COVID-19 is impacting on all aspects of family life and personal relationships, as well as on our formal and informal systems of social care. How are we ‘doing’ family life and practicing intimacies during lockdown? What are the consequence on our intergenerational relations – with the youngest and oldest – and how are we protecting those most vulnerable?… Read More »
COVID and ‘BIG QUAL’
It seems appropriate to review the possibilities of secondary analysis of data that has already been gathered by face-to-face techniques, as the current pandemic closes down many such forms of research. The substitution of virtual means of data collection for face-to-face means, such as interviewing using internet telephony, is not the only possible… Read More »
Making Scotland an ACE informed nation: continuing the conversation – an event summary
by Dr Emma Davidson We began a conversation on ACEs and resilience in December 2017 at the seminar, ‘The Troubling Concept of Resilience’, where Dr Eric Carlin and myself voiced our concerns that the dominant narrative on resilience could obscure inequalities; penalising individuals by making them responsible for their own wellbeing. Since then, we have witnessed the mounting influence of ACE and resilience-focused policy in Scotland. It is now even more important to provide a space in which popular rhetoric on ACEs and resilience can be constructively and respectfully critiqued. Our event on 6th November 2018 aimed to reignite that process. We welcomed three speakers: Dr Amy Chandler, Dr Cara Blaisdell and Laura Wright, each of whom talked from their perspective of their own field of research. Amy’s presentation (which you can watch here) examined the potentially counter-productive ways ACEs are used in research on suicide and self-harm. Early experiences, Amy noted, are undeniably important in shaping later risks of, or experiences with, suicide and self-harm. However, there is a tendency to rely on a mechanical or ‘addictive’ analysis, with a correlation drawn between early adversity and later problems. The work of explaining what these correlations actually mean, or understanding the mechanisms … Read More
Resilience – continuing the conversation
It’s not a surprise that our seminar, ‘The Troubling Concept of Resilience’, received such interest. In recent years, fostering resilience has become a central dimension not only of early years, education and youth policy, but wider social policy and practice. The concept has, arguably, come from a sensible place: research that has sought to understand why, and in… Read More »
Evaluating the Bookbug programme in Scotland
A little yellow bug in red dungarees has become a familiar part of Scottish family life. It’s name – and you will likely know this if you have young children – is Bookbug, and it’s the mascot of Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years programme.… Read More »
Measuring the impact of the book-gifting programme Bookbug
Bookbug is the Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years programme, encouraging parents and children to share stories, songs and rhymes from birth. The Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years programme has gifted free bags of books and resources to children in Scotland for many years, and there are Bookbug Sessions taking place every day… Read More »