ACEs are destined to destroy US society. They are an existential threat in the US, perhaps on par with global warming. Dealing effectively with ACEs may well be necessary to deal effectively with the causes of global warming.

When a child has 4 or more of these the pattern tends to repeat itself generation after generation.

My interest in this system of interacting injuries is to understand them in ways the neighborhoods can address most of the components, obviously with the support of systems beyond the neighborhood. But I believe that unless we focus on the neighborhood all other efforts will be doomed to expensive failures.

Remember most of these people are products of the same set of interactions playing out in their own childhoods.

How can we interrupt the intergenerational cycle?

[[Incarceration]] is the only one of these that is completely in the control of society. It certainly amplifies the occurrence and severity of all of the components including re-incarceration.

Where are the leverage points?

digraph { compound=true layout=dot rankdir=TB overlap=false concentrate=false bgcolor=lightblue //splines="" node [style=filled shape=circle color=pink fontcolor=black]
label="\n\nADVERSE CHILDHOOD EVENTS\n\nWhere Are the Leverage Points? "

Incarceration [color=yellow] "Domestic\nViolence" "Separation\nor Divorce" "Substance\nAbuse" "Mental\nIllness" "Abuse &\nNeglect" [color=red] "Mental\nIllness"

Incarceration -> Incarceration [style=dotted penwidth=3]

"Mental\nIllness" -> {"Substance\nAbuse" "Abuse &\nNeglect" "Domestic\nViolence" "Separation\nor Divorce"} "Mental\nIllness" -> Incarceration [style=dotted penwidth=3]

"Separation\nor Divorce" -> {"Abuse &\nNeglect""Domestic\nViolence"}

"Substance\nAbuse" -> {"Abuse &\nNeglect" "Mental\nIllness" "Separation\nor Divorce" "Domestic\nViolence" } "Substance\nAbuse" -> "Incarceration" [style=dotted penwidth=3]

"Domestic\nViolence" -> {"Incarceration" "Separation\nor Divorce" "Abuse &\nNeglect"}

"Abuse &\nNeglect" -> {"Separation\nor Divorce" Incarceration}

"Incarceration" -> {"Abuse &\nNeglect" "Separation\nor Divorce" "Substance\nAbuse" "Mental\nIllness"} [style=dotted penwidth=3]

}

[[Domestic Violence]] seems like a critical signal for intervention.

[[Separation or Divorce]] seem more like a result and less of a cause.

[[Poverty]] and inability to support the family are likely big stressors on all parts of this system.

Inadequate [[education]] is likely an exacerbating component.

[[Mental Illness]] has become a part of the medical industrial complex, disconnecting it from the local social systems. We need to integrate behavioral difficulties back into the neighborhoods with medical professionals playing a peripheral but sometimes important role.

[[Substance Abuse]] is a local to global problem. A set of system dynamic models at all scales. My guess is that they are already out there just not aggregated.

[[Abuse & Neglect]] encompases three types in the literatrue--physical abuse or neglect, emotional abuse or neglect, and sexual abuse.

.

First, stop incarcerating people for mental health issues. Stop incarcerating people for substance abuse. Stop destroying families employability through incarceration. Stop destroying families economic situation through incarceration. All of the dotted lines in the diagram above can be easily reduced.

Thoughts to explore:

• Check out Scopus to see if there are any SD papers on this;
• Incarceration: Mick Ashby's email on Tom Wilson's ERT work in prisons;
• I imagine the incidence of ACEs will be increasing due to Covid lockdowns (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7306718/);
• Also impacts school engagement (see https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0914). This study recommends interventions to develop resilience;
• Relationship to Bob's assertion that most of us are affected by childhood trauma (usually installed early on) and its impact on character structure (see Soulbonding). "the bond formed between a mother and her newborn infant is the most important relationship in the life of the child. The quality of that bond and its history over the child’s first five years will determine how that life will unfold for the adult into whom the child matures for decades thereafter"
• Hull Children's University aims to break some of this cycle. Does it work?;
• Mental Health charity I worked with in Manchester (on incentives in system against them)
• Relationship to SEND (off rolling etc)