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Adverse Childhood Experiences are affecting Jamestown students in high numbers.
"We have a national crisis when it comes to the mental health of our teens and our children," said Bret Apthorpe, superintendent of Jamestown Public Schools. "It's a national crisis. The number of kids experiencing trauma, we can't even imagine, is staggering."
In a news release from the Mental Health Association in Chautauqua County, an ACE or ACEs are described as stressful or traumatic experiences in childhood that include neglect, physical or verbal abuse and a range of environmental or relational factors. Specific examples provided included being raised in a home that included substance misuse, mental illness, parental discord or crime, witnessing domestic violence or the absence of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment.
Apthorpe said schools are not equipped to deal with students who are subjected to one of these experiences.
The ACE Study was conducted between 1995 and 1997 with 17,000 participants. In 2007, a condensed version of the questionnaire used in the study was released. The questionnaire is comprised of 10 questions and each question is worth one point. According to the MHACC, while some children still manage to become successful later in life, the higher ACE score decreases the chances of becoming successful.
"Schools aren't equipped to provide students with the clinical help they need," Apthorpe said. "We do the best we can, but this degree of trauma for kids they need counseling, they need therapy."
Christine Schuyler, commissioner of social services and public health director in Chautauqua County, said a higher ACE scores and trauma in general cause problems later in life. Those potential problems include early death, disease and substance abuse. Schuyler said the goal for Health and Human Services is to build "a trauma informed community."
On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, under violence prevention, there is a pyramid chart that links ACEs to several conditions later in life. At the bottom of the pyramid are ACEs. According to the chart, ACE can lead disrupted neurodevelopment and social, emotional, and cognitive impairment. These factors can then lead to the adoption of health risk behaviors, which then could lead to disease, disability and social problems. At the top of the chart is early death.
"I do think we are off to a really good start in our county and are going to continue along that way," she said.
Schuyler said the community would be surprised at how prevalent ACEs and trauma actually are in the county. Specifically in Jamestown, there is a Community Schools Coordinator at the high school who works with at risk students. At risk students include students living poverty, family history of physical abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and absenteeism.
Schuyler maintained that trauma is "something that needs to be recognized."
Apthorpe described a week earlier in the school year where a mother of five students was arrested for selling meth, two students lost their mother to a heroine over dose and one student's two dogs were killed as a result of family members dealing drugs.
"This is just an example of the type of trauma many of our kids have to deal with and without providing them the help they need they're not ready to learn. They're just cognitively not ready to learn," Apthorpe said.
Apthorpe questioned recent budget proposals from state government and federal government that have potential cuts to education spending. He spoke a day after a mass school shooting in the state of Florida that reinforced his idea that the nation has a mental health crisis.
"I won't kid you, it does make me angry," Apthorpe said of cuts to education spending, "because this comes right on the heels of Gov. (Andrew Cuomo's) proposing a decrease in aid to our schools and (President Donald Trump's) new budget dramatically cutting resources for public schools."
Apthorpe hoped if anything positive could come out of the most recent mass shooting was that the nation would realize the extent of the mental health crisis. He also made a connection to the students who experience ACEs are more likely to live in poverty.
"It's huge," he said. "It is certainly one of the major contributing factors."
According to Apthorpe, 73 percent of all Jamestown student live in poverty.
Last week, Apthorpe discussed student in poverty as it relates to graduation rates in an article published in the Feb. 11 edition of The Post-Journal.
"It's clear that our kids are not doing well," Apthorpe told The Post-Journal. "The board of education, myself and everyone in the district is committed to turning this around."
Apthorpe said a meeting with community leaders is scheduled for March 15 at the Robert H. Jackson Center where ACE will be discussed, among other issues.