’s see Seeing the Whole Picture, an article by Bonnie Navarra and Janine Roderick in the current issue of WHQ.