5945 Developing an adverse childhood experiences regional teaching programme in the north west of England

Objectives Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) were first described by Felitti in 1998 which documented the link between childhood abuse and household dysfunction and long term morbidity and mortality.¹ Only in more recent years has this been integrated into wider education (for example level 3 safeguarding² and RCPCH national curriculum, in part due to the success of Dr Nadine Burke-Harris' book 'The Deepest Well'.⁴ A regional survey of North West paediatric trainees in 2021 found that the awareness of ACEs within the trainee cohort was only 46%, with only 6% having awareness of any trauma informed principles, 94% of them highlighted that they felt they needed more training on ACEs.⁶ ⁷ This highlighted the need for further education of trainees about ACEs and the impact of them on our clinical practice. Methods In 2022 a regional teaching programme was developed to enhance understanding of ACEs and trauma informed care (TIC). This was included as part of the ST1–3 & ST4–8 monthly regional teaching. The teaching was a full day and included safeguarding,³ understanding ACEs, how to adapt trauma informed practice into clinical work and examples of trauma informed projects that were currently active in the region (GM Navigators).⁸ Results 2 successful events ran over the course of the year. Initial teaching was provided by non-paediatrician trainers and the feedback for the trainees was this wasn't as beneficial as lacked the relevance for clinical application. Following this I delivered the sessions, as a paediatrician, and ensured the sessions were translatable into clinical practice. Feedback following this teaching day was overwhelmingly positive with many commenting on what an engaging and excellent day it had been. There was a 100% perception that the sessions were educationally beneficial and 95.8% of attendees voted that the quality of the presentations on ACEs & TIC were excellent to outstanding. Conclusion Overall, the development of an ACE teaching programme has been successful in the North West of England. There has already been plans to develop the teaching for the next year, with more clinical paediatric workshops (such as how to ask questions in a trauma informed way) and practical sessions. There is also an ongoing project into understanding paediatric trainees own trauma responses in order to ensure we can be fully trauma aware. Further teaching also will include working with the full MDT (including nursing staff, receptionists etc) to ensure all staff are ACE & TIC aware. References Felitti VJ, et al. Relationship of childhood abuse & household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. Am J Prev Med. 1998;14(4):245–58. ELFH. Safeguarding Children- Level 3. 2021; https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Component/Details/391100 RCPCH Level 2 Generic Syllabus. 1.1. 2018 [cited 2023 Aug 1]. https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-07/ProgressPlus-core-syllabus-2023.pdf Burke Harris N. The Deepest Well. Pan Macmillan; 2018. Netherton R. A non-academic trainee experience of paediatric research. RCPCH. 2022 [cited 2023 Aug 2]. https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/news-events/news/non-academic-trainee-experience-paediatric-research Netherton R, Presky J. Adverse childhood experiences- what do paediatric trainee's actually know? Arch Dis Child. 2022;107(Suppl 2):A265.1-A265. GMVRU. Navigator Project. 2021 [cited 2023 Jul 20]. https://gmvru.co.uk/initiative/navigator-project/