The intersection of adverse childhood experiences and mental health concerns for youth involved in the child welfare system

The present study sought to identify if there is distinct mental health symptomology among child welfare-involved youth depending on the category of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) endorsed. A chart review of child welfare-involved youth (N = 129, ages 8-16) and caregiver reported ACEs and mental health/trauma symptoms was conducted. A K-means cluster analysis used ACE scores to identify groups of youth along two dimensions: household dysfunction and child abuse/neglect. The first cluster identified had low ACE scores outside of their system involvement (n = 62), the second predominantly endorsed household dysfunctions (n = 37), and the third predominantly endorsed abuse/neglect (n = 30). One-way analysis of variance tests revealed that youth in the systems-only cluster differed from youth in the other groups, while the two high ACE category groups did not differ from each other on mental health/trauma symptoms. These results have important implications for the screening and treatment referral processes in the child welfare system.