WHAT I CAN DO

Elements you can activate to address adversity you or others may be facing.

Experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) can have an impact on how we think, learn, act and grow. However, this does not mean that experiencing adversity will always lead to serious negative consequences. There are many ways to help ensure a positive outcome.

We worked with young people and adults in our community, to understand how we can help and support those who have, or are, experiencing ACEs. This resulted in an ACEs framework that sets out the ways of addressing the impact of adversities that you or others may face.

Please click on each icon below for more information:

Get to know yourself.
Understand and appreciate who you are as a person.

Show empathy and have compassion. Be kind to yourself and others.

Look at the big picture – think about things from different angles. Explore what could make a difference in the situation however small.

Create safety and choice, for yourself and those around you.

Actively find and build on positives – seek out and do things that make you and your family stronger.

If you want to find out more, you can access a free webinar. Click the links below to book our available webinars now:

7th May @9.30am  Growing Stronger: ACE Aware virtual session (via Zoom) – Liverpool CAMHS

8th May @6.30pm Growing Stronger: ACE Aware virtual session (via Zoom) – Liverpool CAMHS

15th May @6.30pm Growing Stronger: ACE Aware virtual session (via Zoom) – Liverpool CAMHS

3rd June @4.00pm Growing Stronger: ACE Aware virtual session (via Zoom) – Liverpool CAMHS

The Growing Stronger Framework includes things you can do to help yourself and others in your daily life, at home, at work, or at school. You may also need some support to help you achieve a particular goal. To help with this there are directories in Liverpool that allow you to search for you particular need and find services local to you. These directories are a great place to start when looking for ways to get help to tackle a particular challenge, or take on a positive activity that will make a difference for you.

The Family Services Directory provides a wealth of information about local services available to children, young people and families across Liverpool.

There are many other directories to explore to find the things you need:

  • The Live Well Directory – for Wellbeing & Health Services, Advice & Guidance, and Events/Activities & Groups.
  • Live Your Life Well – Information and links to local opportunities to support health and wellbeing.
  • Kind To Your Mind – Information to help someone understand mental health and wellbeing and take steps towards good mental health and support when needed.
  • Wellbeing Liverpool – Directory of activities, groups and organisations to support wellbeing.

Get to know yourself:

This is about understanding and appreciating who you are as a person. You will have particular qualities that make you who you are, and learning to value and strengthen these will help in your relationship with yourself and others.

How to help yourself:

Getting to know yourself can be achieved by taking time to consider the things that are important to you. This might be your values, your goals, what’s important to you in your relationships or things that bring you joy, like your hobbies and interests.

Making time for the things that are good for you, helps build a deeper understanding of all of the positives about you.

How to get help:

  • Kind to Your Mind Liverpool – information and resources designed to help people in Liverpool gain a greater understanding of their mental health, how to feel better and access support when needed.
  • The Life Rooms – helping people to access support to address a wide range of factors that impact mental health as well as offering opportunities for learning and connection through local events.

Look at the big picture:

This is about thinking a little differently, looking at the full picture to gain a deeper understanding of our own situation.

How to help yourself:

Problem Solving is a recognised therapeutic technique, that can be done without a therapist. You can use it at home, by yourself, or with someone you trust, to explore particular problem and develop solutions that work for you. 

There are 8 key steps:

  1. Identify the problems
  2. List all the possible solutions, no matter what they are. Don’t dismiss any ideas at this point
  3. Choose the top three you prefer
  4. Weigh up the pros and cons of each solution and choose the one that works best
  5. Make a clear plan for achieving the best solution (what, when, where and who)
  6. Think about the outcome or the difference it made
  7. If the solution was successful celebrate the positive outcome, if it wasn’t then attempt one of the other top solutions
  8. Think about the learning for the future

It may seem simple, but when we are feeling overwhelmed and facing complex challenges it can often really help to use a helpful tool like this to organise our thinking and our actions. Oxford NHS trust provides us with this template that can guide our thinking.

How to get help:

  • Citizens Advice Liverpool – Providing advice and support on many different life challenges, such as employment, housing, immigration, debt and benefits.
  • The Life Rooms – helping people to access support to address a wide range of factors that impact mental health as well as offering opportunities for learning and connection through local events.
  • The Family Hubs – helping families to connect in with local services and communities. For families with children aged 0-19, or 0-25 with those with SEND.

Show empathy and have compassion:

It can be hard to define what empathy means, but some experts explain empathy as having the following aspects:

  1. Taking on someone else’s perspective
  2. Being non judgemental
  3. Taking on someone else’s emotion, or understanding their feelings
  4. Communicating your understanding of a person’s feelings.

Compassion describes how we behave when we are practicing empathy. It’s important we do this for ourselves, as well as with each other.

Brené Brown has developed a short film to help us understand empathy. You can watch it here:

Watch here

How to help yourself:

We can practice self-compassion and develop our ability to be compassionate towards others, by being more forgiving of ourselves every day. These are really challenging times when many people feel overburdened and emotionally distressed. Remind yourself that everyone has good and bad days. Take time to reflect on the things that went well and the things that your would do differently next time.  What you tear you can repair – each day is a new opportunity to do things differently.

How to get help:

Liverpool has a parenting offer that offers a variety of different programmes that help build and support relationships in a supportive and compassionate way. Read more here.

Create safety and choice:

This is about finding what feels safe for you and others, and having the confidence to explore options and choice in your own support and care.

How to help yourself:

When facing complex challenges it is really important to do everything we can to create safety and comfort. Even things like a regular routine around day to day commitments can make a huge difference. This can be things like finding healthy ways to de-stress and unwind and having a calming bedtime routine. It can also mean talking to your GP or nurse about what would help you in your own care.

How to get help:

  • Wellbeing Liverpool – directory of activities, groups and organisations to support wellbeing.
  • Liverpool has a Communiversity where you can access training and support.

Actively promoting positives:

As adults, and as young people, we may be in situations that are outside of our control. We can improve our ability to manage these circumstances by actively finding and building positives experiences and seeking help when we need to.

For young people, we know that having Positive Childhood Experiences can build our capacity to cope with difficulty, help us to develop positive relationships with the adults and community around us and build our opportunities to learn and grow.

If a young person has experience of ACEs, Positive Childhood Experiences can protect us from negative impacts that ACEs may have.

The five ways to wellbeing provide simple steps to make a big difference. They can be used by adults and young people. These are recognised ways of improving mental health and wellbeing as part of every-day activities.

Kind to your mind has information to help someone understand mental health and wellbeing and take steps towards good mental health and support when needed as well as a guide to the five ways to wellbeing. Watch the five ways to wellbeing video below.

Watch here

How to get help:

  • The Family Services Directory provides a wealth of information about local services available to children, young people and families across Liverpool.
  • Family Hubs are a source of support who can help link you in with other services in your area.
  • Sometimes, talking to our children how their feelings can be difficult and Liverpool Parenting offer has lots of different services to help build skills.

Positive Childhood Experiences

  • Being able to talk to family members about feelings and feel heard and accepted

  • A belief that family stood by you during difficult times

  • Feeling safe and protected by an adult in the home

  • Feeling supported by friends

  • Belonging to a larger group

    E.g. School clubs, church

  • Enjoyment and participation in community traditions

  • Relationship with at least one non-parent adult who takes a genuine interest in you