Thirty years ago, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was adopted. The UNCRC is the most ratified human rights convention. Only the USA has not yet ratified the UNCRC. Article 12 of the UNCRC recognises children’s right to participate in decisions that affect them. Since the UNCRC’s ratification,… Read More »
Researching LGBT+ Families and Relationships in Africa
I have been working during 2019 as part of a new consortium project, focused on supporting LGBT+ people in five African cities within Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia and Mozambique (‘LGBT+’ meaning lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and others with experiences outside heterosexual norms of gender and sexuality). The project – Strong in Diversity, Bold on Inclusion… Read More »
Kindness in court: who cares?
Scotland has an enviable reputation for being a country with a compassionate heart. As a nation, we have been at the forefront of a recent upsurge in understanding of the biological science of the impact of childhood trauma on the developing brain, gaining an awareness of adverse childhood experiences (“ACEs”). Much of the campaigning has been at grassroots level… Read More »
Understanding children’s ‘accommodation’ of parental separation and divorce
The opportunity for young people to speak for themselves about their experiences of parental separation is often missing from the research literature. Their participation tends to be based on their parent(s) participation in previous studies, requires parental consent, or their accounts are seen through a professional lens.… Read More »
Childhood sexual abuse: At the heart of problems with ACEs policy, Part 2
In part 1 of this blog (5/7/19) I outlined reasons why reducing childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in society, and addressing its damaging effects in adulthood, need to form and remain a key component of ACES policy. The considerable risks to mental health, and now increasingly to physical health also, have been widely researched and evidenced for decades: more so than any other… Read More »
Adverse Childhood Experiences: a social justice perspective
by Gary Walsh (This blog was first posted on 15th May 2019) In this blog I am going to look at ACEs from a social justice perspective. So, what does social justice mean to me? “Research in the field of childhood studies defines social justice in terms of children and young people’s entitlement (e.g. to the law, services and democratic processes), redistribution (e.g. of rights, duties and resources), recognition (e.g. of culture, difference, capacity) and respect (e.g. of strengths, attributes, abilities).” (Davis et al., 2014) Nancy Fraser understands justice as “…social arrangements that permit all to participate as peers in social life.” (Fraser in Lovell 2007, p.20) In short, social justice is about making sure everyone in society is taken care of and included. This means paying close attention to sites of injustice such as power, poverty, gender, race, sexual orientation, disabilities. Using this understanding, a social justice critique of ACEs involves asking whether the ACEs agenda contributes to socio-economic redistribution, recognition, respect and participation. In this blog I explore some thoughts on this, before concluding that the ACEs agenda contributes little to social justice and could potentially be an unhelpful distraction. I finish by suggesting some alternative ways forward. … Read More
Childhood sexual abuse: At the heart of problems with ACEs policy, Part 1
It was the impact of childhood sexual abuse trauma which gave Professor Vincent Felitti and colleagues the first, vital clues to persistent poor health and unhealthy behaviours in adults. It was the trigger to the range of ACE studies they then conducted, and to numerous others held internationally ever since.… Read More »
ACEs – repackaging old problems in shiny new (Emperor’s) clothes
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are defined as stressful events that occur in childhood which are believed to have lifelong impacts on health, wellbeing and health-related behaviours. This blog highlights some (but not all!) limitations with ACEs as a concept and a practice.… Read More »
Resilience is a process and opportunity, not something children have or don’t have
by Professor Ramona Alaggia Studying resilience with children and adults exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) has taken me on a journey that has resulted in a fundamental shift in how I do research, teach and counsel clients. This has been significant in my understanding of adversity, trauma and the profound role of resilience. When I initially encountered the term resilience I approached it with skepticism and questions. Was it a “feel good” term to minimize the fall-out from very big problems in people’s lives? Or a tool used by governments to scale back on service funding using platitudes like kids are resilient; they’ll be fine; they’ll bounce back – which has not been my experience with highly vulnerable children. Fostering resilience is a concerted effort that needs to be intentionally built into programming. Is resilience something people simply have or don’t have with very little in between? Up until recently, the research literature focused largely on individual characteristics for explaining why some people are more resilient than others. These identified characteristics are often related to personality traits – including intelligence, easy temperament, and extroversion for example – traits that appear from birth. Is resilience a state or a trait? … Read More
ResiliencebyDesign Research Innovation Lab
by Dr. Robin Cox, Laura H. V. Wright, Tiffany Hill, Dr. Tamara Plush, Dr. Sarah Fletcher, Nigel Deans In this blog, we hear about the work of ResiliencebyDesign Research Innovation Lab, an interdisciplinary team of researchers committed to using applied, participatory research with young people. For more information about ResiliencebyDesign, their vision and projects, visit ResiliancebyDesign.com or check out the overview video here (3 min) https://vimeo.com/263796486 (This article was also posted on 22 February 2019 at https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/CRFRresilience/2019/02/22/resiliencebydesign-research-innovation-lab/) Introduction “Where we conduct research as a method of moving hearts and minds to generate conversations that matter and lead to action” The interdisciplinary ResiliencebyDesign (RbD) team is committed to applied, participatory research with youth to address the complex and interrelated problems of disasters, climate change, and conflict. Our projects combine capacity building with a range of research methodologies (e.g., arts-based, participatory video, digital storytelling, surveys). We believe in the potential of young people as resilience leaders and change makers. In partnership with youth, we use creative process, innovation and research to explore, connect, and seed new ideas and social change. Our goal is to develop and implement strategies, practices, and policies that improve local, national, and international disaster risk reduction and climate change … Read More