Perspectives on Female Sexual Offending in an Irish Context

The issue of child sexual abuse perpetrated by women has received little recognition by researchers and when the subject is addressed it is often dismissed as being a rare event. It is only in the last decade that greater interest has been shown in the area of female-perpetrated sexual abuse of children. This is due to the dramatic increase of research into all types of sexual offending and the decrease in the taboo surrounding victimisation. Current literature in the area has largely looked at the development of typologies and establishing prevalence rates. More recently research has focused on ‘barriers’ to recognising this type of abuse. The purpose of this paper is to identify Irish perspectives on female sexual abusers and how this relates to the current literature. A questionnaire was distributed to health care professionals and volunteer workers in children’s charities. The results indicate that there is confusion about how to manage female sexual abusers and this is similar to other research findings in the area

Vicarious trauma: the impact of working with survivors of trauma

Practitioners who work in the criminal justice services, both statutory and voluntary, have long known that a huge number of the people they come into contact with have long histories of challenging life circumstances. While in Ireland we have limited data regarding the breadth and depth of traumatic experiences in the lives of people who are incarcerated, we are aware that most emerge from situations of marginalisation, poverty, mental health and addiction 1, (Kennedy et al., 2005). There is growing recognition that early life experiences, particularly adverse childhood experiences, have a direct role in the development of later negative events and behaviours (Taylor et al., 2008: Fellitti et al 1998). The public often lacks empathy for those who commit crime (Schissel, 2016) as too can professionals (Kjelsberg et al., 2007). However, the client blameworthy perspective is being challenged by advances in research, particularly public health, neuroscience and developmental psychology. This new evidence indicates that people who have been exposed to chronic stress and trauma in childhood are not engaged in ‘bad behaviour’ but ‘adaptive behaviour’ (Lambert & Gill-Emerson, 2017). Adverse structural changes occur in the developing brain due to exposure to adverse childhood experiences (Teicher & Samson, 2013). This conference paper will discuss the impact on front line staff of working with vulnerable people and ways in which organisations can respond to improve outcomes for service users, staff and the whole organisation. In order to understand the impact on staff we must first understand the types of trauma presenting

The impact of drug and related deaths on families

The Health Research Board in Ireland reported that in 2015 there were almost two drug related deaths per day (HRB, 2017) and the European Drug Report (2017) places Ireland as the 4th highest mortality rate for Drug Related Deaths, well above the EU average. While there is some literature surrounding the impact of living with problematic substance misuse little is known about the experiences of ‘the bereaved’. The current study was a collaboration between the National Family Support Network and Applied Psychology. Family members in this study reported disenfranchised grief, where their loved ones’ death is not acknowledged or is devalued. The loss of a child is hugely traumatic for parents irrespective of how that death may have occurred; “I would drive out to the grave, it was like I was making his bed, I would pat the whole thing down and fix it and everything”. The whole family system is impacted and a continuing cycle of trauma is possible when the needs of the grieving go unmet. The children of those left behind are a particularly vulnerable group who require specialised community based bereavement support by organisations who understand the impact of substance misuse within the family

Evaluation of Reverse Logistics in Challenges within the Manufacturing Pharmaceutical Companies

The link between reverse logistics and logistics is being increasingly noted by logistics experts and researchers globally, especially in manufacturing pharmaceutical companies. This has led to the examination of reverse logistics challenges in manufacturing pharmaceutical companies. The main objective was to examine reverse logistics challenges in manufacturing pharmaceutical companies in the City of Tshwane (South Africa). The study aimed to find approaches to deal with the challenges of reverse logistics such as gatekeeping, managerial implications, technology, waste elimination, transportation, and product recalls within the industry. The study was empirical, and a quantitative approach was used. Furthermore, data analysis was conducted by using the Stata V13 statistical software where a descriptive analysis was employed. Questionnaires were posted via SurveyMonkey to the staff at fifty pharmaceutical companies. This resulted in a total of 127 respondents, which provided a response rate of 51%. The findings indicated that manufacturing pharmaceutical companies face a variety of challenges; such as lack of skills and skills transfer, transport, and gatekeeping (amongst others), when dealing with reverse logistics. It is thus recommended that processes and strategies involved in reverse logistics should be known and taken into consideration because of the importance of reverse logistics in manufacturing pharmaceutical companies. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01291 Full Text: PD

Neighborhood social processes as moderators between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms for African American adolescents

Racial discrimination is associated with numerous psychological consequences, including increased depressive symptoms for African American adolescents (Brody et al., 2006; Wong, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2003). Adolescents’ perceptions of their neighborhood can influence how youth interpret and manage racial discrimination (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon‐Rowley, 2002). Yet little is known about how adolescent perceptions of neighborhood cohesion and neighborhood disorganization protect or exacerbate the effects of racial discrimination, or how these effects vary by youth’s gender. Therefore, the current study examined whether neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood disorganization moderated the association between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms for African American adolescents and how the effects differ for boys and girls. Participants were 106 African American adolescents (57% female; mean age 15.14) from an urban metropolitan area. Regression analyses suggest that perceptions of neighborhood social cohesion protected against racial discrimination for boys and girls. Additionally, the results indicate that when boys perceive less neighborhood disorganization, racial discrimination has a greater influence on their depressive symptoms. Findings have implications for intervention and prevention efforts that enhance and utilize positive neighborhood social processes for youth contending with racial discrimination.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145257/1/jcop21970_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145257/2/jcop21970.pd

Adverse Life Events and Depressive Symptoms in African American Youth: The Role of Control-Related Beliefs

The association between experiences of adverse life events and adolescent depressive symptoms has been well documented. However, this association is not consistently observed in urban and low income African American youth. In addition, mechanisms linking life event stress and African American adolescents' depressive symptoms have received little attention. This study examined past year violent and nonviolent life events assessed in 6th grade as predictors of 7th grade depressive symptoms among a community epidemiologically defined sample of 447 (47% girls) urban African American adolescents. Depressive symptoms were assessed twice, at a 1-year interval, and initial depressive symptoms were controlled in the analyses. Control-related beliefs were examined as mediators of the association between life events and depressive symptoms, and gender was examined as a moderator of the association between control-related beliefs and depressive symptoms. Associations among study variables were examined in a series of models, from general to more specific. A model in which nonviolent and violent life events were examined separately and control and contingency beliefs examined as one latent variable was the most informative about the etiology of depressive symptoms in a sample of urban, African American youth. Implications of the findings for preventive interventions and future research are discussed

RAN Issue paper: Child returnees from conflict zones

This paper looks at ways to respond – from a practitioner's perspective - to the situation of children returning to Europe having either been born or travelled to Daesh held territories in Syria/Iraq as well as non-European children travelling from Daesh territory to Europe as a result of forced displacement. Estimating the number of children who have travelled from Europe to Iraq and Syria is difficult; estimates for individual countries vary from 24 to 70. Another unknown is the actual number of children born (or yet to be born) in Syria or Iraq to European parents. According to reports from the UN Security Council, these children are being used by Daesh to carry weapons, guard strategic locations, arrest civilians and serve as suicide bombers. Furthermore, children are particularly vulnerable to indoctrination, turning them into loyal supporters for terrorist organisations. These children suffer, both due to the violence they witness/participate in, but also due to the fact that their normal social, moral, emotional and cognitive development is interrupted and corrupted by the experience of war. In addition, in the aftermath of the conflict these children are at risk of exposure to additional trauma due to the experience of (forced) migration and the resettlement process. Exposure to multiple and repeated traumas represents a significant risk to children’s development and overall functioning and increases the risk of physical and mental disorders in the future. The paper gives an overview of the challenges that prevention practitioners and social services face in terms of dealing with childhood trauma, understanding involvement in violence by child returnees, lessons from other arenas, risk and resilient factors, identifying and working with children at risk, the role of the family and the contagion effect