Witnessing Parental Arrest

The National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCTSI) was spearheaded in 2000, as part of the Children’s Health Act, to address mental health issues in children that arise from traumatic experiences. Child traumatic stress, PTS and PTSD are known to arise from a vast array of childhood traumatic experiences.

The psychological and emotional impact of parental incarceration has been well studied and documented (references). Parental arrest witnessed by children has up until recently been wrapped into the overarching traumatic stress of parental incarceration, the witnessing of criminal activity and the socioeconomic stressors associated with law enforcement encounters. Groundbreaking research by Philips and Zhao as well as Poehlmann et al. has started to separately delineate a very clear link between the witnessing of a parent being arrested and measurable child traumatic stress. One of their studies showed the elevation of cortisol, a stress hormone, in the hair shaft of children who were exposed to such trauma with an associated increase in PTSD symptoms. Unfortunately, this burden of stress is unevenly born by children of color.