ACEs and general practice

General practitioners (GPs) are well-placed to constructively discuss children’s adverse experiences and help parents and carers plan the support they need. The resources in this part of the ACEs toolkit focus on ACEs and general practice and are designed to support GPs’ understanding of ACEs and their impacts, and to facilitate the building of children’s resilience to avoid these negative impacts.

In Australia there is increasing interest in the ways understanding and utilisation of ACEs science can support practice, particularly with regard to early intervention and prevention for children.

In 2020, the ACEs survey was added to the ACT Kindergarten Health Check (KHC) program – a population-level whole child screening program of all children entering kindergarten in the ACT. The ACEs survey adds information regarding health, development and wellbeing collected as part of the project.

The addition of the ACEs survey is being supported by a suite of resources for GPs, health and social service workers and families found in this toolkit.