Children bereaved by suicide: evaluation of a group intervention

1. This report describes a longitudinal evaluation of a therapeutic groupwork intervention for children aged 8-12 years bereaved by the suicide of a parent or relative, offered through the Daughters of Charity Child & Family Service. In 2001, a steering group on suicide prevention was established by the Northern Area Health Board. A primary recommendation of the group was that a specialist service for children bereaved by suicide should be established as an urgent priority. 2. Empirical evidence now strongly indicates that parental suicide is a risk factor for offspring mental health difficulties and even suicide. Research findings suggest that suicide bereaved children were more likely to experience anger and shame and less acceptance of the death, one year after bereavement than non-suicide bereaved children. Age at bereavement by suicide is emerging as a significant predictor of later emotional and behavioural problems as recent research findings show that parental suicide affects children more profoundly than young adults (Wilcox et al, 2010; Sørensen et al., 2009) … 8. Four years on, some of the former group participants have taken leadership roles in their schools by working with teachers and mental health professionals to set up projects or organise talks on suicide, suicide bereavement and suicide prevention. Thus the project has had an unanticipated multiplier effect in reaching children affected by suicide

Individual through community resilience in social reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups

Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers - Psychosocial web pageIn “Trauma, resilience, healing-How do we move forward?” Dowdney (2007) utilised "resilience" as an integrative concept in the psychosocial field as it had the potential to bridge mental health and community-based approaches to social reintegration. Since then, empirical evidence on psychosocial adjustment and social reintegation has found that while the majority of former child soldiers are resilient and reintegrate successfully, there are those that do not. Youth perceived by community members to have been actively involved in killing experience more discrimination and less community acceptance (Betancourt et al, 2010), as also do those discriminated against for other reasons such as having returned home with "rebel" babies (McKay & Mazurana, 2004) or as a result of extreme poverty and being perceived as having nothing to offer. It remains a challenge in psychosocial practice as to how we can best support those who are experiencing major difficulties in social reintegration. This paper explores whether "resilience" can offer us a conceptual tool in the social reintegration of former child soldiers that continue to experience significant challenges

Divergent discourses, children and forced migration

Experiences of refugee, internally displaced and migrant children in different contexts (such as post-conflict and resettlement) are often considered separately, yet closer analysis points to the existence of commonalities across transnational locations and a need to articulate the ways in which global systems, state policies and migration processes impact on the lives of these children. Current discourses, policies and practices towards forced migrant children show that there are divergent and at times conflicting constructions of childhood and migration, and implicitly reveal the positions that these children occupy in relation to the nation-state system. In this article we focus on the existence of common divergent discourses that emerge from contexts in the global North and South, including Rwanda, Uganda, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where we have carried out research with children forced to move. Our overall aim is to re-politicise the position of child and youth forced migration through an analysis of three sets of divergent or ambivalent discourses: a) forced-migrant children as product of and threat to the nation-state; b) ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ children; and c) the ‘psychological’ and the ‘political’ child

Divergent Discourses, Children and Forced Migration

Experiences of refugee, internally displaced and migrant children in different contexts (such as post-conflict and resettlement) are often considered separately, yet closer analysis points to the existence of commonalities across transnational locations and a need to articulate the ways in which global systems, state policies and migration processes impact on the lives of these children. Current discourses, policies and practices towards forcedmigrant children show that there are divergent and at times conflicting constructions of childhood and migration, and implicitly reveal the positions that these children occupy in relation to the nation-state system. In this article we focus on the existence of common divergent discourses that emerge from contexts in the global North and South, including Rwanda, Uganda, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where we have carried out research with children forced to move. Our overall aim is to re-politicise the position of child and youth forced migration through an analysis of three sets of divergent or ambivalent discourses: a) forced-migrant children as product of and threat to the nation-state; b) ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ children; and c) the ‘psychological’ and the ‘political’ child

Transformative spaces in the social reintegration of former child soldier young mothers in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Northern Uganda

A significant but insufficiently considered category of female former child soldiers is those that become mothers as a result of rape or through relationships with “bush husbands”. This article reflects on learning from a participatory action research (PAR) study which aimed to facilitate the social reintegration of formerly associated young mothers and other war-affected vulnerable young mothers in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and northern Uganda. We argue that it is useful to delineate 3 nodes of individual-community relations which we identify as possible transformative spaces in psychosocial programming for social reintegration: the intersection between individual emotional experience and the emotional climate, between individual agency and public engagement, and between individual and community resilience. The PAR study involved 658 young war-affected mothers across 20 communities in the 3 countries. The results demonstrate how the PAR mobilized positive emotions and aligned the activities of the young mothers’ groups with individuals with power to facilitate change (community leaders) and contributed to limited transformative change. Further research is needed on engaging men and on tackling structural factors in interventions with war-affected young mothers

Collective and individual identities: experiences of recruitment and reintegration of female excombatants of the Tigrean People's Liberation Army, Ethiopia

Increasingly, girls and women play important roles in fighting forces. McKay and Mazurana 2 argue that involvement in military units can both oppress girls and women as they are responsible for traditional female roles of cooking, cleaning and serving men, but can also expand their opportunities for greater equality and participation as fighters. An understanding of the dynamics that shape the identities of men and women in fighting forces is often lacking at the point of demobilisation and reintegration. In particular, demobilisation programmes frequently overlook the specific needs of females.3 If their needs are taken into account at all, it is as a set of ‘add-on’ considerations related to motherhood or reproductive health. Brautigam argues, “Gender equality cannot be achieved by treating women and men identically, or through protective measures for women alone. Identical treatment ignores women’s and men’s different social realities and gendered roles”.4 This suggests the need for a thorough analysis of gendered roles, how participation in fighting forces transforms these roles for women and the social and political implications of these transformations. This chapter explores the identity transformations experienced by women who were recruited as children to fight with the Tigrean People’s Liberation Army and demobilised as adults in 1992/1993. The fieldwork for this study was carried out in 2002, ten years after their demobilisation and reintegration. The interviews explored gender-specific issues facing young women in demobilisation and reintegration, the impact of having been an ex-combatant on women’s social relationships and how being part of the military impacted on constructions of the self as female in the fighting forces and at reintegration

The criminal responsibility of former child soldiers: contributions from psychology

Children and young persons are increasingly being targeted for trafficking, sexual exploitation, recruitment as child soldiers, and other abuses. Children prove to be particularly vulnerable in situations of armed conflict, such as Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Nepal, and Colombia. A rich combination of practitioners (including ICC, ICTY and SCSL prosecutors) and academics explore to what extent international law instruments and international criminal accountability mechanisms are useful for countering violations of children's rights during and after armed conflicts. They also analyze to what extent the tendency of profiling children's rights much more strongly than before (mainly under the umbrella of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in the form of child rights-based approaches) converges with the features of international criminal accountability mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court, the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone

Transitional justice, post-conflict agendas, and psychology

Book Review: Hamber, Brandon (2009)Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. isbn: 978-0-387-89426-

From child soldier to ex-fighter, female fighters, demobilisation and reintegration in Ethiopia, ISS Monograph 85

Although there is increasing awareness about the role that girls and women play in fighting forces in conflicts around the world, there are still few gender-based analyses of the differential experiences of men and women who have been involved in military units. Demobilisation programmes are complex process in which ex-combatants, through gaining acceptance in communities, finding new livelihoods and becoming a part of decision-making processes, establish civilian lives for themselves. The contribution of women as fighters in the liberation struggle against Mengistu’s Derg regime is almost legendary. It is widely regarded that fighter women were strong, if not stronger, than the men, and played a critical role in the success of the movement. Women’s associations emerged in tandem with the development of the Tigrean movement and the movement along with an explicit agenda for addressing women’s equality, which was considered a cornerstone for the liberation of the society as a whole. Within Tigray, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) set up a counter-government, and organised health and education and rehabilitation systems for the population. With respect to the position of women in society, the TPLF was responsible for initiating number of reforms within its counter-government addressing marriage, access to education and land tenure reforms, intended to address the mechanisms by which gender inequality were sustained. This in turn acted as a mechanism for the mobilization of women, who clearly identified their own emancipation in the agenda of the struggle. This brief study captures the demobilization and reintegration experiences of a group of women fighters, all of whom were recruited as children and demobilized as adults. The methodology employed enabled the researchers to explore how being a fighter had impacted upon women’s constructions of themselves as ‘women’. Within a small sample, it traces the movement of a group of women from a time when they were children, through their entry to fighting forces and the impact that the militarisation and politicisation they experience in that setting has on their lives. Their identity and experiences as fighters have become central to their current identity and it is through this lens that they view and experience the civilian world. At the point of demobilisation and reintegration, women found that the values, socialisation experiences and expectations they had inculcated during their fighter years, as women, were at odds with the traditional feminine values of Ethiopian society. They had to make some adjustment within themselves in order to reduce the level of conflict they experienced with that society. The women, however, refused to compromise their internalised beliefs about their competence, ability and rights to participate in an equal society. Through the analysis, we can see the influence of fighter women on the political context in Ethiopia, and the dynamic impact of women’s political and military participation on a gradually evolving political system in the post-conflict years. Although women feel frustrated personally, their ongoing resistance and challenges to the social and political system means that the host society has been ‘pushed’ by them, as they have been pushed by it. At an individual level, it is an unequal battle and women struggle economically and personally within this system