Who I Am: Exploring the nature and meaning of children’s active and social selves

The aim of this study was to develop a richer picture of children’s core self-concept factors and their meaning in order to increase adults’ understanding of the self factors that children value most. In addition, since self-esteem is based on core self-concept factors, the study aimed to use this richer understanding to assess the content validity of widely used self-esteem questionnaires. The central objectives were: » to develop a richer picture of children’s core self-concept factors, with a focus on their active and social selves; » to compare children’s core self factors with adults’ conceptualisations of children’s self-concept and self-esteem

A bit more understanding: Young adults' views of mental health services in care in Ireland

Children and young people in the care system typically experience very high levels of mental health difficulties, yet their views of these difficulties and of mental health services have rarely been explored. For this qualitative study we spoke with eight young adults aged 18 to 27 years with experience of the care system in Ireland about mental health challenges, service experiences, and how they felt mental health services needed to improve. Themes from the interviews illuminated young adults' views of their emotional well-being while in care, and the double stigma of being in care and mental health difficulties. In terms of services, young adults wanted these to be flexible and sensitive to level of need; to offer choice and more congenial environments; to provide more creative routes to engaging young people; and to offer honest, reciprocal, caring communication — treating children in care as one would any child. Recommendations highlight three key needs: an ethic of care in services as well as an ethic of justice; mental health training for all professionals in contact with children in care; and the need to listen, hear and act on what children and young people sa

A traumatised and traumatising system: Professionals' experiences in meeting the mental health needs of young people in the care and youth justice systems in Ireland

It is well recognised that children and young people in the care and youth justice systems typically present with significant and diverse mental health needs. Much has been written about this challenging area of professional practice but the focus has been primarily on the young people themselves rather than professionals' experiences of working in this challenging context. In this study, focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with 26 professionals working in the care and youth justice services in Ireland, representing a range of disciplines, to capture professionals' perspectives of working in this field. A thematic analysis was conducted on the transcribed data. Professionals described frustration and helplessness in the face of what they perceived as inadequate system responses and poor interagency working. Their experiences are conceptualised here as reflecting a traumatised and traumatising system. The implications for practice emphasise the need for staff support through training, collaboration between agencies, and addressing vicarious traumatisation

Who's Feeding the Kids Online? Digital food marketing to children in Ireland: Advertisers’ tactics, children’s exposure and parents’ awareness

Obesity in children and young people is a global health challenge. The widespread marketing of unhealthy foods (food and non-alcoholic drinks high in fat, sugar and salt, or HFSS) plays a causal role in unhealthy eating and obesity. Food and eating is typically presented as an issue of ‘choice’. However, this disregards the fact that current obesogenic environments use many tactics to promote unhealthy foods, interfering with people’s ability to make good choices. This study examined: 1. Content appealing to children and young people on websites of top food and drink retail brands in Ireland 2. Marketing techniques on Facebook: Pages of food brands that have the highest reach among young teens, the first such study of which we are aware 3. Parents’ awareness of digital food marketing to their children in an online, two-stage survey with digital marketing examples and open-ended response options

The Devil is in the Detail: Challenging the UK Department of Health’s 2019 Impact Assessment of the Extent of Online Marketing of Unhealthy Foods to Children

Background: How much unhealthy marketing do children see on digital devices? Marketing of unhealthy food and beverages has long been identified as a factor in children’s preferences, purchase requests and consumption. Rising global obesity mandates States to craft environments that protect children and young people’s health, as recommended by the World Health Organization, among others. However, assessing the impact of marketing restrictions is particularly challenging: the complexity of digital advertising markets means that measurement challenges are profound. In 2019, the UK Department of Health published an Impact Assessment that applied a novel method aiming to calculate costs and benefits of restricting unhealthy food and beverage advertising on digital devices (planned for implementation by 2022). It estimated UK digital unhealthy marketing to children at 0.73 billion advertising impressions annually, compared to television impacts of 3.6 billion. Aim and Method: We assessed this conclusion by reviewing the UK Department of Health/Kantar Consulting’s Online Baseline Methodology (the “Government Model”). We examined the model’s underlying premise and specified the seven analytic steps undertaken. For each step, we reviewed industry and academic evidence to test its assumptions and the validity of data applied. Results: We found that, in each step, the Government Model’s assumptions, and the data sources selected, result in underestimates of the scale of digital advertising of unhealthy foods—at least tenfold, if not substantially more. The model’s underlying premise is also problematic, as digital advertising spend data relate poorly to digital advertising exposure, leading to further underestimation of market scale. Conclusion: We conclude that the Government Model very substantially underestimates the impact of digital unhealthy food advertising restrictions on health. This analysis has relevance for global policy and for the impact of regulation on children’s health and well-being

‘‘Bursting’’ to Go and Other Experiences: Children’s Views on Using the Toilet in the First School Year

Children’s use of the toilet at school, although rarely explored, is an important facet of school experience with consequences for physical and psychological health. A mixed methods study investigated views of 25 children (4–5 years) regarding potential stressors in the first school year, including views of toileting, in Dublin, Ireland. Despite very positive responses to school, most responses to toileting (15 of 25) were mixed or negative. Although some liked to go, or noted the toilets were clean, most indicated delayed toilet use (‘‘bursting’’ to go) and ambivalent or negative experiences such as fear of not identifying the right toilet, fear of being alone, lack of privacy, and potential bullying. Many children did not expect to receive help from the teacher. As delaying toilet use can have lasting health consequences, teacher–nurse collaboration could be used to develop whole-school policies to support children’s early adjustment in this sensitive area of functioning

<i>It’s up to you if you want to take part</i>. Supporting young children’s informed choice about research participation with simple visual booklets

Formal consent for children’s research participation legally resides with adults, and guidelines typically recommend consulting children about their participation only from 7 years of age. How can researchers support younger children’s informed decision-making about their research participation, particularly in larger-scale studies without extended researcher-participant engagement? In this paper, we share our experience of four studies (270 children) using drawings, observations, interviews, and biological and anthropometric measures and the visual information booklets we devised to support young children’s informed agreement. Critically evaluating the notion that ‘evolving capacities’ necessarily increase with age, we consider young children’s contextualised decision-making capacity. Reflecting on process and outcomes, we conclude that simple visual information booklets benefit not only children but all actors in the research process, functioning as material artefacts that remind adults as well as children of young children’s right to choice about research participation

‘Look, I have my ears open’: Resilience and early school experiences among children in an economically deprived suburban area in Ireland

Children from economically disadvantaged communities frequently lack the socio- emotional, cognitive and behavioural skills needed for successful early school adjustment. Assessments of early school experience often rely on parent and teacher perspectives, yet children’s views are essential to design effective, resilience-promoting school ecologies. This mixed methods study explored children’s appraisals of potential stressors in the first school year with 25 children from a disadvantaged suburban community in Ireland. School scenarios were presented pictorially (Pictorial Measure of School Stress and Wellbeing, or PMSSW), to elicit children’s perspectives on social ecological factors that enable or constrain resilience. Salient positive factors included resource provision, such as food, toys and books; school activities and routines, including play; and relationships with teachers. Negative factors included bullying; difficulties engaging with peers; and using the toilet. Drawing on these factors, we indicate how school psychologists can develop resilience-fostering educational environments for children in vulnerable communitie

Creating good feelings about unhealthy food: children’s televised ‘advertised diet’ on the island of Ireland, in a climate of regulation

Childhood eating habits and associations with advertising persist through life. Obesity is high in Ireland, and is increasing worldwide. Links between food promotion and children’s diets are well-established, and the World Health Organisation has called for reduced marketing of foods high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) to children. In Ireland and the UK, statutory regulation restricts HFSS television advertising, but only during children’s programming – yet children view much television at other times. This study is the first to identify young children’s exposure to television food advertising on the island of Ireland (IoI), and its nature, with systematic sampling according to Irish audience panel research. Food advertisements were nutrient profiled and content analyses were conducted of marketing techniques. The IoI ‘advertised diet’ viewed by young children primarily features dairy and fast foods, pizza, sweets and chocolate, normalising this consumption and associating it with taste/aroma, fun, magic/ imagination, physical activity, humour and exaggerated pleasure. HFSS ads primarily featured taste/aroma, humour and novelty. Despite complying with statutory regulations, more than half of IoI food advertisements featured HFSS items; young children see over 1000 HFSS ads annually in the Republic of Ireland, nearly 700 in Northern Ireland. Policy implications for remedying children’s HFSS ad exposure include (i) applying food advertising restrictions to times when higher proportions of young children watch television – not just child-directed programming – as well as to digital media, (ii) employing a stricter nutrient profiling method and (iii) normalising children’s ‘advertised diet’ by exploring ways to advertise healthy foods

Protocols to monitor marketing of unhealthy foods to children: Comparison and evaluation of existing protocols, with stakeholder consultation

Work Package 6.4 of the EU Best-ReMap Joint Action (2020-23) is tasked with reviewing best practices in monitoring the marketing of unhealthy foods and non-alcoholic drinks and will develop, test, and adapt an EU-wide Monitoring Protocol to support Member States’ monitoring of unhealthy food marketing to children, with a particular focus on digital marketing. This document was created to fulfil Task 6.4.1 of Work Package 6 of Best-ReMaP. The aim of 6.4.1 is to identify, describe and compare the existing global protocols to monitor marketing of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic drinks to children, identifying the best practices in monitoring that could feed into the design of an EU-wide harmonised and comprehensive monitoring protocol for reducing unhealthy food marketing to children (JA Task 6.4.3; Deliverable D6.3). This review consulted with WP6.4 partners (Member States and technical experts) to understand their needs regarding the design of an EU-wide monitoring protocol. A knowledge and experience sharing workshop entitled “Monitoring food advertising: Progress, experiences, challenges, solutions” (JA Task 6.4.4, Milestone M6.5) took place on 9th of May 2022, in which countries shared their experiences in using marketing monitoring protocols and articulated their needs and expectations of the EU-wide monitoring protocol. Prior to holding this workshop, four global monitoring protocols were identified and reviewed: from the INFORMAS consortium, the Nordic Council of Ministers, and the World Health Organization (WHO) (Protocols and Templates, and the WHO CLICK framework). The design, content and scope of these four protocols are described and compared in this report, summarising the existing tools available to measure marketing in different channels, with a special focus on the digital marketing. Recommendations for the design of the EU-wide monitoring protocol are made and these will feed into further work on this Task. The result of this review is a set of recommendations on the design and content of key elements of the monitoring protocol. These are presented below with the key recommendations being: 1. Devise an EU-wide marketing monitoring framework that links to existing protocols hosted by WHO-Euro; 2. Assess routes to providing protocols for event-based sponsorship marketing and outdoor marketing; 3. Provide further contextual information and guidance for MS, particularly relating to digital marketing; 4. Provide further supporting materials for MS new to food marketing monitoring as a practice especially for the preparatory stages and to support resource planning; 5. Provide support materials for MS on working with and involving children and taking a child rights stance; 6. Identify the optimal site for hosting the EU-wide protocols to facilitate visibility, access and knowledge-sharing; and 7. Explore opportunities for knowledge sharing between MS on monitoring marketing