We are conducting a systematic literature review of screening practices for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in educational settings (eg schools). The review is expected to highlight gaps in literature and practice, and potentially inform future projects focusing on developing school-based programmes supporting early identification of children and young people with ACEs.
Background
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) relate to potentially traumatic events occurring in childhood (0-17 years). Such events include: experiencing abuse, neglect or violence and witnessing violence or suicide.
ACEs impact on health and wellbeing in childhood, but can also continue to impact well into adulthood.
Screening for ACEs in educational settings (eg schools) provides an opportunity to identify children or young people that have been subjected to ACEs. Having identified them, interventions and support can be provided to reduce the impact of ACEs.
We are conducting a systematic literature review of screening practices for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in educational settings. The review is expected to highlight gaps in literature and practice, and potentially inform future projects focusing on developing school-based programmes supporting early identification of children and young people with ACEs.
Project Aims
To establish the evidence base on whether systematic screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in children and adolescents (0–18 years) in school settings improves the identification of adversity, referral to services, uptake of services, and mental health outcomes, compared with no screening.
Project Activity
- We will conduct a systematic literature review to establish the current evidence base.
- Our research question is “Does systematic screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in children and adolescents (4–18 years) in school settings improve the identification of adversity, referral to services, uptake of services, and mental health outcomes compared with no screening?”
- A high-level version of our PICO criteria:
- Population: Children and adolescents (4-18 years) in educational settings
- Intervention: Educational-setting based systematic screening using structured questionnaires or tools (e.g., ACE questionnaires, trauma checklists, psychosocial risk assessments)
- Comparator: No screening or usual care (no systematic identification of ACEs)
- Outcomes: ACE identification, service referrals, uptake of recommended service, child and parent/adolescent mental health outcomes (eg depression, anxiety, PTSD, well-being), social and academic outcomes (educational attendance, performance, engagement), feasibility, acceptability, and safety of school-based screening
- We will search the main electronic databases. We will publish our review in due course. This review will be registered on PROSPERO.
Anticipated or actual outputs
- Publication of the study findings in an open access paper
- NIHR East of England Applied Research Collaboration blogpost
- Information upon which to plan/inform future research around ACE screening
Who is involved?
- Dr Joanna Reid (Joint PI), University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, East of England
- Dr Rory Cameron (Joint PI), Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, East of England
- Krishnan Puri Sudhir, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, East of England
- Dr Adam P Wagner, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, East of England
- Helen Risebro, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, East of England
Contact
Dr Rory Cameron, rory.cameron@uea.ac.uk
Dr Joanna Reid, jpa44@cam.ac.uk
