Why Address Trauma in ECE Settings?

Almost half of all infants and toddlers and nearly two thirds of preschool-age children in the United States participate in ECE (Digest of Education Statistics, 2016; ZERO TO THREE, 2017); ECE, or “nonparental care that occurs outside of the child’s home,” includes home-, center-, and school-based settings, Head Start and Early Head Start programs, and prekindergarten programs (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019, p. 19). Given the estimates of early trauma exposure noted here, it is certain that most, if not all, ECE programs routinely work with traumatized children.

High-quality, comprehensive ECE programs with a strong focus on family engagement (e.g., Head Start/Early Head Start; High Scope Perry Preschool Project; Abecedarian Project) can provide critical support to traumatized children and their families, especially those living in poverty. Evidence that demonstrates the benefits of ECE include: (1) promoting young children’s social–emotional development, (2) protecting children against poor health and mental health outcomes later in life, (3) preventing and reducing the negative effects of early trauma (Green et al., 2020; Yoshikawa et al., 2012), and (4) lowering downstream costs to society (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice) while offering a high rate of return on investments (Conti et al., 2016).

Unfortunately, ECE providers, leaders, and other stakeholders often lack access to education, training, and supervision on the impacts of child trauma and how to promote resilience among its youngest victims. Concomitantly, ECE programs are expected to offer high-quality care and opportunities to learn in the context of managing children’s challenging trauma related behaviors, which can take a toll on provider well-being (Bullough et al., 2012). A build-up of stressors in ECE providers’ lives, such as the many adversities related to the COVID-19 pandemic, may further compromise their mental health and quality of care they provide (Bartlett & Vivrette, 2020; Smith & Lawrence, 2019).

In my own work as a mental health consultant, I found that some ECE providers and program leaders were eager to address mental health difficulties such as trauma, while others were more reluctant to take on this role. Even the term mental health, when applied to very young children, can be confusing and off-putting to ECE staff, who are more familiar with the term social–emotional development. Furthermore, avoiding painful experiences is a natural human response, and working with traumatized children is surely emotionally painful. Coping with children’s trauma can also trigger difficult memories and feelings in providers who have their own histories of trauma (Lieberman, 2004; Lieberman & Van Horn, 2009).

In addition, pervasive societal myths about early development, perhaps grounded in avoidance and hope, also interfere with attention to early trauma. These include the belief that babies do not notice, fully experience, or remember traumatic events, or that they inevitably “bounce back” from adversity. In the aftermath of a catastrophic event, for example, it is not uncommon to hear adults comforting each other by asserting that “Children are resilient.” In reality, young children—even infants and toddlers—are skilled observers of people and environments, and infants as young as 3 months have been found to show symptoms of traumatic stress (Gaensbauer, 2002).

Having taught in ECE classrooms for a brief period and deciding that being a mental health consultant was a far less stressful occupation, I have the deepest respect for ECE providers and the difficult work they do every day. I understand how emotionally taxing it can be to care for children in distress while simultaneously bearing responsibility for an entire group of children. It is essential, then, to validate how challenging this work is while still holding space for the notion that everyone in ECE has a role to play in the protection, recovery, and mental health of young children who experience trauma (Bartlett & Smith, 2019).

Unfortunately, early childhood education providers, leaders, and other stakeholders often lack access to education, training, and supervision on the impacts of child trauma and how to promote resilience among its youngest victims.