Nursery World - Staff Health & Wellbeing: Part 2

What influence do practitioners’ childhoods have on their own wellbeing and the way they respond to children? By Charlotte Goddard

The many faces of health: Illustration by Amanda Hutt

Practitioners are well versed in the fact that what happens to children in their earliest years has a massive impact on the rest of their life, yet what happened to practitioners when they were small, and the long-term impact of this, has not been widely researched. How many practitioners have suffered childhood trauma? How does this impact the way they see and look after their own, and others’, wellbeing?

Many early years practitioners are aware of terms such as ‘adverse childhood experiences’ as understanding grows about the cumulative effect that ‘ACEs’ can have on a child's later outcomes (see box). ACEs can affect both adult mental and physical health: a Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council report found adults with four or more ACEs were nearly twice as likely to be morbidly obese, twice as likely to have liver disease, and ten times more likely to use heroin or crack cocaine.

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