Understanding mechanisms and mental health impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences: The ATTUNE Project, Work Packages 1 & 2 - Thurs 22 May 2025

 Registration now open for this webinar here:  Understanding mechanisms and mental health impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences:

Work Package 1: Childhood adversity, mental health, mechanisms, and the power of now: "I literally just feel that moment…It completely changes where you’re at."  Dr Chloe Farahar, Dr Luke Allder, Professor Nicola Shaughnessy

Much has been written about the mechanisms linking Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to later mental health. It is typically assumed there are linear pathways from ACEs to causal mechanisms to outcomes, but the evidence base comes mostly from cross-sectional and adult recall studies. Young people's own perspectives on what affects their mental health have been largely missing from this conversation.This study aimed to understand what young people themselves identify as the mechanisms affecting their mental health, particularly in relation to adverse experiences. We conducted framework analysis of data collected through participatory arts workshops with 74 young people (aged 10-24) from diverse backgrounds across the UK. Rather than focusing on past events, young people emphasised two key themes that represent mechanisms affecting their wellbeing now.

Our findings challenge the traditional understanding of how mechanisms relate to adversity to affect mental health. Young people did not describe their experiences as 'past events leading to current outcomes'. Instead, our young people told us we need to be cognisant of the in-process, live mechanisms happening now.

This suggests that while being trauma-sensitive remains important, adults and services need to focus on minimising current harms and supporting positive experiences in young people's lives today. Asking ‘what happened to you’? is important if that is what the young person finds helpful. Our young people, however, highlight that we also need to ask, ‘what is going on now, and what do you need next?’.
Author information: Chloe Farahar, Luke Allder, Nicola Shaughnessy, Annette Foster, University of Kent, UK

Work Package 2: Dr Laura Havers
In WP2 of Attune, our aim has been to quantify and better understand the associations between youth adverse experiences and mental health in adolescence, from an intersectional analytic perspective. In this talk, we summarise the findings from across our studies and focus on the findings from our quantitative mediation study. This study considers the role of parental and peer support as potential mediating mechanisms within the broader contextual mechanistic landscape of intersectionality.

The talk will highlight the key findings from across our studies that youth adversity has pervasive detrimental effects on adolescent mental health across multiple intersectional profiles. We present the findings as a platform for future work in this emerging area.

Speakers:

Laura is a postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary, University of London. She is currently working as part of the Attune work package that analyses existing data to quantify relations between youth adversity and adolescent mental health through an intersectional lens. Laura completed her PhD in psychosis continuum research in 2022 as a part-time student at Birkbeck, University of London. She is passionate about researching mental health and mental distress from a social perspective, and the application of quantitative methods in this area