Stephen Collins – Victim Comes Forward, Rotherham child sex abuse scandal, Adverse childhood experiences – allostatic load

Stephen Collins
L.A. County Sheriff Investigates Sex Crime
Victim Comes Forward
10/15/2014  BY TMZ STAFF
Stephen Collins is now under investigation by a third law enforcement agency for allegedly molesting and/or exposing himself to young girls … TMZ has confirmed … and the victim herself is the one who came forward to make the complaint.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ … the woman was 13 at the time and she has now gone to law investigators with her allegations.

Our sources say … the incident involves a relative of a neighbor when Collins lived on Havenhurst Drive in West Hollywood during the summer of 1983.

Collins confesses to exposing himself to the girl on the audio tape posted on TMZ last week. We redacted her name and address.

Collins also says on the audio … he went back to the victim and “made amends” years later….
http://www.tmz.com/2014/10/15/stephen-collins-sex-crime-la-neighbor-sheriff-audio-investigation/

Rotherham child sexual abuse scandal is tip of iceberg, says police chief
Child exploitation is a hidden crime, and offences at home are the biggest concern, says Norfolk chief constable Simon Bailey
Randeep Ramesh, Social affairs editor
The Guardian, Wednesday 15 October 2014

There will be more Rotherham-style child sexual exploitation scandals unearthed in the coming months as the “stone is lifted” on the scale of abuse perpetuated on the young, one of Britain’s top police officers has warned.

In an interview with the Guardian, Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk police, who is the leading officer concerned with child abuse within the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that sex crimes involving children had for “too long been a hidden crime”.

He also sparked a clash with fellow professionals by calling on teachers and doctors to take on more responsibility over detecting signs of abuse.

Bailey warned that the scale of the problem was far larger than previously thought, with the latest research estimating that the number of children suffering sexual abuse at some point in their childhood could be as high as 600,000. “We don’t know for sure. But I think it’s tens of thousands of victims [a year] of an appalling crime.”….

The concern of the police is that it is not gangs that are the biggest problem when it comes to sexual abuse, but the home.

Bailey said: “[This fixation] is rather overshadowing a far, far, bigger picture, and that bigger picture is that 90% of child sexual abuse takes place in the home where crimes are being perpetuated upon victims by people they know already. It is really important that we get some context around this.”….
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/15/rotherham-child-sexual-abuse-scandal-tip-iceberg-police-chief

National household survey of adverse childhood experiences and their relationship with resilience to health-harming behaviors in England
Mark A Bellis, Karen Hughes, Nicola Leckenby, Clare Perkins and Helen Lowey BMC Medicine 2014, 12:72  doi:10.1186/1741-7015-12-72

Results

Almost half (47%) of individuals experienced at least one of the nine ACEs. Prevalence of childhood sexual, physical, and verbal abuse was 6.3%, 14.8%, and 18.2% respectively (population-adjusted). After correcting for sociodemographics, ACE counts predicted all HHBs, e.g. (0 versus 4+ ACEs, adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals)): smoking 3.29 (2.54 to 4.27); violence perpetration 7.71 (4.90 to 12.14); unintended teenage pregnancy 5.86 (3.93 to 8.74). Modeling suggested that 11.9% of binge drinking, 13.6% of poor diet, 22.7% of smoking, 52.0% of violence perpetration, 58.7% of heroin/crack cocaine use, and 37.6% of unintended teenage pregnancy prevalence nationally could be attributed to ACEs….

Neurobiological studies have already identified changes to the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex associated with ACEs, while epigenetic studies are exposing gene-environment interactions with negative health consequences once exposed to stressors.

Danese A, McEwen BS: Adverse childhood experiences, allostasis, allostatic load, and age-related disease.
Physiol Behav 2012, 106:29-39.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/72

Adverse childhood experiences, allostasis, allostatic load, and age-related disease
Andrea Danese  Bruce S. McEwen  DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.08.019 Physiology & Behavior
Volume 106, Issue 1, 12 April 2012, Pages 29–39 Allostasis and Allostatic Load
Abstract

How do adverse childhood experiences get ‘under the skin’ and influence health outcomes through the life-course? Research reviewed here suggests that adverse childhood experiences are associated with changes in biological systems responsible for maintaining physiological stability through environmental changes, or allostasis. Children exposed to maltreatment showed smaller volume of the prefrontal cortex, greater activation of the HPA axis, and elevation in inflammation levels compared to non-maltreated children. Adults with a history of childhood maltreatment showed smaller volume of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, greater activation of the HPA axis, and elevation in inflammation levels compared to non-maltreated individuals. Despite the clear limitations in making longitudinal claims from cross-sectional studies, work so far suggests that adverse childhood experiences are associated with enduring changes in the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. These changes are already observable in childhood years and remain apparent in adult life. Adverse childhood experiences induce significant biological changes in children (biological embedding), modifying the maturation and the operating balance of allostatic systems. Their chronic activation can lead to progressive wear and tear, or allostatic load and overload, and, thus, can exert long-term effects on biological aging and health.

Highlights

We reviewed the physiological correlates of adverse childhood experiences. We examined the effects on the nervous, the endocrine, and the immune systems. These systems are abnormally active in maltreated children and adults. These effects may be adaptive in the short term but subsequently become detrimental. These effects may explain why maltreated individuals are at greater risk of disease.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938411004045

 

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Panel Charged With Eliminating Child Abuse Deaths, Early brain development susceptible to neglect, abuse, Elytte Barbour to return to county prison; Miranda stays at SCI-Muncy

Panel Charged With Eliminating Child Abuse Deaths
by February 25, 2014

A federal commission to prevent children’s deaths from abuse and neglect held its first meeting on Monday. Figuring out the extent of the problem is just one challenge facing the new commission.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
About 1700 children die in the U.S. each year as the result of abuse and neglect. At least that’s the official count. Many experts think the real number is much higher. Figuring out the extent of the problem is just one challenge facing a new commission set up to help eliminate such deaths. The panel held its first meeting yesterday in Washington, D.C….
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/25/282359501/panel-charged-with-eliminating-child-abuse-deaths

Part Four: From care to where? Early brain development susceptible to neglect, abuse
Emotional, physical trauma in childhood can cause delays in brain maturation, say experts
By Tracy Sherlock, Vancouver Sun February 25, 2014

The human brain is not fully developed until about age 25. Before that, young people can be impulsive, make poor decisions, and are often more susceptible to addictions.

Psychiatrists have a phrase for this stage of reasoning: “Hyperrational thinking.”

It is a tendency to focus on the upside of situations and ignore risks, says Daniel J. Siegel, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, Los Angeles school of medicine….

When a young person has been neglected, abused, or has no secure attachments, brain development may be compromised, Siegel said.

Children in government care have often been neglected or abused, making them more vulnerable to developmental delays and mental health problems….

“Young people who have experienced early emotional or physical trauma may suffer from delays in brain maturation, leaving them ‘behind’ in brain development during adolescence,” states a report called The Adolescent Brain by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, an American foundation that works to help former foster kids transition to independence. “When stressful events or traumatic experiences occur, children, youth, and adults may temporarily regress to an earlier developmental stage or accomplishment.”

The experts agree that stress during childhood not only physically compromises brain development, it also has far-reaching effects on mental health that can be compounded by things like poverty or living in a chaotic home. Put together, adverse childhood experiences like neglect and abuse, have long-term effects that spill over into physical health….
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Part+Four+From+care+where+Early+brain+development+susceptible/9546381/story.html

Elytte Barbour to return to county prison; Miranda stays at SCI-Muncy
By Justin Strawser
February 26, 2014
SUNBURY – Accused killer Miranda Barbour will remain at State Correctional Institution-Muncy (SCI-Muncy) for the time being, but her husband, Elytte, will be moved to Northumberland County Prison….

The international attention around Barbour’s claim to The Daily Item that she killed more than 22 people has disrupted security and efficiency at the prison, Johnson said. “It made it very, very difficult to focus on all the issues of all the inmates,” Johnson said. Nineteen-year-old Miranda Barbour and 22-year-old Elytte Barbour are charged in the Nov. 11 slaying of Troy LaFerrara in Sunbury….
http://newsitem.com/news/elytte-barbour-to-return-to-county-prison-miranda-stays-at-sci-muncy-1.1640921

Small Upswing in Child Abuse Despite Reports, Abuse of smallest babies may have risen, study finds

Small Upswing in Child Abuse Despite Reports
By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
October 01, 2012

Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner

A national study found that serious injuries from child abuse appear to have risen modestly over the past decade or so, and suggested that downward trends in other studies of abuse may reflect reporting changes rather than real improvement.

Hospitalization for abuse-related injury rose 4.9% overall among children 18 and under over the 12-year span from 1997 through 2009, wrote John Leventhal, MD, and Julie Gaither, RN, MPH, MPhil, both of Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Children were increasingly likely to die from these injuries before discharge as well, they reported in the November issue of Pediatrics.

However, “these results are in sharp contrast to data from child protective services,” they noted. A national reporting system from these agencies indicated a 55% decline in substantiated child abuse cases from 1992 through 2009.

A second more extensive report by the Congress-mandated National Incidence Studies suggested a 23% decline in physical abuse.

While called evidence of “positive changes in the provision of services to children and families, there have been concerns that some of this decrease may be due to changes in reporting of cases to child protective services agencies and changes in which cases get investigated by child protective services and which cases are actually substantiated as physical abuse,” Leventhal and Gaither wrote….

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/DomesticViolence/35038

 

Abuse of smallest babies may have risen, study finds
By Maggie Fox, NBC News  9/30/12

A new look at child abuse reports suggests there may have been a small but worrying rise in injuries to babies over the past decade or so. While most research suggests child abuse is down overall, the report published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics shows infants are far from safe.

The study contradicts government data collected over the same time, and it shows that health officials need to take a better look at whether child abuse is getting better, worse or staying the same, experts said.

“I think it’s premature to make any conclusions about whether it is going up or down,” says Dr. James Anderst, chief of the section on child abuse and neglect at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., who was not involved in the study. “Medical providers may be getting better at identifying abuse over time.”….

Child abuse is a serious problem in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 740,000 children and youth are treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries resulting from violence every year.

“Child abuse, neglect or violence can actually affect the development of a child’s brain – impacting the child now and for years to come. Our Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study shows a connection between child maltreatment and some of the nation’s worst health problems, including depression and heart disease,” CDC child abuse expert Linda Degutis says in a blog on the agency’s website….

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/01/14163696-abuse-of-smallest-babies-may-have-risen-study-finds?lite