 The final item of business is members' business debate on motion 9381, in the name of Gail Ross, on adverse childhood experiences. That debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Would those members who wish to speak in the debate please press the request-to-speak buttons? I call on Gail Ross to open the debate for up to seven minutes, please. I begin by thanking everyone who has come here to the chamber tonight. Everyone who has supported us with briefings and advice, including the Wavetrust, Barnardo's, NSPCC Scotland and Children First, all the people who have been in touch on social media, and everyone who has signed the motion, which has gained cross-party support from all sides of the chamber. I also ask anyone who is interested in ACEs to sign the Wavetrust 7030 campaign, which aims to reduce adverse childhood experiences by 70 per cent by 2030. This is the first time that I have ever done this, but if you are following the debate on Twitter, you have a hashtag in its prevent ACEs. ACEs may be a relevantly recent term in our social discourse, but childhood trauma is far from a new phenomenon. For many decades, psychologists, social scientists and educational experts have insisted that events that we experience in our early years can go on to form how we think, act and form relationships in adulthood. I was first introduced to the concept in 2013 when psychologists and attachment experts Suzanne Zideck came to Highland Council and gave us a talk about childhood trauma. It really got to me. My son was really small at that point, and I had recently completed a course in child development. I think that most of the councillors present that day would agree that it is one of the best discussions that we have had because it opened our eyes to the way childhood trauma affects lives. Suzanne Zideck was one of the first people to talk about love in the Highland Council. For those of us who have been in a council chamber, that was a welcome change. She told us about the importance of the very early years, how attachment or insecure attachment with a loved one or a caregiver can mould us not just emotionally and socially but physically as well in the way that your brain develops. She showed us two brain scans, one of an infant that had been loved and nurtured and had good attachment and one that had not and the difference was stark. I then met her again last October at an event and I pledged to help in any way that I could to raise awareness and initiate action on ACEs. I think that we have begun that today. Presiding Officer, there are no statistics for Scotland on ACEs and I hope that that is something that the minister can address in her closing remarks. A prevalent study conducted by NHS Scotland would give us a baseline from which to work and let us see the scale of the issue that we are dealing with. Statistics from the 7030 campaign tell us that 67 per cent of the population may have at least one ACE. I do not know how many people here in the chamber tonight use the ACEs tool provided by Barnardo's on the ACEs2 high website, but a massive 87 per cent of people who have taken that test have at least one ACE. So what are ACEs? They basically sit in three categories, abuse, neglect and household dysfunction. The 10 indicators are physical, sexual or emotional abuse, physical or emotional neglect, mental illness, mother treated violently, substance abuse, divorce or incarcerated relative. Research has shown that people with four or more ACEs have three times the level of lung disease in adult smoking, 11 times the level of intravenous drug use, 14 times the number of suicide attempts, 4 times is likely to have had sexual intercourse by the age of 15, 4.5 times is likely to develop depression and 2 times the level of liver disease. People with six or more ACEs can die 20 years earlier than those that have none. Disrupted neurodevelopment, social, emotional and cognitive impairment, the adoption of risk health behaviours, disease, disability, social problems and early death. They can lead on to a life of drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness, mental health problems, long-term unemployment, aggression and criminality. Studies have shown that preventative spend investing in our early years can save us millions of pounds of public money. In the Highland Council, Suzanne Zeduck gave us the analogy of the baby in the stream. Do the hard work at the source and you will not be fishing them out further down the stream in later years when they are playing up in school, in prison, homeless or worse. It is not just the physical cost that we could prevent, it is the social and emotional cost to individuals and families all across the country. We know that the best thing to do is try and prevent ACEs from occurring in the first place but we have to be realistic and we know that in every instance this may not be possible. We need to help to build resilience in people with trauma on how to deal with it. A lot of those people have never been shown love and affection and, in turn, find it difficult when they become parents themselves. That is why schemes such as the family nurse partnership are hugely important to breaking this cycle. Our professionals, teachers, social workers, health workers and organisations such as the police need to be fully aware, trained and equipped to spot the signs and deal with the resulting behaviours and consequences of trauma. Education, health, care, justice, social security, housing—all those sectors need to work together to ensure a trauma-informed approach to the way that they work. We also need to embed a trauma-informed approach in our teacher training. I believe that Strathclyde university is already doing that and may well be the first university in the UK to do so. I know a teacher who set up a social enterprise that encouraged school refusers and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to learn new skills and, in turn, raise money for the school. I will never forget the time that she had 30 kids in the school on a Saturday morning learning how to knit. She never apportioned blame. She always tried to understand the backgrounds of the children. She asked them questions. She rewarded good behaviour and attendance. She cared about the kids and rewarded them in turn with increased attendance, attainment and confidence because they trusted her. We do things well in Highland. We were the first to integrate health and social care back in 2012 with the lead agency model, the only one currently operating in Scotland. We have led on many children and young people initiatives, such as the name person scheme. No matter if you do not agree with it, it was working. It comes as no surprise that I am putting on record my request to the Wavetrust to have Highland as the area for their pioneer community project and to ask the Scottish Government to consider becoming a third partner in this initiative. In Scotland, we pride ourselves on the way that we look after our children. We strive to get it right for every child. We want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up. Let's get an assurance here tonight to work together across all sectors and make Scotland an ace-aware nation and to fulfil our commitment to the United Nations declaration on the rights of the child, to protect children against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. There are a lot of people out there with the knowledge and the drive to make things better. We are never going to close the attainment gap until we address aces because children can't learn properly when they are suffering from trauma. Let's get them talking about feelings. Let's teach them to be kind and loving individuals who matter. Presiding Officer, aces has been cited as the single greatest unaddressed public health threat that we face. We need action both from government and in society and the time for that action is now. Thank you. We move now to the open debate. This debate is heavily oversubscribed so I am going to be very strict with times. Absolutely no more than four-minute contributions and less, in some cases, would be appreciated. I call Rona Mackay to be followed by Elaine Smith. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also thank Gil Ross for bringing this vital and timely debate to the chamber. Earlier this month, I hosted an event to screen a film called Resilience, which highlights the ACES initiative. It was my second time viewing the film and I have to say that it hit me probably even harder than the first time as I picked up more and more of its astonishing content. The sell-out film, Took Scotland by Storm in 2017, features the research of a pioneering doctor called Nadine Work-Harris, who works in America with children from primarily disadvantaged backgrounds but not always. As a former children's panel member, I have seen children thrive when they were taken out of hostile environments. I knew it happened but I didn't really know why. Now I know it's like finding the final piece of a jigsaw. It's important to remember that ACES is based on scientific evidence, not academic theories, altered responses to stress-lead to physical changes in the way that the brain develops as Gil Ross was describing. I urge everyone to examine the evidence and research that has been done on the subject. It's truly revolutionary and could shape the way we deal with disadvantaged young people for generations to come. The psychological and scientific communities are in agreement about the harmful impact of ACEs. When someone is objected to any kind of abuse, neglect or household adversity through their childhood, they often continue to suffer the consequences far into adulthood. In other words, for each traumatic experience a child has, such as domestic violence, physical or sexual abuse, addicted parents neglect and more, the higher their ACE score is, the more they will be affected. Early traumatic experiences condition children to normalise stress and terror. This is called toxic stress. Children who experience ACEs are more likely to self-harm or attempt to commit suicide as adults. Unlike other children their age, children with multiple ACEs aren't worried about an upcoming exam. They're worried about how they'll get their next meal. They're worried if they will be safe at home. In short, they're worried about their own survival day to day. The eminent research scientist and ACEs pioneer, Dr Suzanne Cedric, mentioned by Gail, reports that these prolonged emotions change the way that the body functions and that this impacts on the quality of their lives and their overall life expectancy. We want Scotland to be the best place in the world for children to grow up, so we need to take action to get all our young people whatever they've experienced help and emotional healing. Children with a high ACE score are not doomed if they receive the correct care and understanding. In the film resilience, we hear from a professional who says, if we want to improve the lives of our children, we have to transform the lives of those caring for them. There's a lot of knowledge already out there about ACEs and, as ever, Scotland's wonderful children's organisations such as Children's First, Bernard's and many others are right at the forefront of how we deal with affected youngsters. However, we need to ensure that teachers and social workers receive training about ACEs, how to recognise the behaviour of a child who is effective and how to respond to their needs. We can also begin to spread awareness about the commonality of ACEs and childhoods so that those suffering do not feel isolated. A major conference taking place in Glasgow in September will be an amazing forum to spread the word and its testament to the will and determination of all those working passionately in this field. Any efforts to help those children and adults is an investment in the future of Scotland. Let's make Scotland a beacon for the rest of the world in dealing with ACEs because we can do it. I call Eileen Smith, followed by Fulton MacGregor. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I congratulate Gail Roth on securing this debate and can I also apologise to the chamber and particularly to the minister as I have a meeting and I'm going to have to leave early, I'm afraid. I recently attended the interesting showing of the resilience documentary hosted by Rona Mackay that she's just mentioned and that explained the ACE scoresheet, how it works and its origins. As Gail Roth outlined, research has found a direct link between childhood trauma and adult onset of chronic disease as well as depression, suicide, being violent and indeed being a victim of violence. It also found that the more types of trauma experience increase the risk of health, social and emotional problems. The Bernardo's briefing that we received also sent a copy of an ACE questionnaire as Rona Mackay mentioned and I was surprised to see that bereavement wasn't one of the categories. There are other traumas that can also affect health and wellbeing but apparently the 10 used are the most common. Although divorce and separation are included in the 10 ACE factors, I think that we must also take care to ensure that the approach to this doesn't stigmatise any child or any parent in a one parent family, whether that's by choice, by divorce or by bereavement. Sometimes separation could actually protect children from trauma involved with difficult or abusive parental relationships. Across Scotland, in many parents, grandparents and carers are doing a great job in providing a secure home and giving the children in their care the best start in life in many different family settings and we should recognise that. One concern I would like to raise is the apparent absence of any equalities in discrimination analysis from the study and the development of the ACE scores. For example, racism and racist abuse can bite a child's life from the outset and we have a responsibility to continue to tackle all discrimination head on. Of course, in many cases, childhood trauma has its roots in poverty and deprivation and many parents living in poverty do provide security and stability for their children despite massive challenges but there's no doubt that poverty puts a strain on family finances and therefore relationships. We know that children who grew up in low-income households have, on average, poor and mental and physical health. A Joseph Rowntree foundation report into poverty tells us that, at age 5, children who have had high-quality childcare for 23 years are nearly eight months ahead in their literacy development than children who have not been in preschool. I welcome the cross-party commitment in this Parliament to increasing quality childcare provision in Scotland. To come back to the impact of poverty in families and children, it is shameful that the UK End Child Poverty Campaign Coalition reported yesterday on a significant increase in child poverty across the UK. In one Glasgow constituency, the report highlights 45 per cent of children now living in poverty, which is unacceptable. There's no doubt that many people who experience trauma and abuse are resilient but others are not. Suffering traumatic events and adverse childhood experience undoubtedly increases the risk of inequalities, disadvantage and poor physical and mental health. That means that clearly building resilience and coping strategies in children and young people is necessary to help to prevent negative outcomes. Family support is also important, as is ensuring that those who care for and look after children are properly supported and trained. We have the tools to diagnose the problems. We know what some of the answers are. However, all of that has budgetary implications for government, for local authorities and, indeed, for the third sector. That includes the pay and conditions of staff. Earlier this week, the Jimmy Reid Foundation published a report commissioned by Unison, which highlights the vital contribution that is made by local government to local services and local communities. The experience of children and families living in poverty will undoubtedly be worsened by continuing cuts to local government budgets and essential services. On the other hand, increasing wages and investment to provide high-quality public services will improve children's life chances and will help to reduce those age scores for many children. That is clearly an area where preventative spending will be of great benefit in the long-term, not only to individuals but to society as a whole. Once again, I congratulate Gail Ross on securing a debate on that important issue. I call Fulton MacGregor to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. Thank you to Gail Ross for bringing this important debate forward to the chamber. I will declare a reminder to members of my register of interests. I am currently registered with the Scottish Social Services Council and had eight years direct experience working in a busy child protection social work office. The trauma is so prevalent, as Gail Ross highlighted. One of the things that I encountered most was domestic violence that led to many child protection referrals and interventions. I am glad that the Government has taken forward the new domestic abuse bill legislation, because that is an area that I highlighted during those particular debates, where there was certainly a gap. I am so glad that that has been supported across-party. In child sexual abuse, I met people from the adult survivors of sexual abuse across-party group today—a cross-party group that I am a member. I talked about that. There are very few more harrowing things that most people can think about than that yet. That is something that is still mainly kept in silence in the mountains when I would go out and deal with—unfortunately, I have to deal with a case like that. People still want to not talk about it, and I think that we have a lot of work to do there. Elaine Smith talked about poverty and deprivation, and I think that she is absolutely right. There is no doubt in my mind that the areas in which there was more deprivation and that there was more likely to be more referrals, as parents became more stressed out. Obviously, I take the opportunity to welcome John Finnie's private member's bill, which has gone through Parliament as well. That is also given equal protection. I think that we have made a lot of progress over the last few years. I mentioned before in the chamber that, when I started in social works 2004, I was in that particular team between 2004 and 2012, and I did notice a lot of changes, particularly in the way that agencies would share information. That became much more common, and I think that that is something that we need to do even more of—collaborative working. At first, everybody was just in their wee groups. That is how I remembered at first being, but following that, you would train with the police, health visitors, and that was becoming more and more common. I know that local authorities in different areas have different ways to do it, and it is hardening to hear what is happening in Highland. I think that everybody knows that we need to prioritise early intervention, but I think that everybody would accept as well. Elaine Smith touched on it. It is easier said than done. When child protection stuff comes in, that does become the priority for agencies. As a health minister, I should declare that I am the PLO rather than a young person's minister, that we ensure that resources are there to tackle the dual child protection and the early intervention issues across all services and social works. Obviously, policies have been important in that. I was very proud of some of the Scottish Government policies when I was actually working there in terms of getting it right for every child in the GERFEC framework. I think that they really did make an impact in, like Gail Ross, the controversy of it, but I do support the name persons bill, and I do think that that can make a difference as well. I am a very big fan of the nurture approach. I think that there is a lot of good work going on in schools in my constituency and organisations too much to name just now, and I see that I am running out of time, but I think that the play aspect is very important, and we can support children through that and other things. It is never too late to nurture as well. I just wanted to make that point. I mean, a lot of things I dealt with teenagers that ended up just wanting to secure, they just wanted to be insecure, and you know, you've just seen a wee child come out that was actually only four or five. It was amazing, so it's never too late to nurture. I'll finish on that. Jeremy Balfour, to be followed by Emma Harper. Can I thank Gail Ross for bringing this important issue to the attention to the Scottish Parliament and, to be honest, to the attention of myself, who was ignorant of this until the motion came forward? Adverse childhood experiences are stressful events occurring in childhood, and Gail Ross already has outlined many of them in different categories. As an ACE survey with adults and where is found, those with four or more ACEs are more likely to have been in prison, develop heart disease, frequently visit the GP, develop type 2 diabetes, have committed violence in the last 12 months, or have health harming behaviours such as high risk drinking, smoking or drug use. When we talk about ACE, we are talking about developmental trauma. Children who have experienced trauma and ACEs often struggle to develop the skills required for learning and social relationship resulted in high levels of tension and anxiety. These behaviours often manifest themselves in a school environment and can be misconstrued by teachers as bad behaviour, requiring discipline, rather than support. However, research has found that a relationship with one trusted adult during childhood can mitigate the impacts on mental and physical wellbeing. The children's childhood's binado who work with children, young people and parents and who have experienced trauma and abuse has identified that in areas where staff have specific training on trauma and trauma informed practice, they have seen changes in lifestyle. Trauma has been identified by professionals in mortar agency meetings and in assessments and schools are flagging trauma in the same way as they flag autism or ADHD. Speaking just this week to a primary head teacher with the Malovians, she welcomed the increased awareness of ACEs among professionals. She believes that it is important that this information is available to professionals to ensure that plans are in place to counterbalance for trauma experienced by children and to develop a nurturing adult-child relationship but fears that care should be taken to ensure that we do not unintentionally place additional labels on vulnerable children. It is important that we support those caring for children with ACEs. Part of that support must include dealing with the root cause of the issues being presented. It is crucial that those working with children who have experienced trauma are adequately supported through supervising and training and I agree with Fulton Macai that that often can be helped by play and other such activities. The Scottish Government has made the 2018 year of young people and the importance of early years is reflected in many areas of Scottish Government work. However, I also agree with Gail Ross that, unlike England and Wales, we do not have a Scottish ACE survey and I would encourage the Scottish Government and the Minister to consider if such a survey would create greater evidence for and emphasis on the need for action and, as has already been said, give us that baseline that we require. ACEs should not be seen as someone's destiny or defining someone for the whole of their life. There is much that can be done to offer hope and build resilience in children, young people and adults who have experienced adversity in early life and I welcome the steps that have been taken to raise awareness and understanding. However, I think that we still have a long way to go and it is in Government on all of us, whether it is here at national government, local government or within third sector, to play our part in it. Thank you very much. I notice that contributors are gradually creeping past the four minutes and then past the next five, then ten seconds, so can we have a bit of care, please? Emma Harper, followed by Alex Cole-Hamilton. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to congratulate my colleague Gail Ross for bringing this difficult subject to the chamber today. Gail Ross has described ACEs with a commendable detail and I welcome that. Gail's motion describes adverse childhood experiences as abuse, neglect and household adversity. My first experience of witnessing child abuse occurred when I was a student nurse. As part of my training, I did a clinical rotation in pediatrics. I was part of a team looking after an 18-month-old girl who had been admitted for a respiratory illness and that was when the cigarette burns were discovered. Cigarette burns on her arms, her chest and on her back. She was 18 months old and I was 18 years old at the time. I have thought about this a lot over the last 30 odd years, especially when I hear about stories of wanes in California, children from Smilham Park in Lanarkshire and, especially when I hear about tragedies in constituent stories when they come to the office. I understand that there are no published studies in Scotland of specific prevalence of ACEs and I agree with Gail Ross that it should be a priority to further investigate the nature and prevalence of ACEs in our own country. I am a member of the health and sport committee and we recently took evidence from Sir Harry Burns, Scotland's past chief medical officer. He emphasised the correlation between deprivation and adverse childhood experiences, and there is an excellent TED talk by Sir Harry online. In it, he speaks about the work of American psychologist Professor Aaron Antonowski, who interviewed hundreds of concentration camp and Holocaust survivors. Indeed, it is interesting to highlight that this week is Holocaust education week. As a result of Dr Antonowski's research, he began to fill the space in scientific understanding between social circumstances and molecular physical events, or as Sir Harry puts it, the biological consequences of social chaos. Professor Antonowski found that while 70 per cent of the interviewees were unhealthy, 30 per cent survived. The common denominator found that among the 30 per cent was an understanding that the world is comprehensible, manageable and meaningful. That provided those individuals with a resilience which helped to combat chronic stress. One example of the biological consequences of social chaos is the way in which stressful events in early life affect the development of the brain structures. The longer a child is being looked after away from a single significant parent, the greater their stress hormone levels are. As a result of exposure to those hormones, the hippocampus in the brain, which enables you and me to suppress the stress response, is less developed in those with a chaotic early life. We are already doing things in Scotland to address ACEs and stop abusive cycles. For example, encouraging parents to tell their children bedtime stories to improve the cognitive attachment between child and guardian, and enabling smoking cessation and breastfeeding promotion, and the promotion of baby boxes, 524 so far in Dumfries and Galloway, since the introduction when it was measured up until the end of December last year. Those children who received the baby box last year will be among the first to receive over 1,000 hours of fully funded early learning and childcare from 2020. That support is available to all families, building on the principle established by the baby box that all children are born equal. When I spoke to the minister early this morning, she told me that the interim review of care sector would address any problems as soon as identified, and immediate action would be taken place. No waiting, this is that important. In the words of Harry Burns, let's not spend a fortune trying to find drugs to fix these problems. Let's change the chaotic and difficult circumstances. I'm sure that the Scottish Government will need to spend some money wisely, though, on sorting these problems. In Scotland, we're on the way to breaking the cycle of ACEs and the consequences in later life. I look forward to being part of that, and once again thank my colleague Gail Ross. I told the chamber earlier that this debate is heavily oversubscribed. I will accept a motion without notice under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. Can I invite Gail Ross to move that motion? The question is that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we all agreed? That is there for agreed, and I will say it again, please come in under four minutes, because it's a very important subject, and I don't want to cut anybody off in important statements, so please have care. Alex Cole-Hamilton, followed by Jenny Gorruth. I also thank Gail Ross for securing time for us to debate this tonight and for her excellent speech to start off proceedings. I'd also like to remind the chamber of my interests here in my career in the residential childcare and children's voluntary sector. In that time, I came to know a little boy in one of our care homes who, at the age of nine, had been through 37 failed foster and residential placements, that a boy the age of my eldest son could have endured such a fractured existence kept me awake at night, to keep all of us awake at night. The trauma he had suffered in early life had created such a profound attachment disorder in him that he went into every new foster placement expecting it to fail. In a desperate attempt to exert some control on his life, he would, through challenging behaviour, seek to bring that placement crashing down on his terms rather than wait for what he saw as the inevitable rejection by his foster family. Every one of those failed placements represents for him an adverse childhood experience, but they were just one of a kind, of a catalogue that he had already suffered at that young age, ranging from bereavement and desertion to abuse and neglect. Understanding those experiences is absolutely critical to our deliberations in this chamber as they lie at the root of so many negative life outcomes. As Bernardo has informed us, they are not determinants of negative outcomes, but they severely hamper your ability to cope with adversity from which those outcomes stem. Those with four or more ACEs are 20 times more likely to be incarcerated and 14 times more likely to have been a victim of violence in the last year when compared with people of no such experiences. It is more wonder then that, as we have heard in an excellent speech from Emma Harper, the recommendations of Sir Harry Burns' review on targets within the NHS was that we should be routinely capturing the extent and nature of adverse childhood events and, as such, form a holistic response to that reality. His work beyond that review addresses the internationally recognised fact that adverse events in early life have a physiological effect on the brain at a genetic level, which can go on to inhibit serotonin receptors with the brain's ability to cope with stress and anxiety or experience joy. Simply by recording those events for every child, we can begin to target resource effectively. However, we certainly are not answering that challenge right now. A 2017 report by the NSPCC showed that, after analysis of 15 local authorities, only two provided specific dedicated trauma recovery services for children. We are not equipping, as we have heard today, our education list with trauma informed approach. It has been 10 years since I first started campaigning, along with others in the sector, for student teachers to receive training in attachment disorder, trauma and loss, and with it the impact that each of those can have on behaviour in the classroom. It is one of the key reasons that educational attainment is so poor and school exclusion is so high amongst our 15,000 young people who exist in the care of the state in any given year. As such, I agree with a call from Bernardo Scotland in Children First that we need to make a trauma informed approach at the heart of those working with children and young people. However, we cannot just limit trauma recovery to children alone. We also need to remember that adverse life events are multi-generational and that neglect or abuse from a parent may well stem from an unresolved trauma in their own lives too. 2018, as we have heard, is the year of young people. What better time to do more for those young people who have been handed the very worst start in life? It feels like we are on the edge of a long overdue period of both revelation and revolution in the field of trauma recovery, but we need to start that here in this chamber. That is why I am so grateful to Gail Ross for bringing this before us today, because if we do not start collecting data on the prevalence of adverse experience in Scotland, we cannot begin to help those children, each of whom is fighting an individual battle that we may otherwise know nothing about. I am afraid that this is the last warning that I am able to give. We are now in the position where I may have to cut other speakers' times, so I call Jenny Gilruth to be followed by Alison Johnstone. I too congratulate my colleague and friend, Gail Ross MSP, on this evening's members' debate, and I remind members that I am the PLO to the Education Secretary. As Emma Harper alluded to in her speech last month, the former chief medical officer for Scotland, Sir Harry Burns, gave evidence to the Parliament's Health and Sport Committee on which I, too, sit. In a response to a question from myself, he said, the link is absolutely cast iron. Adversity before someone goes to school leads to failure when they get to school. If we are serious about having a flourishing, inclusive economy, we have to get that link built more strongly. Well-meaning policies such as GERFEC have arrived, but it is time that someone came up with a system to create success at school and pulled all of that together. Getting it right for every child has not just arrived, the policy can be traced back to 2004 and to the review of the children's hearing system under the previous lab lib administration. We are 14 years on. I think back to my own time in the classroom not long ago. I look at that list of adverse childhood experiences—abuse, neglect, violence. I can think of pupils who I talked to who experienced a range of adverse experiences before they had even crossed the school gates. How was that information communicated to me as a professional? Well, sometimes it wasn't, because the school was not informed. Sometimes he would catch the guidance teacher after a staff meeting. Often, however, teachers simply wouldn't know about the adverse experiences that impacted upon their pupils before the school day had even begun. No homework today, detention for you. Can't complete today's task, stay in over lunch, don't have a tie-on, go to the heady. Although more restorative approaches to discipline are now to be welcomed, there is still a draconian hangover in many Scottish schools that creates a culture of fear when it comes to discipline. That's not healthy, and it's fundamentally detrimental to people's wellbeing. We can week out on the Parliament's health committee. I am struck by the disconnect between the rhetoric of the health portfolio and that espouse in education. We talk about closing up poverty-related attainment gap, but the language of adverse childhood experiences rarely features in that discourse. The trauma, often caused by abuse or neglect, that abuse and neglect often arising from the conditions created by poverty. So what do we already know? In 2015, 159 children were on the child protection register in Fife. Parental substance misuse was a concern in 91 cases. Domestic abuse was a concern in 102 cases. Parental mental health was a concern in 77 cases. Who knows this information? Not classroom teachers, rarely deputy heads, occasionally guidance teachers, as I've already mentioned, often social workers. This disconnect is not just between health and education, it is also apparent between education and social work. The 1997 ACEs study from where this term is coined was carried out in America, I therefore welcome Gail Ross's proposal to commit the Government to a similar piece of qualitative research in a Scottish context, but I will make my own addition that this research cannot be carried out exclusively by NHS Scotland. It should also be completed in conjunction with Education Scotland, thereby forcing the two disparate Scottish Government departments not only to work together, but that they focus on agreeing a common approach to tackling adverse childhood experiences. Indeed, our skills cannot be trauma-informed if we don't have a full understanding of the national picture. On page 18 of Professor Burns' recent report to the Government, he recommends that analysis of school attainment data rates should routinely consider the effective adverse circumstances arising from socioeconomic deprivation on attainment. He supplemented this view in committee, saying that there are ways of achieving success that we should collect data on. We should try and have a more consistent approach, because if we have a piecemeal approach, everything just gets fragmented. That is the situation that we currently have. A fragmented approach to gathering information on adverse childhood experiences and one that is not linked effectively to the Government's aspirations around closing the poverty-related attainment gap. I hope that the Government will now commit to challenging that fragmentation for the health and wellbeing of those children yet to be born. I, too, would like to thank Gail Ross for bringing this debate to the chamber this evening. We have heard that children first believe that adverse childhood experiences are the single biggest health and social care issue affecting children and families in Scotland. Last night, I hosted an event with the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health who published their scorecard on the state of child health yesterday. They are calling on MSPs to prioritise child health to make sure that the health and wellbeing of every child is put at the centre of every decision that we take here. Their scorecard shows that we are not doing enough to shape our health and social care services around the needs of children. Doing all that we can to prevent adversity in early childhood is fundamental to that. John Carnican, the retired director of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, wrote a very insightful piece on adverse childhood experiences for Holyrood magazine, on Kirsty, the Holyrood baby, which urged us to consider all our public policy within the context of prevention and developer strategic planning through the lens of adverse childhood experiences. He said that, if we do that, we will not have to imagine a Scotland that is less unequal, it will be a reality. As Emma Harper and Jenny Gilruth have shared, the Health and Sport Committee recently heard from Professor Sir Harry Burns on his review of health and social care targets. He advocates renewing that focus on the early years. He was really clear about the evidence based around the long-term impact of ACEs. He stressed that we would better start getting it right in the early years if we want to have a flourishing population, because we know that experience in a number of adverse events can affect children's brain development and their capacity to develop healthy, meaningful relationships. With that comes an impact on their ability to learn, to cope with stress, to manage difficult decisions, and down the line, children who have been through significant adverse experiences are eight times more likely to struggle with alcoholism or substance misuse, eight times more likely to be arrested for a violence offence, and they are much more likely to develop chronic illnesses as they go through life. I have recently visited the Edinburgh access practice a couple of times to learn more about the fantastic work that it does. I have met people in recovery from addiction, and it could not be clearer that the one thing that those inspiring people have in common is that they have experienced adverse events in childhood. Meeting people who have been exposed to shocking circumstances, which I would struggle to cope with today—I cannot imagine coping with them today—let alone as a vulnerable child leaves me in no doubt about the impact of ACEs. What is worse is that it is not until some of those people have been through years and years of insecurity, poverty and trauma until they have developed chronic health issues and addiction that they have the support that they needed since childhood. Karen McCluskey, in her work with the violence reduction unit, has a presentation—I do not know if any of you have seen it—and a film about David, who found himself sentenced for culpable homicide at the age of 16. She went back and researched his life story, and in his life story we find alcoholism, domestic abuse, constant house moves, family members with over 100 convictions between them. There is a real pattern there, and she could not be clearer about the need for earliest intervention. It is right that our NHS is leading work to develop our understanding of the long-term impact of adverse childhood experiences in Scotland, and it is right that we foster a trauma-informed approach to care and treatment. It really is time that we shift the focus of care from asking what is wrong with you to what happened to you. In 2016, there was an important conference on the impact of faces across our lives called Polishing Our Gems—A Call for Action on Childhood Adversity. Before the Presiding Officer asked me to wind up, I would ask the members who have not had an opportunity to read that to do so, because it will be really helpful in us taking our work on this issue forward. Christina McKelvie, followed by Kezia Dugdale. Let me start by paying tribute to Gail Ross for bringing such an important issue to the chamber, and sometimes an overlooked issue to the chamber. It is not a sign of weakness to recognise an adverse childhood experience. Let me be clear, that is not pseudo-science, it is not an unfathomable abstract concept, it is not the nanny state nor is it political correctness going too far. There should be no shame or disdain cast upon someone for admitting to being a victim of an adverse childhood experience. In fact, it is that realisation of victimhood that can sometimes help us all to come to terms with the impact of an adverse childhood experience in later adult life. Victims can carry the pain for many years silently, alone and in solitude. They may lead to communication of chronic stress through lashing out, self-harming, truancy and many of the other explanations that we have heard of today. Acting out in distress can also escalate into criminal behaviour or more severe episodes of mental health. Let it not be forgotten the seriousness of purpose that the Scottish Government takes mental health wellbeing through the national level with our 10-year mental health strategy. Taking that to the local level, such as inspiring organisations in my constituency such as Holistic Life, who do all that they can to aid young people through the tribulations of an adverse childhood experience, that is the work that they are doing in schools as we speak. Last year, I had the privilege of introducing the award-winning video, Never Too Late to Tell, a NHS Lanarkshire training video designed to spot the signs of childhood sexual abuse. That is an adverse childhood experience in its most reprehensible form. I would like to pay tribute to the NHS Lanarkshire gender-based violence service and to the survivors of childhood sexual abuse, who bravely shared their experiences to ensure that other victims did not suffer the same adverse trauma but, importantly, to ensure that the professionals knew what they were looking for. That adverse trauma can manifest itself in many ways, as we have heard, while the repression of ACEs may have little impact on people's daily lives. Minor incidents can later in life trigger behaviour that is much more damaging not just for that person but for those around them. Those reactions to small things may be more violent than the experience may warrant and those extreme reactions can be devastating to the individuals themselves, to their families, their friends and the people that they work with. To get to the key crux of ACEs, we have to look at deprivation, inequality and the lack of sustainable opportunities that need to be recognised. With the negative pressures of rising inequality, driving feelings of powerlessness and anger in situations in which people feel shame and compelled to lash out, intervention, support and a global understanding of wellbeing is critical to effectively treating the harm that is caused to victims of adverse childhood experience. That also means addressing bigger issues for our localities such as poverty, unemployment, housing and education, because they are all part of an agenda for equality that could help to interrupt from what we have heard that cyclical nature of an adverse childhood experience. Kezia Dugdale, followed by Claire Hawke. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and, like colleagues, I congratulate Gail Ross on securing this evening's debate and, indeed, commend her for an excellent speech that laid out much of the context as to why ACEs matter and why we are talking about them tonight. I remember one of my first meetings that I did as an MSP was with Barnardo's, where Sally Ann Kelly talked about toxic stress, giving us a lesson on what that meant. I remember being profoundly struck by it and, indeed, it had a lasting impact on me. We have heard today that there are 10 indicators of adverse childhood experiences. One of them is domestic abuse, and that is what I want to concentrate my comments on this evening in particular about. If you look at the Barnardo's survey that Gail mentioned in her opening remarks about how to identify if you have experienced an ACE, here is the one on domestic abuse as it relates to a child's mother. It says, was your mother often pushed, grabbed, slapped or had something thrown at her? Or was she sometimes or often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist or hit with something hard? Or was she ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or a knife? If the answer to that is yes, then that is one ACE point in terms of the Barnardo's scoring system. We have heard from a number of speakers that there is not enough data. We certainly do not count the number of ACEs in Scotland just now, like they do in Wales. I add my support to Gail's call for the Scottish Government to look at that. Just because we do not count ACEs does not mean that we do not know what is going on, a point made already by Jenny Gilruth. I have spent most of the afternoon looking at the Government's social work statistics. I started with a random year of 2013, when there were 2,681 children on the child protection register, 700 of which had experienced domestic abuse. Back in 2013, that was the seventh highest reason for being on the child protection register. The most recent statistics published last year, but for 2016, showed that the number of children on the child protection register is slightly higher—2,723 children. Over 1,000 of those children have domestic abuse, marked as one of the indicators for being on that register. It is now the second most dominant issue on that register, only preceded by alcohol abuse overall. We have a rising prevalence of domestic abuse and how it impacts on children. It is worth reflecting very quickly, Presiding Officer, on how we approach domestic abuse law. It is often from a gendered perspective that it is about women and rightly so, but a by-product of that is that we do not always consider the impact on children. Just looking at the history of domestic abuse law as it impacts on access of a parent to their child after being convicted, section 11 of the 1995 act dealt with that. It was reviewed again in 2006 in this place by the family law bill. Again in 2008, the Scottish Government's national domestic abuse action plan, priority five of which was to properly review that. PQ answers that I received this week from Annabelle Ewing said that they are now starting that review 10 years after it was promised in 2008. It is important to recognise that the new domestic abuse bill, which will hopefully come into law next week, makes a huge amount of progress in that regard, particularly around coercive control. The Government's own equally safe strategy says that the physical abuse of a mother is coercive control of the entire family. I understand that the measures in that bill around non-harassment orders are entirely down to the work of Mary Gougeon, and she would be recognised and commended for that. The bill would not have that in that if it was not for the work that she did in the justice committee. We have come a long way, Presiding Officer, but we need to have a look very specifically at domestic abuse as it impacts on children in the context of the law if we are fundamentally going to achieve that goal of reducing ACEs by 70 per cent by 2030. Presiding Officer, I would refer members to my register of interests, my register of mental health nurse and I currently hold an honorary contract with Crick or Glasgow and Clyde NHS. I would also like to thank Gilroth for bringing this very important issue to the chamber to be debated. I would argue that addressing adverse childhood experiences is the biggest challenge faced by public health, not just here in Scotland but across the whole of human society. Our childhood experiences shape who we are and how we respond to the situations that life presents us, even more so if those are the negative experiences of neglect, harm, violence, poverty or abuse. The correlation between adverse childhood experiences and future negative outcomes is supported in study after study. The Scottish Government itself highlights research that shows that, compared with people with no ACEs, those experiencing four or more were 15 times more likely to have committed violence against another person in the last year. Presiding Officer, do we really need any more evidence to prove how vital early intervention is? Crucially, ACEs do not need to be a determinant of future poor outcomes, as the right support and interventions can and do make a difference. Taking steps to prevent occurrences of ACEs is essential, however prevention alone is sadly not enough. Some adverse childhood experiences, such as parental separation or parental mental illness, are unavoidable, and that is why we must have a focus on resilience and early intervention too. For many years, I worked as a perinatal mental health nurse. Ensuring the early detection and treatment of maternal mental distress and illness is critical in helping to not only secure better outcomes for the mother's mental health but also for the baby and the family as a whole. Promoting, developing and maintaining good attachment between mother and baby will foster a healthy and happy relationship between them, however it will also substantially assist with the infant's mental health too. Where people have had an adverse childhood experience themselves and should they have little support when entering parenthood, then the development of a good relationship with their child is often difficult to achieve. Parenting programmes such as the Soli Hull parenting approach help parents to develop the skills that they may not have or recognise within themselves. The Soli Hull approach, of which I declare that I am trained in, has been adopted by health and social care professionals across the UK and beyond. It promotes knowledge and understanding of emotional processing for both babies and parents, known as containment, and it promotes sensitive, attuned reading of the baby's own cues and language, known as reciprocity. Being attuned and responsive to a baby's needs helps to promote the resilience that each child requires. Other programmes such as Triple P and Mellow Parenting, used across Scotland and beyond, also provide essential building blocks of healthy attachment and therefore resilient families. Evidence and my experience shows that parent education and family support programmes can help to provide a secure attachment between mother and baby. In turn, that forms the basis of the child's wider relationships and is a protective factor against the impact of adverse childhood experiences throughout their lives. In doing some research for writing this speech, I came across a Scottish Public Health Network report that was published in May 2016. The wording in its forward struck me as getting to the heart of white early intervention and addressing adverse childhood experiences is so crucially important. A very wise health visitor used the analogy when talking about children that they are like diamonds. Their potential is inherent, but they need to be polished with care and attention. Sadly, not all our children in Scotland are polished with enough care and attention. Presiding Officer, we need to be bold in our ambition for our children's future. We need to be innovative in our support of parents and carers, and we need to be challenging the barriers that prevent our children from being those polished gems. I thank Gail Ross for allowing us to debate this issue, which is a hugely important subject. I want to use my opportunity to speak on it to concentrate on the word resilience, which features in the motion. I recognise that most members have talked about early years trauma, but now, more than at any time and modern times, it is the most challenging time to be a teenager. The freedom of expression that we all enjoy as a result of the rise of social media gives many opportunities to our young people, but it also puts tremendous pressure on teenagers too. My biggest worry is that in recent years abuse, coercion and intimidation perpetrated online is having a serious effect on the mental health of young people and how they form adult relationships. Members will be aware that it is a subject that I keep on coming back to. I have been campaigning on better awareness of the dangers concerning the sharing of and unsolicited receipt of intimate images and so-called sexting between young people. There has been a rise in crime rates around sexual abuse of young people by other young people, and it is my belief that social media may be one of the causes of that. Right now, there are young people swept up in activity that could put them at risk of offending under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm Act. Apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, Messenger, et cetera liberate and connect young people, but they can also be channels for the abuse of a sexual nature. There are too many examples of that to go into in the short time that I have, but the answer to that is to promote resilience and care around social media use. Parents and teachers have a role in that, but young people themselves have the biggest role, and I commend to everyone here that young Scots did GI programme, who are working with me and the students of North East Scotland College, who are, as we speak, designing a range of films on these issues to highlight, sadly, all too common misuses of social media that could lead to the types of sexual abuse that can have a lasting negative effect on both the recipient and the perpetrator's lives. Children who are recovering from ACEs are at particular risk, and the extra pressure on children entering their teens who have suffered ACEs can be acute. I appreciate that I have concentrated on the other end of the childhood experience, but Gail Ross's motion has led me to discover a new aspect of childhood trauma that makes work on resilience as teenagers, with all the pressures that they face, ever more urgent. Trauma-experienced children can become vulnerable young adults, and a healthy approach to relationships is particularly important in the face of the online pressures that teens face. Like Emma Harper said, let's break the cycle of ACEs. That's the way to do it. I can now allow Mary Gougeon up to three minutes. Way to say do, get an extra minute's grace there. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I really just wanted to start by adding my thanks to my colleagues across the chamber. To Gail Ross for bringing such an important issue here, and I think that the fact that it's been such a popular debate and oversubscribed is because everybody realises what a hugely important issue this is and the kind of impact that it has. I would also like to thank Rona Mackay for sponsoring the screening of resilience in the Parliament the other week, which I attended. I genuinely am so glad that I did because you left that screening itching to do something. You felt that you know that it's something that we need to tackle and we need to do something about. First of all, we need to do something about preventing ACEs, as Gail Ross highlighted, because we know all about the impacts that they have. As Kezia Dugdale talked about as well, the toxic stress that that can cause and the impact that that has on a child's life and into adulthood. I also want to add my support to the 7030 campaign because preventing ACEs means attacking it from all sides. That isn't just a health issue, it's not just an education issue. It's health, education, social work, justice, welfare and many other elements all working together to challenge the myriad of issues that children face. Like it says in the motion, we know that the level of ACEs rise with the level of deprivation that a child is living in. However, one thing that surprised me through watching the resilience screening was how ACEs impact people right across the spectrum. I think that that was found even when they interviewed the audiences across the screenings. One thing that struck me is that we know about ACEs themselves. We can try to prevent that as far as possible, but what can we do to help children and young people who have suffered from ACEs so that they don't then go on to suffer the consequences of them later on in life? It was great to see, again, through that screening, some of the methods being used in certain schools in the US and that their methods were working. I think that one such technique was the Miss Kendra technique, though I'll be correct if I'm wrong. It provided an environment where children discussed their thoughts and feelings. That brings me to the real reason why I wanted to speak in this debate tonight, which was to highlight the work of Mason Dew Primary School in Bereken, in my constituency, where they absolutely recognise the importance of the positive mental wellbeing of our children, but also the fact that early intervention and building resilience is so vitally important. They have developed a long-term strategy involving parents at the school, Sam H, and specialists who work in the area of mental health and young people. Last week, they held their first wellbeing event at the school, which unfortunately I was unable to attend, where they had workshops for children, they had yoga, relaxation, mindfulness and reading workshops for parents and their children, too. They recognise that there is no mental health part to the curriculum, so they are actively trying to do something about it. That is from nursery right through to primary seven. They are helping children to explore their feelings and develop coping strategies. As part of the roll-out of that programme, they are also going to be looking at nurture and attachment. Our schools can't solve all the problems or challenges that a child faces when they are at home, but what they can do is play a key role in helping to develop that resilience and building those coping mechanisms to ensure that ACEs' children do have, don't hold them back or have a lasting impact on the rest of their lives. It seems to me that some of you were determined that the minister wasn't going to get to be able to conclude this debate. I now call Maureen Watt to conclude this debate. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to close today's debate on this crucial agenda of addressing adverse childhood experiences. I'd like to thank Gail Ross for bringing this important issue to the chamber and thank all members present for their valuable contributions, including Alex Cole-Hamilton's first line experience in this area. We all know that what happens to us as children shapes who we are and has a huge impact on us throughout our lives, especially those who experience adverse ones such as abuse, neglect, harm, violence and poverty. Kezia Dugdale talked about the profound effect that meeting someone from Barnadows had on her. I will always remember, as Minister for Schools and Skills, when we were jointly across ministerial portfolios producing the equally well document, Harry Burns talked about—he's very modest. He doesn't tell you that he's done a lot of research in this area. The huge amount of research that he's done on being able to identify holes in children's brains even in pregnancy and how that is possible to overcome, partly, by good nurturing of children in the womb babies and children in every possible way. Last year, in the programme for government, we made a commitment to reduce ACEs and to promote resilience in children and adults affected. That is about building on positive policy developments to date and placing the rights and wellbeing of children and young people at the heart and centre of all that we do. ACEs impact on all areas of life. That is a truly cross-cutting agenda for physical and mental health, education, social work, the justice system, employers and many more. It requires working jointly across services and sectors. I can tell you, Presiding Officer, that a number of ministers wanted to reply to this debate and it shows how we are all involved in this. As Minister for Mental Health, I am concerned about the impact that early life adversity has on people's future mental health and wellbeing and their lives overall. As you know, in March last year, we published our ambitious 10-year mental health strategy. The impact of ACEs is highlighted in this strategy and has a whole paragraph. The key focus of the strategy is on prevention and early intervention. A wide range of actions that are currently being implemented will help to reduce the incidence and impact of ACEs, such as improving identification of mental health problems in pregnancy, reviewing pastoral guidance in schools and counselling services for children and young people, supporting the mental and emotional health of young people on the edges of and insecure care, people whom we know will have experience of ACEs. Although ACEs' surveys usually look at the 10 key types of childhood adversity that many contributors have mentioned, our focus in the Scottish Government is on all types of childhood adversity. A few weeks ago, I visited Paul Mundt, a young offenders institution, and I met a young offender who told me that he had been seriously adversively affected by a number of traumatic bereavements in his life. I also think about the adversities that many of the child refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Scotland have had, particularly those arriving from more warrentoned countries. I use the term ACEs in the broadest sense to encompass all stressful and traumatic experiences that negatively impact on children's development. We can already see awareness of ACEs increasing across Scotland. NHS Education Scotland has facilitated the screenings of the resilience documentary film that many members have mentioned tonight. They have taken it across the country, and the screenings have attracted huge audiences, including members of the Scottish Government, where ministers and officials have seen the film and are engaged in the agenda. I have been struck by the way that ACEs' evidence is providing a shared language to engage in debate and discussion. It is telling us about what we can collectively do to improve our children's lives and how we can better understand the lives of adults and young people who have lived through the most challenging of circumstances. The members' contributions here tonight have been really important, and we must continue to raise awareness of the impact of ACEs. We must drive forward progress in preventing ACEs from happening in the first place and, when they cannot be prevented, mitigate the negative impacts as effectively as possible. We know that, with the right support at the right time, people can develop coping strategies and resilience in overcoming adversity. I thank all those members who have stressed the importance of promoting resilience. Our commitment to addressing ACEs is part of our on-going national approach to getting it right for every child. Alison Johnstone mentioned the event last night in the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health and the scorecard that Scotland got, which showed that we have enacted more policies to improve children's health than in the rest of the UK. We are steadfast in our commitment to children and young people, and that is particularly evident this year, in 2018, in the year of young people. That will give young people a stronger voice on social issues and to celebrate and showcase their talents and ideas as the event last night did. The best start for children begins before they are born, which is why implementing the best start review of maternal and neonatal services maximises opportunities for early intervention and support from the early stages of pregnancy. We are expanding the family nurse partnership across Scotland and extending the offer to vulnerable mothers up to the age of 24. That means that more first time young mothers are supported to develop and strengthen their parenting capacity and skills. We are increasing home visits through the universal health visitor pathway. That offers an opportunity to identify and provide the right support at the right time for all families to prevent and reduce the impact of ACEs. We know that ACEs occur across all incomes and can impact all members of society. However, we also know that those living in poverty are at increased risk of experiencing ACEs and are less able to access resources to support them in the face of that adversity. It was interesting to hear from Christina McKelvie what was happening in Lanarkshire. The Government's action on reducing childhood poverty is absolutely crucial in this area. We know that poverty and ACEs both impact on children's long-term health and life outcomes, so we need to address both to reduce inequalities and other inequalities in Scotland. I am optimistic that much of the work that we are taking forward across education, health and justice, for example, are all taking us in the right direction in addressing ACEs. The pupil equity fund enables teachers to best meet the needs of children who are living in poverty and who are experiencing other types of adversity. Minimum union pricing may well have a positive impact on reducing ACEs. A move to a presumption against short prison sentences may also reduce the number of children experiencing parental imprisonment. We are increasing our investment in the provision of good visitor centres to help to reduce the negative impact of children visiting family in prison. Gail Ross, herself and Jeremy Balfour and Emma Harper asked about collecting data. We are looking at the best options for obtaining data on ACEs for Scotland. There is work under way to test inclusion of ACEs questions in the 2019 Scottish Health Survey. Scottish data on ACEs will inform our understanding going forward, but there are already lots of positive action that we can take now. We have a good understanding of the impact of ACEs from the US evidence and closer to home from Wales and England. Health staff, police officers, social workers, teachers and many more speak to me of the impact that is sometimes devastating of ACEs that they see day to day in their work across Scotland. Many are already driving progress in creating ACE-informed places and services, and there are many positive examples existing in the third sector as well as in public services. The Scottish Government and partner organisations are working to build on their learning and good practice, as well as exploring new areas of development such as testing out approaches that routinely ask adults to come into contact with services about their experiences of early life adversity. Such routine inquiry of ACEs can help people better understand how their childhood experiences are affecting their lives, how best they can be supported and, importantly, in the case of parents, help them to prevent the cycle of ACEs being repeated with their children. Routine inquiry of ACEs is being considered as part of the wider work on taking forward the national trauma training framework. The framework is to help all of Scotland's workforce to develop services that respond appropriately to people's experiences of early life adversity and trauma in adulthood. It is part of an overall movement of trauma-informed services, as Alison Johnson said, shifting from asking what is wrong with you to what has happened to you. In closing, I would like to assure Jenny Gilruth and others that my ministerial colleagues and I are absolutely determined that Scotland's children get the best start in life. The disconnect that she highlighted at local level is certainly not my experience in Government. We are focused on making Scotland the best country in the world for all children to grow up so that all children and young people can achieve their full potential in a safe and supported environment. That might end by stating that this Government is wholeheartedly committed to continuing to work across all sectors and services to do all we can to prevent ACEs and where they do occur to support the resilience of children and adults in overcoming that early life adversity. That closes this debate just in time and this meeting is close.