Nadine Burke Harris is a former pediatrician who became the founder and CEO of The Youth of Wellness. She is also a Dr. at one of the best private hospitals in northern California, California Pacific Medical Center. Her goal is “to change the standard practice across demographics” (Burke Harris). When it comes to children it is important that we address the issue regardless. In Dr. Burkes’ TED talk she tells us that in the mid 90’s an exposure had been discovered by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente. This exposure in high doses, “it affects brain development, hormonal system, the immune system and even the way that our DNA is read and transcribed. The exposure has been discovered to be a dramatic increase in the risk for seven out of ten leading causes of death in the United States”(Burke Harris). Alternatively, when Dr. Harris opened a clinic in Bayview Hunters-Point; it is to be known as the poorest underserved neighborhoods in San Francisco. Before she opened …show more content…
the clinic she had taken a trip there because she felt she needed to and what she did was serve more than 10,000 children giving them the best quality care, no matter if they couldn’t afford it. In other words “we targeted the typical health disparities: access to care, immunization rates, asthma hospitalization rates, and we hit all of our numbers” (Burke Harris). Her healthcare practice focuses on not only the basics of children but more than that, a factor in early childhood that impacts adult long term disease: trauma. Early childhood trauma refers to young children being exposed to any kind of traumatic experiences. Furthermore, as she continued her stay in San Francisco she had noticed a quite disturbing trend in the children, and that’s when ACEs came into this situation. “ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children’s developing brains so profoundly that the effects show up decades later; they cause much of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence” (ACEs 101). An ACE study was done by Dr. Vince Felitti at Kasier and Dr.Bob Anda at the CDC. Adverse Childhood experiences are also the result of childhood exposure. These childhood exposures include any type of abuse, such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, mental illness, parents who are separated whether its separation or divorce, domestic violence, and last substance dependence. Continuing on with the study, when it was done Dr. Felitti and Dr.Anda together asked 17,500 adults about their history of exposure, the results were insane. It is said that for every “yes” answered it was a point added to ACE score. That being said the firsts result was “Sixty-seven percent of the population had at least one ACE, and 12.6 percent, one in eight, had four or more ACEs” (Burke Harris). Moreover they noticed a response in relationship to the higher your ACE score the higher your health outcome. During the “TED” talk show Dr. Burke Harris informs us about the different challenges that these young children have suffered through. To prevent ‘Adverse Childhood Adversity’ we must continue to address the issue. Children are the most sensitive at a very young age. If you’re to be the spouse that is arguing aggressively with you partner in front of you child and any form of abuse is shown, the child will most likely be crying of fear. Yes, they might be too little to understand, but the tone, the image etc., are very powerful at the moment of a child’s developing body, brain, and hormonal system. As Dr. Burke Harris says, “It affects areas like the nucleus accumbens, the pleasure and reward center of the brain that is implicated in substance dependence. It inhibits the prefrontal cortex, which is necessary for impulse control and executive function, a critical area for learning. And on MRI scans, we see measurable differences in the amygdala, the brain's fear response center” (Burke Harris). To be a child and have to suffer through toxic stress would be the most difficult process. Much less, at Youth of Wellness clinic they have given the option to educate those adults who have suffered from ACEs. But what are the chances that adults will be willing to participate? It is proven that if a patient scores an ACE of 4 or more she is most likely to develop Hepatitis B and COPD, and that she is 12 times likely to commit suicide. In that matter, Dr. Harris will offer the best care to anyone, she knew that she wanted to make a difference and help these children and adults. In “TED” talk Dr. Harris states that, For our patients who do screen positive, we have a multidisciplinary treatment team that works to reduce the dose of adversity and treat symptoms using best practices, including home visits, care coordination, mental health care, nutrition, holistic interventions, and yes, medication when necessary. But we also educate parents about the impacts of ACEs and toxic stress the same way you would for covering electrical outlets, or lead poisoning, and we tailor the care of our asthmatics and our diabetics in a way that recognizes that they may need more aggressive treatment, given the changes to their hormonal and immune systems.” In the end, understanding what Childhood Adversity Exposure entails and the affects it causes to a child later on in their life is very important.
As I said earlier children are sensitive and fragile. The situations that they are forced to see their loved ones go through can be very unimaginable. Dr. Burke Harris is trying to address this issue to resolve and put an end to the start of adversity. We must ignore it. "Adverse childhood experiences are the single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today” (Burke Harris). If the United States hold a strong record of addressing public health problems, then what are we doing? It is important for everyone to know this. Adversity is not only happening in the poorest neighborhood in San Francisco, it is happening everywhere. If I could make one-hundred dollars for every time that I’ve heard someone say “they’re too young to understand”, I would be a very wealthy person. Let us really begin to address an end to adversity and help these
children.
as Jennifer, a victim states, “I feel our childhood has been taken away from us and it has left a big hole in our lives.”
Recognize that children are best understood and supported in the context of family, culture, community, and society
America struggles to find equality, and by bystanding the stripping of its youth, continual prolonging is inevitable. Raising this nation’s children through nurturing and care is the first step to uplifting America as a whole. In 2012 alone, 1593 of America’s children died at the hands of child abuse, 70.3% of whom were younger than the age of three (Safe Horizon). In order to prevent further child abuse, the American government should address stricter child protection laws, psychological stability, and increase the recognition of those that have released their stories. Stories by Mary Ellen Wilson.
While the case listed above was an unfortunate event, imagine the children who do not exhibit such harsh behavior and still get overlooked? Many children who are exposed to violent behavior in the household tend to become numb and emotionally unavailable (Weithorn, Behrman, 1999). They do not have to show anger or be physically violent, some children seem to become silent, depress and possibly distance themselves from others. I had the privilege of interviewing a professional in the education field. Shayna Bennett- Givner is the director for Teenie’s Tot Daycare located in Pittsburgh. I wanted to get a first-hand insight on behavioral issues and how she has to deal with them with in her business.
Recently in the news paper in the York area an old distance friend of mine Travis Laughman is accused of beating his girlfriends baby Kellen Koller 2. Kellen Koller died at Hershey Medical Center. My first reaction was “I can’t believe this.” “It can’t be him!” I couldn’t come to terms to hear that an old friend of mine was a murder. Many young parents have a hard time with a crying baby. Not be able to get them to stop so frustration sets in. There are many cases where young parents are so overwhelmed and are exhausted and they just click and start to take there anger out of there babies.
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
Adverse childhood experiences known as the ACE Study, was developed to determine whether childhood events had long-term health consequences, which has important implications for Healthy People 2020 Policy planning, as well as for key social work roles in disease prevention. (Larkin, Felitti, Anda, 2014). Based on the Michael’s case he has experienced six ACEs, child abuse that was both emotional and physical, alcohol abuse, single parent home, working class, and lack of support/closeness with family. Some studies suggest that the experience of four or more ACEs is a threshold above which there is a particular higher risk of negative physical and mental health outcomes. (Sacks, Murphey, Moore, 2014) Early life stress, including neglect and abuse,
children faced with the trauma of loss, they are also faced with a myriad of other
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are the extremely traumatic events that take place in an individual’s childhood that negatively affect their future attempts to succeed in life. ACEs include enduring physical and verbal abuse, living in dysfunction and over exposure to violent and criminal behavior. It was determined that children who are in the child welfare system are more likely to suffer ACEs and develop physical and mental health issues as well as engage in risky behavior (Brown & Shillington, 2017); children who suffer ACEs also have lower self-efficacy than other children. In all of the research prior to this study, much of the focus was on the psychological and behavioral outcomes of ACEs and what children were more susceptible to them. The problem that the researchers in this study have identified is that in no prior research has anyone
Child abuse and neglect incidence rates are approximately ten times higher than the incidence rates for cancer. The incident rates for child abuse and neglect are 40 children per 1,000 children every year. The incidence rates for cancer patients are 3.9 people per 1,000 people every year. According to Frank Putnam (2005), “We find an incidence rate for child abuse and neglect that is about ten times as high as the incidence rate for all forms of cancer…There is a multi-billion-dollar research base reliably renewed on an annual basis for cancer treatment and prevention. Nothing remotely similar to this exists for child abuse and neglect” (p. 1). The 2001 federal fiscal year budget was $3.74 billion for the National Cancer Institution. Between all of CAPTA’s grants combined, the total of monetary governmental support comes to approximately $72 million. While cancer research is an incredible thing, child abuse and neglect programs should be well funded in order to help more children. In addition to more children being helped, if funding for abuse awareness increased, there would possibly be more jobs open for social workers and other types of advocates. (The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, 2005).
The Adverse Childhood Experiences study (ACE) conducted by Felitti et al. (1998) proposed that children who experienced maltreatment and neglect along with dysfunctional family systems were at higher risk for developing physiological and psychological problems later in life. The ACE studies demonstrated the collective effects of negative childhood experiences on physical and mental health issues. These disorders include; substance abuse, suicidal ideality, and depression, as well as a host of medical problems (Putnam, Harris & Putnam, 2013). In addition, the study indicated that exposure to two or more adverse childhood experiences is linked to higher rates of smoking, promiscuity, substance abuse, and eating disorders (Anda et al., 2006).
How does someone overcome the traumatic experiences they suffered with in their childhood? “Nobody had a perfect childhood, not even the kid down the street whose family seemed to have it all together. We all grew up with some sort of dysfunction, and we’re all who we are today because of it,” an excerpt from the article “The New Normal – Healing from a Dysfunctional Family.” A person’s dysfunctional childhood could sprout from neglect, abuse, loss, or psychological aspects that they have no control over but, every bad encounter can be overcome by the strongest people. “Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world,”( Lawrence Robinson, Melinda Smith, and Jeanne Segal). The three steps to overcome is understanding, coping, and healing (Dania Vanessa). Each of
The team stated that this was a long term study that has been going around for about 15 years and was started by the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas. They state that they studied 279 children and they discovered that even the smallest amount of pesticides can harm children's lungs. It was also stated that the study examined effects on the adults who spray the chemicals, that contain the
As a child I suffered an event that framed my life, a catastrophe that would change my life at least temporarily. This catastrophe changed things all around me, things in my family changed and things at home changed ever since that day. I remember we were all exited, we were going on a family vacation to different regions of Colombia.
As I grew up throughout my childhood I accepted the word “no” from my parents with blatant frustration. I grew up in a well off home and never had to worry about where I will spend the night or if I will be able to eat that night, I used to never be as thankful as I should have for those reasons. Thoughts constantly ran rampant through my head of, “Mommy and daddy have so much money why can’t I have this!” I never grasped the fact of if my parents could provide me with a certain luxury that I did not need but wanted, why they did not. As a child I saw all the kids around me with many luxuries I desired but could not have as my parents refused, although I was completely unaware of their own financial status as a kid I could only look at everyone