Trauma Archives - National Wraparound Initiative (NWI)
Trauma During Critical Periods Can Alter Children’s Brain Development
September 21, 2024 | NWI
A panel examined the ways young children’s brain development is affected by traumatic experiences such as violence, war, and separation from parents.
What Foster and Adoptive Parents Need to Know About Child Trauma
July 28, 2024 | NWI
Early childhood trauma affects kids on a physiological level, and can cause behaviors ranging from detachment to clinginess to violent outbursts. Foster and adoptive parents are often unaware of just how tough it might be – emotionally and financially – to raise a child with a trauma background. This article explores how some caregivers have managed.
New Research Links Childhood Adversity to Adolescent Mental Health Difficulties
June 16, 2024 | NWI
A new study from researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia reveals that childhood environmental factors – including exposure to abuse, poverty, and pollutants – correlate with increased stress and mental health challenges during adolescence.
Predict, Prevent, Plan: A New Tool from John VanDenBerg
April 21, 2023 | NWI
Wraparound pioneer John VanDenBerg co-authored this article and accompanying video describing a new tool for dealing with traumatic events. The article also recounts how the authors used the tool in their own professions, lives, and family.
Parental Trauma Leaves Biological Traces in Children
September 23, 2022 | NWI
Parental adverse experiences may influence the next generation through multiple pathways. The most apparent route runs through parental behavior, but influences during gestation and even changes in eggs and sperm may also play a role. And all these channels seem to involve epigenetics: alterations in the way that genes function. This article from Scientific American reviews research and implications.
Challenges for Families of Special-Needs Children Adopted from Overseas
August 7, 2022 | NWI
For years, evangelical Christians were enthusiastic supporters of adoption by sponsoring conferences, targeting adoption-friendly Sundays and staging adoption fairs in parish halls. Thousands of overseas children got new homes. Leading the way were evangelical luminaries such as recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman (three daughters from China) and then-Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore (two sons from Russia). Enthusiastic parents took up the challenge, traveling overseas for one or more children, even adopting special needs kids whose home countries were not interested in their care. More than a decade after this movement peaked, many families who went overseas are in crisis mode.
Loneliness Damages Children’s Mental Health and Their Grades
April 4, 2022 | NWI
Children who feel lonely are more likely to leave school with worse grades than classmates who never experience loneliness. Even a temporary bout of loneliness at age 12 puts children at risk of worse qualifications when they leave school up to six years later, according to a new study.
Childhood Stress and Adult Chronic Disease
February 24, 2022 | NWI
How is ongoing, severe stress and adversity in early childhood connected to chronic disease in adults? And, what can we do about it? In this animated video from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, learn what the latest science tells us about how early experiences affect not only early learning and school readiness, but also lifelong health.
Sibling Bullying Linked to Poor Mental Health Years Later
October 17, 2021 | NWI
New research finds that children who consistently bully a sibling at a young age can push their brother or sister towards a greater risk of mental health and overall well-being issues later on in adolescence.
Neighborhood Gun Violence Means Worse Mental Health for Kids
October 17, 2021 | NWI
Living within a few blocks of a shooting increases the risk that a child will end up visiting the emergency department for mental health-related problems.