Constructing resilience: social workers' understandings and practice

Concepts and constructions of resilience have assumed a significant position in contributing to understandings of the psychosocial development of children and young people. This paper examines how concepts of resilience are constructed within the literature, and then explores social workers' perceptions and use of resilience with young people who were 'looked after' or at risk of becoming 'looked after'. It addresses the interface between social workers' views and understandings of the emotional health needs of their clients, and the responsiveness of accompanying service interventions. Using the Framework for Assessment as a platform for discussion, 32 semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 social workers relating to a purposive sample of 52 children and young people (31 boys and 21 girls). Social workers experienced difficulty in conceptualizing resilience, often providing cursory, general or non-expert explanations. Furthermore, social workers described all children and young people within the sample as being resilient, drawing only upon face-value observations to evidence this. Related to this was the low frequency of social workers' reports of children and young people's mental health difficulties and the concomitant low referral rate to secondary tier services. The authors argue that social workers' optimistic perceptions of the resilience of children and young people within this sample, alongside their positive appraisal of their emotional needs, impact on the interventions that are put in place. The paper concludes that the tendency of social workers to project optimism onto their client base calls our attention to a possible transference of the collective need for the social work department itself to be resilient within that local authority.     

“caught in the middle” exploring children and young people's experience of domestic violence

This document seeks to explore children's experiences of domestic violence and the effects such violence may have on their lives, both in the short term and in the long term. It draws on the conclusions of various studies in this area which have been carried out in America and the United Kingdom. It aims to raise awareness of the complexity of this issue and to highlight the importance of support for both women and children who may be survivors of domestic violence. The document highlights a number of issues, namely

How children and young people may experience domestic violence;

Identification of links between domestic violence and child abuse;

The impact domestic violence may have on mothering;

The effects domestic violence may have on children and young people's lives;

The legitimacy of the cycle of violence theory;

Issues to be considered when assessing the possible impact of domestic violence on children and young people.     

“Care Just Changes Your Life”: Factors Impacting upon the Mental Health of Children and Young People with Experiences of Care in Northern Ireland

This paper represents one element of a research project carried out into the mental health needs of children and young people with experiences of care in Northern Ireland. Focusing exclusively on qualitative data collected from 51 young people in care and aftercare, it discusses in the first instance how the challenges and difficulties faced by young people can manifest themselves in feelings and behaviours that may exemplify poor mental well-being. In doing so it provides an understanding of mental health in the context of these young people's lives. Through offering a more detailed account of some of the specific issues that put these young people at increased risk, it highlights areas for further work and consideration as a means of protecting them against these risks. These include: dealing with experiences prior to care; easing and “normalising” the experience of living in care; and enhancing “safety nets” after care. A key objective of the research is to inform policy and practice through the accounts of children and young people. It is argued that more work needs to be done to find creative ways of enhancing the day-to-day experiences of young people while in care and when leaving care.     

The participation of children and young people in decisions about UK service development

BACKGROUND: The involvement of children and young people in decisions regarding service development is well supported in government policy and underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Information on the extent, nature and outcomes of children and young people's participation can inform further development in this area. METHODS: Systematic literature searches, plus contact with professional networks, were used to gather and review evidence on children and young people's participation. RESULTS: There is a rapidly developing body of information describing and analysing innovative practices in this field. However, there is also a smaller, but substantial, amount of evidence demonstrating the limited extent of current involvement. A good deal of guidance is now available about how to promote the involvement of children and young people. However, the basis of this advice is not always clear, and more evidence about children's views and their experience of participation in public decision-making is required. Issues identified as barriers to change included adult attitudes and intransigence, lack of training for key adults, lack of clarity leading to tokenism, the nature of organizations (i.e. their formality, complexity, bureaucracy and internal politics) and the short-term nature of much funding. The evidence suggests that good practice includes a listening culture among staff, clarity, flexibility, adequate resources, skills development and training for staff and participating children and young people, inclusion of marginalized groups, feedback and evaluation. There is only limited evidence that children and young people's involvement in public decision-making leads to more appropriate services, although there is evidence that participating children and young people benefit in terms of personal development and that staff and organizations learn more about their views. CONCLUSIONS: The value of the participation of children and young people in public decision-making is now well accepted, and is recognized in the standards set in the Children's National Service Framework. However, there is an urgent need for internal and external evaluations of children's involvement.     

“Sexuality,disability and abuse: advice for life … not just for kids!”*

This annotation addresses the debate about the availability, taboos, choices and risks concerning the sexuality and abuse of young disabled people, it highlights the vulnerability of some disabled young people and discusses the dilemmas of maintaining the disabled person's dignity, safeguarding his/her independence and recognizing the need for appropriate sex education while providing protection from abuse, it is suggested that statutory agencies as well as legislation should assume greater responsibility for protecting and safeguarding the interests of disabled youngsters, some of whom may risk physical, emotional and sexual abuse beyond childhood. The manner in which sexuality and abuse are dealt with often reflects the way disabled people are regarded by the society. This paper attempts to address some of the legal and conceptual issues surrounding this area.     

“I keep hearing reports on the news that it's a real problem at the moment”: Public health nurses’ understandings of sexting practices among young people

Over the past decade, the potential harms regarding young people's use of technology have attracted mounting political, media and research attention worldwide. One practice engaged in by many young people is that of “sexting” and the sharing of partially, or complete nude images (“selfies”). Such images are not always retained within private spaces and are prone to be shared, with significant psychosocial consequences for young people involved. A significant risk is the hidden nature of some online interactions, with potential for grooming and child sexual exploitation. As key professionals working with young people, public health nurses have potential to educate and explore the risks with them. Yet to date, to our knowledge there has been no research in relation to public health nurses’ understandings of the practices involved or their potential harms. A qualitative study was undertaken drawing theoretically on the common‐sense model (CSM) to frame the analysis. Eighteen semi‐structured interviews were conducted with public health nurses in a region of England in 2016. Data were analysed through thematic analysis, and mapped to the five domains of CSM. Public health nurses’ understandings of young people's sexting practices were shaped largely by media reports, rather than scientific, disciplinary knowledge. Sexting did not resonate with many public health nurses’ own experiences of being a young person and was therefore difficult to understand. All were able to express an opinion about the causes and consequences of sexting and we present these as a “perceived hierarchy of risk”. All public health nurses acknowledged the importance of their role in dealing with harm reduction associated with sexting among young people, but they need education and support to do this effectively and confidently. Findings can be transferred carefully to many contexts and countries because sexting is a practice among young people that transcends geographical boundaries.     

Young People's Views on Communities and Sectarianism in Northern Ireland

Current legislation, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the Children (NI) Order (1995) and the Northern Ireland Act (1998), places an increasing emphasis on directly consulting children and young people in Northern Ireland. Within this context, there is a growing interest in the authentic views of children and young people on sectarianism. This paper discusses the process and findings from three Young National Children's Bureau talk-shops that provides insight into young people's views on growing up in communities in Northern Ireland and their experiences of sectarianism.     

Racial identity issues among black and mixed parentage adolescents in britain: A brief overview

This paper will explore racial identity issues among black and mixed parentage adolescents in Britain. The issues discussed in this paper are offered as the initial steps toward an understanding of some theoretical concepts covered in the psychological literature on racial identity issues. The paper will also outline some practical strategies for working with young black and mixed parentage people who show racial identity confusion. In this paper, the term 'black' will be used specifically to refer to people of African and African Caribbean descent. The terms 'mixed parentage' and 'mixed-race' are often used to describe first-generation offspring of parents of different 'races'. They most typically describe individuals of black and white racial heritage (Sebring, 1985) but is not limited to this combination. In this paper the terms will refer to individuals one of whose parents is African Caribbean and the other white European.     

Learning from the past: young Indigenous people's accounts of blood-borne viral and sexually transmitted infections as resilience narratives

The Indigenous Resilience Project is an Australian community-based participatory research project using qualitative methods to explore young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's views of blood-borne viral and sexually transmitted infections (BBV/STI) affecting their communities. In this paper we present an analysis of narratives from young people who had a previous BBV/STI diagnosis to explore how they actively negotiate the experience of BBV/STI infection to construct a classic resilience narrative. We examine two overarching themes: first, the context of infection and diagnosis, including ignorance of STI/BBV prior to infection/diagnosis and, second, turning points and transformations in the form of insights, behaviours, roles and agency. Responding to critical writing on resilience theory, we argue that providing situated accounts of adversity from the perspectives of young Indigenous people prioritises their subjective understandings and challenges normative definitions of resilience.     

'You think you know? ... You have no idea': youth participation in health policy development

This paper draws on research in the United Kingdom which set out to explore young people's understandings and experiences of health as experienced in their everyday lives and according to their own terms of reference, rather than in response to policy priorities. The project involved a peer research process followed by a large community learning event in which practitioners, community leaders and decision makers were brought together in dialogue with young people to develop understanding and explore responses to young people's health needs as a collaborative process. The paper documents an 'alternative' 'participative action research' approach to involving young people in research and developing responses to issues and problems that affect them. The paper highlights the value of a dialogical and enquiry-based approach supported by the use of visuals for engaging professionals in collaboration with young people in a process of learning for change. It draws attention to the 'policy gap' between professional understandings of young people's health needs and young people's lived realities and how this is reflected in differences in what young people and professionals consider appropriate responses to stress.     

‘…it shows that there's no limits’: the psychological impact of co‐production for experts by experience working in youth mental health

Co‐production is commonly conceptualised as a more equal sharing of power and decision‐making between a dichotomy of service user and service provider, each bringing valuable and different assets to the process. Experts by experience lie in the overlap between this conceptually created duality, providing the services they now do by virtue of having once used services themselves. Previous related studies suggest that their involvement in co‐production could impact positively on their social capital, self‐esteem, self‐efficacy and life skills. However, no studies have been explicitly psychological or phenomenological in nature, and the theoretical basis for such outcomes remains under‐developed. This phenomenological study explored the psychological impact of co‐production for young people who were paid experts by experience for a young person's mental health charity in a large and diverse urban area in the UK, looking at the what of psychological impact, as well as the theoretical why and how. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of five males, with a mean age of 25 years. Interpretative phenomenological analysis yielded three master themes: the co‐production approach, I'm a professional and identities in transition. Participants valued a collegiate organisational approach that prioritised empowerment, agency and equality between experts by experience and ‘experts by qualification’, leading to a positive impact on their self‐efficacy and self‐esteem. Co‐production impacted fundamentally on their identity structure, enabling them to explore a new identity as a ‘professional’. The results are framed within identity process theory and point to the potential benefits of this model to co‐production.     

Exploring the limitations of an adult-led agenda for understanding the health behaviours of young people

Public health and health promotion agendas are usually determined by adults, even when the 'target' population is children and young people. Adult-centred frameworks for health maintenance and the promotion of well-being risk ignoring young people's conceptualizations and experiences of health and health-relevant behaviours. However, the current policy emphasis in the UK and elsewhere apparently seeks to position young people at the centre of their own health-related decisions. Building on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, this paper examines and critiques policies relating to young people in UK, European and worldwide contexts. This paper then introduces data from two qualitative studies conducted in the UK. These studies illustrate that young people's definitions of health often run counter to prevailing public health and health promotion discourses. Young people do, however, often exhibit strategies for managing their health, even though they are frequently restricted by the perceptions that adults have about their lives and behaviour. This paper argues that the new policy discourse is not yet being systematically turned into action to give all young people a voice. This is important to begin to understand young people's perspectives about what matters to them and what really influences their health behaviours.     

Multiple Realities: A Relational Narrative Approach in Therapy With Black–White Mixed‐Race Clients

Notions of a racial identity for persons with one Black and one White parent have assumed the existence of only a singular identity (first Black and later biracial). Emerging empirical research on racial identity formation among members of this group reveals that multiple identity options are possible. In terms of overall health, the level of social invalidation one encounters with respect to racial self‐identification is more important than the specific racial identity selected. Here a relational narrative approach to therapy with Black–White mixed‐race clients who experience systematic invalidation of their chosen racial identity is presented through a detailed case illustration.     

Neither ‘foolish’ nor ‘finished’: identity control among older adults with HIV in rural Malawi

Prevalence of HIV after age 50 is considerable, especially in southern Africa. Negative social constructions of HIV in older age, and the health consequences of ageing with the virus, mean that having HIV presents a challenge for many people's roles and social memberships, threatening to disrupt their sense of self. Using constructivist grounded theory and qualitative data from rural Malawi, this paper describes how older men and women deal with these identity challenges. Drawing on a symbolic interactionist framework, it uses identity control theory to explore how the study's participants presented their post‐diagnosis behaviours in ways that maintained their most significant pre‐diagnosis identities as ‘adults’, a label they gave to the core identity of being a person who belongs in the social world. Considering the processes through which older people with HIV navigated challenges to their identities in light of the intersectional influences of HIV and age‐related stigma and illness, provides insight into how older people might experience HIV, as well as informing theoretical understandings of identity formation and maintenance in light of chronic and/or stigmatising illness more broadly.     

Doll tales: foregrounding children's voices in research

This paper discusses how the use of Persona dolls in research is an effective means of enabling children (ages 4–6) to share life experiences openly. It investigated the place of race in the peer choice of preschool children. Two key research questions drove the inquiry: (1) Do four‐ to six‐year‐old children know their own racial identity? (2) Do four‐ to six‐year‐old children choose friends based on racial characteristics? Semi‐structured interviews using Persona dolls were conducted, with the dolls acting as conduits through which the children engaged in conversations with the researcher. Findings revealed that children were aware of stereotypes and discrimination. One minority child showed deep empathy with the posed dilemma of a dark skinned Persona doll and her inability to establish friendships. Implications are shared with regard to the significance of Persona dolls, play and life stories in presenting the views of young children.     

Listening to children: gaining a perspective of the experiences of poverty and social exclusion from children and young people of single-parent families

This paper reports on the experiences and views of children and young people of single-parent families, as findings from a European Union-funded research project undertaken in England, Greece and Cyprus. The objectives of the research project were to investigate how children and young people of single-parent families understand and experience their worlds as members of these families: whether and to what extent they experience poverty and social exclusion and how they cope with the challenges that this confronts them with. Methodology was replicated in each of the countries; however, this paper draws on the English experiences. Semistructured interviews (40) and focus groups (four) were undertaken with children of single parents. In addition, focus groups were undertaken with children of two-parent families (four), focus groups with single parents, focus groups with two-parent families (four) and individual interviews with key professionals. Detailed discussion guides were followed, with open-ended questions to allow participants to express their feelings and ideas in their own words. The research sample included children from single-parent and two-parent families, aged 6 years to 16 years, balanced in terms of age, gender and geographical location. Findings demonstrate the children's and young people's understanding of the impact of poverty and social exclusion on their family life and their everyday experiences. The positive benefits of being in a single-parent family are highlighted, with 'time poverty' raised as a significant issue. Children and young people are aware of their poverty and how it influences exclusion from friendships, play, leisure and community activities. Policy needs to take account of the systematic reality of children's experiences; alliances with adults that support meaningful involvement and participation by children and young people will make a significant contribution to this.     

“Best of all I like Choosing Time” Talking with children about play and work

Talking with children is suggested as a useful observational tool for gathering information and evidence on children's understandings. Conversations with children from three different settings are discussed, with reference to their ideas about play, work and learning. Certain common features about children's conceptions emerge: their tendency to see play as a social activity, largely unconnected with learning, and work as related to often seat-based, teacher-initiated tasks. Some differences in attitudes across settings were also apparent, particularly in children's feelings about choice, and their freedom to choose. A model to account for children's conceptions is suggested.     

The paradox of “wonderful children”: The case of child abuse

In our society young children are generally considered to be “wonderful”. This dominant concept pervades not only parental thinking, but professional thinking as well. In the case of child abuse, however, profound contradictions can arise as a result. Professionals are primarily focused on children's welfare, while parents' views are much more ambiguous.

In our example of a Family Centre these contradictions are clearly illustrated, and we hope to draw conclusions as to what change in theory and practice could result from an analysis of contradictions.     

Toward understanding youth suicide in an Australian rural community

Australia has one of the highest rates of youth suicide in the western world, especially among rural men. This paper discusses the social construction of this issue in Australia and explores the issue through interviews with 30 young people and 12 key informants from a rural town in NSW. Findings suggest that young people struggle to deal with conflict in social relationships, that community discourses shape young people's understandings and that suicide is talked about in reference to depression. Implications for youth suicide prevention in Australian rural communities are discussed.