Melanie Morse, a clinical-community psychology doctoral student at the University of South Carolina, recently finished a one-year graduate assistantship with Children’s Trust of South Carolina. During her assistantship, she worked in the areas of research, evaluation and policy. She shares how Children’s Trust helped her better understand prevention work, ecological systems at play in the lives of individuals, and unique opportunities within clinical and community psychology.
What do you think of when you hear the word “prevention”?
Had I been asked this question a year ago, I would have said secondary and tertiary prevention – working to reduce the impact of a disease or injury once it has already occurred or is likely to occur. Primary prevention, on the other hand, involves more universal strategies aimed at preventing a problem before it happens.
While all three of these pieces are important, what would the lives of South Carolina’s children look like if abuse, neglect, and unintentional injury didn’t happen in the first place?
Melanie Morse
Working at Children’s Trust with Melissa Strompolis, director of research and evaluation, Megan Branham, director of policy, and Whitney Tucker, policy research associate, over the past year has helped me to better understand how the critical elements of research, evaluation and policy can contribute to prevention of child abuse, neglect, and unintentional injury in South Carolina.
Research and evaluation are important pieces of prevention because an honest measurement and reflection of the current state of affairs is a useful starting point for improvement. In the year I spent at Children’s Trust, South Carolina was ranked No. 42 nationally by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book for child well-being in the areas of economic well-being, education, health, and family and community.
South Carolina is home to approximately 1.1 million children, and we want to make sure that every one of them has a great childhood. We know that great childhoods start with access to resources for early childhood health, education, and development. In 2014, according to KIDS COUNT data, 27 percent of South Carolina’s children were living in poverty, meaning that their families may not be able to afford health care or quality child care for their children.
We also know that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can impact physical and mental health into adulthood. Examples of ACEs include abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, bullying, discrimination, and homelessness. In 2014, Children’s Trust partnered with South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) to collect data on ACEs. Results were striking: 62 percent of South Carolina adults stated that they had at least one ACE prior to turning 18 years old. Nearly 40 percent of South Carolina adults had multiple ACEs.
Giving every child the opportunity to have a great childhood can’t be done alone. Children’s Trust aligns with numerous partners across South Carolina doing work across the prevention continuum. But creating lasting positive changes in our children’s well-being means that we all must work together to support prevention efforts at the local and statewide levels. Simply being informed of where our state stands in terms of child well-being is an important first step in working towards prevention.
Although my placement at Children’s Trust has ended, I look forward to using the knowledge I have gained there to spread the message of prevention through participation in research, evaluation, and advocacy work for South Carolina’s children.
