NEWS

Preventing childhood toxic stress: Partnering with family and communities to promote relational health

by Cason Benton, MD, FAAP, Director, Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance (ACHIA)

As part of its new call to action, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that pediatricians emphasize relational health. By integrating relational health into clinical care, pediatricians can promote resilience in the following ways:
• Primary: Utilize a strengths-based relational health approach at health supervision visits

• Secondary: Identify and address barriers to developing safe, stable, and nurturing relationships

• Tertiary: Connect families and children experiencing toxic stress with appropriate treatments to repair strained relationships

As a result of this call to action, ACHIA launched a statewide QI collaborative last year called Healthy Beginnings, which focused on relational health among the 11 participating pediatric practices. There were several specific drivers, including:

• Preparing the practice

• Utilizing a strengths-based approach

• Screening for potential barriers to early relational health

• Fostering and continually expanding referral networks and resources

Clinicians worked from December 2023 to August 2024 on improving strengths-based messaging and screening for perinatal depression, food insecurity, or social-emotional wellness at specific well-child visits.

“The vast majority of what I see is depression, anxiety, attention deficit, autism, and behavioral issues. To me, trauma-informed care was a crucial component of that,” commented one collaborative participant.

To learn more about how you can incorporate some of these learnings, please join us for a hands- on workshop, Strengths-Based Approaches to Promote Early Relational Health: Applying ACHIA Trauma-Informed Care and Resilience (TICR) Collaborative Lessons Learned to Your Practice, with Cason Benton, MD, FAAP, and Elizabeth Dawson, MD, FAAP, at the AL-AAP Spring meeting in May.

Learn more about this work and view the Executive Summary and the Final Report at https://www.achia.org/past-collaboratives

This article first appeared in the First Quarter 2025 Edition of the Alabama Pediatrician Newsletter.