Bringing it home with Sarah and Sunil happy May Sarah. Wow, we got here fast I mean, of course I love may because that means the summer's right around the corner. It is and we both have birthdays this month Well, not personally but people that love right But you know one thing about me may brings in a certain topic that a lot of us have been dealing with over the past I don't have any months the pandemic has been going on But since the pandemic and that is mental health because May 2nd through 8 happens to be children's mental health week Well It's the perfect time for us to talk about this because as you said over the last year 15 months Yeah, all of our mental health is taking a hit at some point and it's important for us to stop and consider how our children and their mental health has been affected Yeah, so we're bringing in a friend and she's been on here before a couple of times. I think Nicole Newman is with us today Hey Nicole Hey ladies.
Hey, we're glad to have you back in the colors with La Bonner Children's Medical Center and Nicole, let's just jump right in. Tell us what ACEs is. I mean, what does it stand for and we say ACEs? We're saying ACES Okay, ACEs.
What does it stand for? What does it mean? And why are we talking about it during children's mental health week? I'm very very passionate about ACEs.
So what are ACEs? ACEs stands for it's happening and it stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences And essentially what ACEs are there was a study done off the equipment show There's a study done back in the 90s two doctors came together and they interviewed over 17,000 participants in a health study And what they found was and when we say adverse trauma experiences We'll talk maybe a little bit about some examples of those things But what they found was as somebody's a score so they had a score of one meeting They went through one really traumatizing bank or 10 as that score went all the way up So did their health risk like we're talking physical health stuff like stroke, cancer, diabetes things like that as well as risky behaviors Smoking drugs, alcohol. So essentially what we're talking about we're talking about ACEs We're talking about how many adverse childhood experiences that people go through before they are 18 years old So from birth to zero and how that can impact our physical health or mental health or behavioral health or social health things like that Okay, so very important to talk about during the mental health. I want to ask you questions about what you just said You know their ACEs score.
So how do you know what your score is? Okay, so in the original any questionnaire there were 10 questions that these doctors asked and asked and I'll just I can list That's what you want me to they were they asked about types of abuse So three of those two questions were how do you ever do physically abused emotionally abused or sexually abused? They asked about two ones and neglect how you ever do physically neglected emotionally neglected before you're 18 And then I asked about five times the household dysfunction So did you grow up with it with a loved one who had a mental illness or was one of your parents in prison? Or did you ever see your mother or father treated violently some really hard things here?
Did you ever grow up a substance abuse in your home or did your parents get a divorce? And so those are the 10 things we're talking about here And so as many times as you could say yes to those questions that you could tell that those yes counts up and that would be your ace for Okay, it does. Thank you for explaining that and you are right. That is some tough stuff.
Yeah, heavy So Nicole had a little bonner get involved with educating the public on that topic of ACEs If you ever get the chance to sit through an ACE is training gets fascinating There's going to be a lot of information on brain research how trauma affects our brain We'll talk a little bit about the ACE study and things like that But then my favorite part is it's like we said it is a heavy topic But when you sit through the full ACE training you understand what we can do about it And there's a very hopeful message at the end But what I'm about a whole of this information is a state-wide initiative So the state of Tennessee is the ones that oversee this that spearhead all of these trainings are going on in Tennessee And when the modern heard about it we recognize the truth and the research and the science because we see kids for a lot of reasons It's not just physical health, but we have behavioral health programs and social mental health programs So we saw this as something that we can stand upon and so that's exactly why we adopted this program And we do a lot of trainings for ACEs. Well, I mean this seems to be a trending concept I mean we're hearing about it now We didn't used to hear about it But you know all of the things that you mentioned like the abuse and the leg I mean these things have been going on forever I guess at the beginning of time So Nicole why are we just now starting to hear about ACEs in recent years? Right, so it always takes I think I say it's like a decade but it takes For research well written well document of research Yeah, it takes breaks and moves spread And so this study originally popped up in the 90s So like you said to Neil This is not new stuff this stuff isn't happening for generation after generation after generation But in the 90s when these two doctors kind of broke the ground on this research and connected it to physical health mental health And it's like that that's when it started But it took until about 2015 or 2016 for that research to reach Tennessee And that's when we did our own research in Tennessee in 2016 So we wanted to know how many Tennesseans had gone through some of these adverse human experiences And how is that shaping our health today? Well that leads right into a question how common are ACEs?
I mean what have y'all found? Okay, I love this question So unfortunately it is a part of you that says a blessing and occurs ACEs are common So that's a blessing in one way to understand I'm not alone So in terms of that gone through I don't have to walk through this alone But it's also you know we would wish these things on anybody So that's why it's equally encouraging and discouraging But ACEs are common so a quick statistic 61% of us have experienced in Tennessee At least one adverse shock experience and has 10 dollars Oh, oh those were some things on that list And so wait tell me that statistic because I like the statistic Tell me in 51% And that's just in Tennessee Into the same race That's just in Tennessee That's startling but you know when you think about how many people we know that are divorced That's not a divorce isn't ACE Yes, you know And then another statistic 28% of us So that's a little over one and four have experienced at least three of those things And I'm a big visual person so when I do my ACEs presentations I want to talk about the new one's taken in the longs That's one of the biggest statements in the world He's seen a hundred and two thousand people If we feel that same with how many of us have experienced at least one ACE You could feel that same about almost 40 times Oh my great thing That's just Tennessee is Okay, you know You gave us some examples of what ACEs are You talked about those And you've now told us how many people are dealing with those Especially in Tennessee So what are some tools that we can use to help move beyond this Because you know we can't go back and change right What happened to us in childhood So what can we do so that we don't continue the cycle When we start creating our own families I'm so glad that you use that word cycle Because ACEs tend to be generational They can be passed down You know from generations to generations But we know that there is a science behind something that we've all heard It's called resilience And essentially resilience just means you're ability to bounce back from something So there's some misconceptions about resilience Sometimes people think that children are just born resilient They're just able to bounce back Or they were too young, they're not gonna remember that And we also sometimes think that some people, some of us adults Might just be more resilient than other people But that's really not true So what we're seeing is how do we overcome These ACEs that have already happened And how do we prevent ACEs from happening Is we have got to understand that if we want to be resilient If we want to build resilience The key is support, support, support It's all about how many supports do you have in your corner? The more supports whether that's your family Or your friends Or your co-workers Or your space-based community Whoever you have in your corner that you love And that you trust That you can heal from these things You can talk about these things openly That is gonna build your resilience That's gonna help you overcome these ACEs Well, I mean, that kind of ties in with my next question Because you just talk about support And we find that within a lot of different realms So I think that this is perfect for me to ask why Is it so important for not just parents and family members But teachers and churches And I'm thinking even, you know, people that offer after school programs Your community centers Why is it so important for all of these entities to understand ACEs? That's a great question And so when we do these ACEs presentations We open it up to anybody and everybody If you're a business owner If you're an after school program worker If you own a daycare If we go in and we want to educate Anybody and everybody Because very simply All of us Either work with or around kids And if not in our profession Then in our personal lives, right?
Like we're always around these kids And these kids are gonna grow up in our next generation And on top of that If we're not working necessarily directly with kids We are all working with adults Who are dealing with ACEs of their own Who used to be kids Who used to be great My favorite line And these presentations that we leave Is that ACEs are not destiny What is predictable? Can we pretendable? So with it You can say what's happened to you, right? Yeah Just changing your perspective And how you communicate with people Right, yeah, yeah Nicole, I mean we just scratched the surface here So people that are wanting more information Or wanting to maybe get an ACEs training Or get a presentation from Lebonder How do they contact you?
They can contact me at my email And I will I'm sure that you can put a link to that In the podcast notes But very simply It's my name Nicole.Mumen N-E-W-N-A-U At Lebonder.org So y'all can just send me a email If you want us to come and train Whoever you work with, whoever you attend Church with, whoever you do life with We love to come and train And then also If training is not necessarily what you are looking for If you want more information on this You can go to the Tennessee State website Which is tn.gov With a backslash and type in TCC-Wash That's the things from Tennessee Commission On children and youth And T-N.gov.gov.backslash.tcc-Wash Is the hub of information Where you can access more that we talked about Very quickly today Well, I think this is all good for people to know This is Children's Mental Health Week And we've been talking about ACEs With Nicole Duan from Lebonder So Joining us, Nicole, thank you for enlightening us And thank you all for listening And in the words of Bob Marley Live the life you love And love the life you live Happy May