ACEs Recovery Toolkit Blog – Week Two
“It’s really not rocket science”
So, today was Session 2 – the week we introduce ACEs and begin to talk about the impact they have on the many aspects of our lives. It’s important to start from the very beginning, right from conception, so that parents can see the impact through the life course (there’s a useful handout in the manual to explain this).
We had 14 parents attend the session; including our very first Dad, who we’ll call Robert for the purposes of the blog.
Robert was going to be a first time Dad but had grown up with ACEs himself (7 to be exact), and didn’t want the same outcomes for his child.
I had my doubts about running mixed gendered groups, given that my experience of running Adult Domestic Abuse Recovery Toolkit previously, had all been, and rightly so, with single genders.
However, following thorough pre-assessments, and discussion with my co-facilitator, and permission from Rock Pool, we wanted to see if it could work.
Rob was really nervous, being surrounded by a large group of women, so I instantly felt I needed to focus my efforts on making him feel safe and comfortable:
the programme is trauma-informed after all!Â
I took him to the side, for a “man-to-man” talk, which he said really helped him, and allowed him time to process the environment he’d be coming into for the next 9 weeks.
I talked through his current situation, and how excited he was to be a Dad, and addressed any worries he had (thankfully, the only worry he had was what he’d missed the previous week).
I explained to Robert that I would spend some time with him during the break, going through the assessments we completed last week, but we could get him up to speed.
Robert didn’t really contribute to the first half of the session, but after break, and some reassuring words from the women in group, he started to open up, and really engage in the group activities and discussion – the moral of the story is that mixed gendered groups can work. I was also pleased to have another male in the room…balance the ratios a little more!
I introduced the group to ACEs, what they were, and gave a brief history, as several parents had asked to know more about where the research had come from. They seemed fascinated at the research that had come out of ACEs, with one parent commenting….
“well, when you look at it that way, it’s really not rocket science, is it?!”
with another parent responding with “well, we’ve got the science bit next week. I’m crap at science”; although there was some laughter in the room, it was a perfect opportunity to challenge her negative automatic thought.
The group were amazing in offering rational responses, going through the handout they’d received as part of the session, and unpicking the NAT. We even used the NAT as an example when going through the Thought Diaries at the end of the session.
We spoke about Maslow, and his hierarchy of needs, and parents were then able to apply this theory, taking into account their own experiences, and identified the impact of ACEs on our own needs, and their children’s needs.
If you could see all the lightbulb’s going on in the room during this activity, it would have been like Blackpool illuminations…Â
The realisation that ACEs could impact on the most basic of human need; lack of food, disrupted sleep, feeling unsafe, and how this then stops you from realising your true potential.
The mood felt very sombre after this activity, given that parents were starting to make connections from their own childhoods. So, to put smiles back on faces, I decided to throw in a game (there’s lots of suggested games in the back of the manual in case anyone is wondering). We got smiles and laughter back into the room… and returned people to a place of positivity.
Parents had lots of questions at the end of the session, about how we can repair the damage caused by exposure to early adversity, and really enjoyed the fact that the homework was to do something nice for themselves.
Robert (the Dad we mentioned earlier) decided he was going to paint his finger and toenails, with the women of the group asking him to bring photographic proof to group next week – it was a fantastic end to a great session.