Adult support during childhood: a retrospective study of trusted adult relationships, sources of personal adult support and their association with childhood resilience resources

Abstract

Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect health and well-being across the life course. Resilience is an individual characteristic that is known to help negate the effect of adversities and potentially transform toxic stress into tolerable stress. Having access to a trusted adult during childhood is critical to helping children build resiliency. Here, we aim to understand the relationship between always having access to trusted adult support and childhood resilience resources, and examine which sources of personal adult support and the number of sources of adult support, best foster childhood resilience. Methods A Welsh national cross-sectional retrospective survey (n = 2497), using a stratified random probability sample. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews at participants’ places of residence by trained interviewers. Analyses use chi-square and binary logistic regression methods. Outcome measures were childhood resilience resources, access to an always-available trusted adult, and sources of personal adult support. Results Prevalence of access to an always-available trusted adult decreased with increasing number of ACEs from 86.6% of individuals with no ACEs, to 44.4% of those with four or more ACEs (≥ 4). In addition, for those experiencing ≥ 4 ACEs, individuals with no access to a trusted adult were substantially less likely than those with access, to report childhood resilience resources. For example, for individuals with ≥ 4 ACEs, those with access to an always-available trusted adult were 5.6 times more likely to have had supportive friends and 5.7 times more likely to have been given opportunities to develop skills to succeed in life, compared to those with no access to a trusted adult. When looking at sources of personal adult support, resilience levels increased dramatically for those individuals who had either one parent only or two parents as sources of support, in comparison to those without parental support. Conclusions Analyses here suggest strong relationships between elements of childhood resilience, constant access to trusted adults and different sources of personal adult support. While the eradication of ACEs remains unlikely, actions to strengthen childhood access to trusted adults may partially ease immediate harms and protect future generations.

Pathways of effects of adverse childhood experiences on infectious diseases among border drug-use adults: A Structural Equation Modeling

“…Whereas our study found ACEs contributed to a direct negatively effect on infection sexually disease. Possible reasons might be the mitigating effect of resilience on the potential long-term effects of ACEs, which may shape the mechanisms of benign resilience, a currently unquanti ed resilience that on the one hand mitigates childhood adversity and on the other hand avoids the emergence of risky behaviors in adulthood thereby reducing the risk of infectious diseases [26,42]. Additionally, we found an association between ACEs and amphetamine-type stimulant abuse, and a study in Anhui Province, China, also showed that 44.6% of methamphetamine users reported negative childhood events [43].…”

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“…There are a number of ways to build childhood resilience, including developing life skills and building healthy relationships. Having a trusted adult offers protection against a range of negative outcomes associated with ACEs [ 54 ]. Where children do not have a trusted adult at home, ensuring opportunities to develop trusted adult relationships in other settings is critical (e.g., school, clubs), and can help avoid any risk of exploitation if close relationships are sought by the child elsewhere.…”

Trauma-Directed Interaction (TDI): An Adaptation to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Families with a History of Trauma

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