6. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Adverse childhood experiences

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:16 pm on 2 February 2022.

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Photo of Jack Sargeant Jack Sargeant Labour 4:16, 2 February 2022

As many Members will know, ACEs and a trauma-informed approach are an area and a topic that I'm passionate about. Just last year I wrote a piece co-authored with Charlotte from Platfform, a mental health charity, about the need for a kinder and more trauma-informed approach in all of our public services. I know many Members share this interest with me, and I do often reflect, as the Prif Weinidog Mark Drakeford did yesterday, about the role my dad played in promoting ACEs and the agenda in Wales.

I do welcome the Conservatives bringing this motion forward today, and I thank Darren Millar for that, but I do want to have a wider discussion about the importance of prevention. It's not just about reducing, though; I believe it's about helping people who have been through trauma. And at the heart of trauma lies poverty. You cannot be trauma-informed and support, for instance, the current welfare system, which is so inflexible and traumatising. The punitive nature of this system is the very opposite of trauma-informed. It causes anxiety and it causes desperation.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I heard a statistic from one of my Welsh Labour colleagues this morning. She spoke in a debate, and she stated that 94 per cent of benefit decisions—94 per cent—in her constituency that go to appeal are turned over. That's not a trauma-informed approach, that will not reduce the occurrences of ACEs. But, of course, again today, this is not mentioned in the motion from the Welsh Conservatives because they do support the chaos this causes to households across the nation. It's worth noting, Deputy Presiding Officer, that the motion is silent again on the cost-of-living crisis and the accompanying misery that it will cause many. So, as I said, Deputy Presiding Officer, I do want the wider conversation on ACEs, and it's important that we're having this debate in our Parliament today, but we have to—