Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and homelessness

Much trauma occurs in childhood.  SEPs may find interesting and helpful the research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and their impact on adult life. Note that virtually every study shows that ACEs are strong predictors of homelessness.

Click here for access to the following material :

1. Centers for Disease Control website on ACEs
2. ACEs questionnaire
3. Powerpoint on ACEs shown at First International Somatic Experiencing Conference, October 2007
4. Vincent Felitti, M.D., speaking at 14th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect (mp3)
   
5. Transcript of Dr. Felitti's speech in 4.
6. Integral Restorative Processes article (support for people with ACEs using Integral theory as a framework)
   

How to Connect With a Homeless Services Agency & Offer SE
by John Records, Executive Director, COTS

Download this memo to introduce SE to other homeless service providers.

Download our SE Clinic at COTS informed consent document, which can be used as a template for SE clinics in other homeless service settings.

If you are interested in the Somatic Experiencing Clinic at COTS, you might want to explore offering SE in support of homeless people in your own community. I've provided background information and suggested steps below.

There probably are over a million homeless children and adults in America at any point in time. Families with children are said to be the fastest growing group of homeless people.

Agencies that help homeless children and adults usually are doing extremely challenging work. They are supporting people in crisis, often having shattered lives, mental illness, addiction and physical illness. Moreover, the agencies almost always are severely underfunded for the work, and struggle even to provide the most basic elements of care such as enough food and a safe environment.

The challenges the homeless people suffer often are rooted in trauma and neglect, and that often began when they were children (refer to the research on adverse childhood experiences by Vincent Felitti, M.D., and others). The choices (including coping strategies) made by the homeless people as adults are profoundly influenced by their prior experiences, and can result in further trauma for themselves and those around them. Trained mental health and chemical dependency clinicians are hard to afford in homeless agencies. The agency staff and volunteers frequently suffer from vicarious trauma and burnout.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) can offer immediate relief to program participants and staff. I cannot overstate how important this is. The availability of an intervention that can inexpensively, quickly and effectively relieve the symptoms of trauma is one of the most encouraging developments I've encountered in over 15 years of working with homeless people. If you would like to support homeless people and homeless service providers in your community, I've set forth some steps below that may be helpful. Feel free to modify the steps for your own needs and community.

1. Identify a homeless service agency in your community that is relatively strong and stable. One way to do this is to contact your local Volunteer Center, United Way or community foundation, ask the staff what homeless service agencies they work with or fund, and which agencies have good reputations for working effectively with volunteers. This is helpful because some agencies lack the capacity to support volunteers well, and this can make volunteers' work difficult and frustrating.

2. Contact the Executive Director or Director of Programs (titles will vary) with a letter stating that SE has been used to good effect to support homeless service providers and program participants at COTS in California, citing available research on SE, enclosing this memo from me, and stating that you would like to volunteer to provide a free workshop for staff on self-care and avoiding burnout. (Starting with the staff is a good idea because by supporting staff you are supporting the people they support, you can get a good idea of how well that agency is run, and the staff probably will want to check out SE before it is offered to program participants.) End the letter with a statement that you will call to follow up. In your follow up call, be clear about your needs and requirements. For instance, you might state that a certain minimum amount of time is needed for the workshop, that there must be a quiet place free from interruptions for the workshop, etc.

3. Provide the initial workshop for staff. In group discussion toward the end, determine how people felt about it and whether they'd find further such offerings to be helpful for staff and program participants. Provide evaluation forms to elicit the same information. Arrange individual settings as needed, subject to your own resources.

4. Provide more workshops for staff, as you and staff find suitable. By supporting the staff in this way you are making a huge contribution to the support of the program participants. You may want to arrange SE training for a key staff person, so she or he can champion SE within the agency.

5. Once the staff are comfortable with SE, consider offering it to program participants. By this point, you will have one or more allies on the staff who can help develop the program participant offering in a way that works for the agency and for you. Again, be clear about your needs and requirements. You may want to request the following for program participant offerings: a comfortable space without interruptions, agency staff management of sign ups, and a staff person to manage the sometimes disruptive behavior of participants. I mention these things because of the experience of a volunteer in a homeless service agency that didn't have its act together: she would arrive and there would be no room set aside for her offering, people wandered in and out of the space she was finally able to secure, and unpleasant behavior which she was unable to manage disrupted her workshop. She felt disrespected. I'm sure disrespect was not intended, but the agency apparently lacked the capacity to receive her offering. Make sure your valuable time and gift of SE is used well by making your needs clear.

6. Once you have developed a comfortable relationship with a solid agency, you can consider offering SE to other agencies helping homeless people in your vicinity. Your staff allies will know who the other agencies are, can open doors for you at other agencies, and may be able to arrange multi-agency trainings. Also, agencies receiving federal funding generally are part of the local "Continuum of Care." The Continuum may have an email list that can be used to reach large numbers of homeless service agencies and providers in your region.

7. Having piloted SE offerings at one or more agencies, the agencies may be able to obtain funding to support further offerings. Possible sources would include the community foundation and the United Way. Agency staff may be able to include funding for SE in grants which they already are working on. Note that because of the difficulty of getting funding generally, the agencies may feel the need to focus their fund raising efforts on providing things like food and staffing.

Thank you very much for your interest in helping homeless people and the staff who support them. A relatively small amount of your time can make a big life long change for many people in desperate need.

With appreciation,

John Records
Executive Director, COTS

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