Handle with Care: Soon Includes Ages 0-5

Handle with Care, a notification system that enables law enforcement and other first responders to increase support for K-12 children who have experienced a traumatic event, will soon include ages 0-5.

Jenna Anderson, the early childhood coalition coordinator for Thrive by 5 serving LaGrange and Noble Counties, learned about Handle with Care during a Prevent Child Abuse Council meeting in LaGrange County, where the program was available to students in grades K-12. Working with Chelsie Irwin, the Trauma Informed Communities Programs Director at the Indiana Department of Health, Jenna learned that early childhood is not included within Handle with Care anywhere in the state, and likely not at a national level.

Through conversations with first responders involved in Handle with Care already, the decision was made to pilot the program in select early care and education sites within LaGrange and Noble Counties.

But first, trauma looks much different in early childhood than it does in school-age children. To update the training, Jenna secured funding support from the Community Foundations in both LaGrange and Noble County. With a recommendation from NEIECC’s executive director Allie Sutherland, Jenna hired the Alliance for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health to complete the update.

At this time, that early childhood training presentation is now complete! The next steps include recording the presentation and attaching an assessment tool to test a viewer’s knowledge of the content. After that, the training will be rolled out to the providers participating in the pilot, and the program will be implemented at those select sites.

Once the bugs have been worked out and the early childhood portion of the program is running smoothly, NEIECC will work with the state to increase Handle with Care’s early childhood coverage into counties that are already participating in the K-12 program.

Three counties in Northeast Indiana (DeKalb, LaGrange, and Noble) have fully implemented the program, while four others are in the planning/implementation stages.

Here’s how Handle with Care works, for both the K-12 program and now for early childhood:

When a child has been at the scene of a potentially traumatic event, such as a domestic violence incident, car accident, arrest of a parent, etc., first responders notify schools. The points of contact for that school alert the child’s teacher that there is a Handle with Care on a particular student. The schools do not know the specifics of the notification, but are encouraged to keep an eye on that child, perhaps adjusting their normal responses to behaviors that could be related to the recent trauma.

In early childhood, this could include being excessively clingy to their caregiver, hitting or pushing their peers, or refusing to nap. In older children, responses to trauma often look like forgotten homework, arguing or fighting with friends, or falling asleep in class.

Since it’s inception in Indiana, Handle with Care has not been used in early childhood. But as we know, exposure to trauma can disrupt brain development, and early childhood is where 90% of brain development occurs.

While children may not “recall” a specific traumatic event when they are young, their brains certainly remember it. Prolonged exposure to trauma or toxic stress can disrupt typical brain development, which can lead to impaired brain functions related to learning, memory, and self-regulation, even as adults.

By ensuring children have safe, stable, and nurturing environments for healthy development and learning, the potential effects of trauma can be mitigated. We are proud of the work being done in Northeast Indiana to meet this unmet need in early childhood, so that children will receive the support they need now, as young children, to decrease or even prevent the effects of trauma throughout their lives.