Widening participation backgrounds & safeguarding

3. Adverse Childhood Events

When considering the safeguarding needs of young people from WP backgrounds, we must consider more than their immediate experiences. As outlined on the previous page, there are a lot of considerations to be had around the current lifestyle of the WP students we will work with and how they may be at risk now. We should also hold an awareness of how their history will affect their present.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are stressful or traumatic experiences that can greatly impact children and young people throughout their lives. Similar to historical abuse, ACEs can occur long before the student begins to work with Medics & Me, and yet could come up as part of the mentoring process.

While not directly related to your role in safeguarding, it is useful to understand what ACEs are and how these might impact those from WP backgrounds.

The experiences below are widely recognized as common ACEs:

Additionally:

Young person with caring responsibilities
Poverty
Online Harm
Displacement
Criminal Activity
Long-term Unemployment
Family Conflict and Violence
Bereavement
Lack of Opportunity for Growth
Discrimination & Racial Violence
Fear of Unsafe Neighbourhood
Inequality of Resources
Low School Attendance
Divisive Political and Media Commentary
Isolation

There is obvious overlap between this list of common ACEs, and criteria for widening participation in medicine. Some of these experiences may be ongoing, and others may be in the past.

It is important to distinguish that a disclosure of an ACE is not always a safeguarding disclosure, however they are often one and the same, and the number of ACEs a student experiences has a direct impact on their adolescence and early adulthood.

References:

Young Minds - Addressing Childhood Adversity and Trauma

Liverpool CAMHS - What are ACEs?