The Hillsboro Police Department, the U.S. military and a broad spectrum of organizations across education, juvenile justice, mental health, human services, health care, and law enforcement are trying mindfulness and resilience frameworks to deal with the long-term effects of childhood trauma.
A study that began tracking adverse childhood events (ACEs) and their impacts on life-long health and chronic diseases in San Diego continues in many states. Data collected in Oregon in 2011 and 2013 showed that 31 percent of respondents reported growing up with household substance abuse, verbal abuse and separated or divorced parents. More than 20 percent reported exposure to physical abuse and household mental illness before turning 18.
The more childhood adverse events, the higher the likelihood of heart and lung disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, depression, obesity and other serious health problems later in life, said Beth Gebstadt, policy analyst with the Oregon Health Authority.
“People need to know about ACEs and then what to do with it,” said Trudy Townsend, trauma-informed care coordinator for Creating Sanctuary in the Columbia River Gorge.
Townsend told the Oregon Women’s Health Network that her community is using the “sanctuary model” to train social service organizations in a common knowledge and language about the impacts of childhood trauma so that shared values can be put into practice and everyone can hold one another accountable.
One central pillar is safety – not just physical safety but also financial, psychological and social safety – including no eye rolling at meetings.
Metrics on the The Dalles’ sanctuary initiative are just beginning to be collected but Townsend said the model that began in connection with a safer schools grant is showing dramatic improvements in juvenile justice. “Its common sense that isn’t very common,” Townsend said.
Brant Rogers, affiliate faculty at Pacific University School of Professional Psychology, is among the authors of a study of the Hillsboro Police Department, the first to specifically examine the impact of a mindfulness-based intervention on police officers.
Rogers’ study found mindfulness training increased resilience, mental and physical health and decreased sleep disturbance, anger, fatigue, burnout, difficulties with regulating emotions and many kinds of stress.
Police, according to the study, have one of the highest rates of illness and injury of all professions in a chronically stressful environment that puts officers at higher risk for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorders.
The study, published in January in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, acknowledges the “relatively person disclosure-averse nature of the police officer culture” and Rogers taught mindful movement “with none of the standard yoga postures.”
Dr. Claire Wheeler who teaches mind-body medicine at Portland State University’s School of Community Health first realized the healing effects of mindfulness as a 9-year-old undergoing multiple orthopedic surgeries at a hospital far from her family. “I learned to manage pain and fear.”
Recently, she has been involved in a $2 million, four-year grant to train mental health professionals dealing with military personnel and veterans with an approach that includes dance, drawing, meditation and food as medicine.
“Resiliency is the sense of knowing you will remain intact,” Wheeler said. “Anyone can learn how to generate health.”
Jan can be reached at [email protected]
