Investing in the Adults Who Shape Children’s Lives

At a recent meeting of the 100 Families Initiative in Johnson County, Dr. Sufna John—a clinical psychologist and co-director of Arkansas Building Effective Services for Trauma (ARBEST)—delivered a message both sobering and hopeful: to truly protect children, we must invest in the adults who raise and support them.

“Fostering resilience in children means investing in the adults who support them,” Dr. John told the room of caseworkers, educators, counselors, and nonprofit leaders. “It’s not just about what happens to a child—but whether they have at least one adult who can buffer the impact of that stress.”

Trauma Doesn't Start With the Child—And It Doesn't End There

Dr. John encouraged attendees to reframe the way they view families in crisis. Rather than asking “What’s wrong with you?”, she urged them to consider “What happened to you?”

This shift is essential, she said, because trauma is not randomly distributed across the population. It is closely tied to poverty, racism, community violence, and a lack of opportunity. While practitioners often focus on family-level issues like abuse or neglect, the roots of trauma run much deeper—embedded in community conditions that make some people far more likely to face adversity than others.

In Arkansas, these challenges are particularly acute. According to ARBEST, one in three adults in some counties—such as Sebastian County—have experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), placing them at significantly higher risk for poor mental and physical health outcomes later in life.

“These are not just the parents of the kids in foster care,” Dr. John said. “These are your neighbors. Your coworkers. People sitting next to you in church.”

Trauma Changes the Brain and the Body

Dr. John broke down the science of how trauma affects the developing brain, particularly during early childhood. When children grow up in environments marked by unpredictability, fear, or neglect, it can impair the growth of critical areas of the brain responsible for reasoning, planning, and emotion regulation.

“If you didn’t get the chance to build those skills in your first five years of life, you’re at a disadvantage,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t get better—but it’s harder. And we shouldn’t pretend that everyone is starting from the same place.”

The effects extend to physical health as well. Trauma is associated not only with PTSD and depression, but with chronic inflammation, heart disease, diabetes, and other medical conditions that shorten life expectancy. People with four or more ACEs die, on average, 20 years earlier than those with none.

Parenting While Healing

One of the most powerful parts of Dr. John’s talk centered on how trauma influences parenting.

“Most parents love their children. They say, ‘I swore I’d never do this to my kid, because I remember what it felt like.’ But trauma makes parenting harder—especially when you’re trying to invent a new way of raising kids that you’ve never seen before.”

Simple stressors—being late for work, a child refusing to get dressed—can trigger deep emotional responses rooted in a parent’s own past experiences. These aren’t moments of poor judgment, she explained; they’re the result of bodies and brains still shaped by trauma.

Dr. John emphasized the importance of not judging families in these moments but instead helping them build skills and trust over time.

Building Trust: One M&M at a Time

To close her presentation, Dr. John used a striking analogy. She asked the audience if they would take a handful of M&Ms from a bowl if they knew that 2% were poisoned.

“Of course not,” she said. “Now think about that from a family’s perspective. You look like the last caseworker who promised help and disappeared. You look like the provider who said they’d help with housing and then called the Department of Human Services. Unless you prove you’re safe, why would they trust you with their children—the most important thing in their lives?”

Trust, she said, isn’t given—it’s earned through consistent, compassionate actions over time. And being trauma-informed isn’t just a mindset. It must be visible in behavior.

“If you can’t name a concrete thing you do that’s trauma-informed, then it’s just a concept in your head,” she said. “People can’t heal based on our intentions alone.”

A Call to Action

For service providers who are working as part of the 100 Families Initiative to move families in their communities from crisis to stability, Dr. John’s words served as both affirmation and challenge. The work of helping families isn’t just about providing services—it’s about showing up consistently, responding with curiosity instead of judgment, and recognizing the humanity in every person who walks through the door.

“We talk a good game as a society,” she said. “But people are watching what we actually do.”

Her parting advice? Don’t just get better at faking compassion. Become truly, authentically compassionate—because that’s what heals.

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