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Few studies assess how child abuse and neglect (CAN) affects adolescents’ mental health. Further, the majority of studies conducted to date discount the individual CAN items and report overall prevalence rates for different types of abuse and neglect. The purpose of this study was to examine the levels of and gender differences in CAN subtypes, lifetime prevalence of individual CAN items and the contribution of different CAN subtypes for explaining depression, anxiety and irritability.

The sample included Jamaican (n = 7,182, 60.8% female) and Ugandan (n = 11,518, 52.4% female) youths. The authors used a population-based cross-sectional study design. Youths completed an anonymous survey in school settings.

The authors found gender differences in the levels of CAN subtypes. Maltreatment behaviors of lesser severity were more commonly endorsed by the youths than those of greater severity. Neglect and emotional abuse were the strongest correlates of depression (e.g. neglect: ß = 0.23, among Jamaican youths; emotional abuse outside-the-home: ß = 0.23, among Ugandan girls), anxiety (e.g. neglect: ß = 0.17, among Ugandan girls; emotional abuse outside-the-home: ß = 0.27, among Ugandan girls) and irritability (e.g. emotional abuse in-the-home: ß = 0.17, among Jamaican boys; emotional abuse outside-the-home: ß = 0.17, among Ugandan girls) in most samples.

These findings will inform policymakers and professionals working with youths in Jamaica and Uganda, providing comprehensive contemporary insights beyond existing research in these regions.

The significance of digital literacy in online social capital accumulation and surviving the contemporary society is widely recognised. Despite that the current generation is regarded as “digital natives”, their levels and nature of digital literacy vary. To generate educational insights, this study investigates the type(s) of digital literacy which are mostly related to the online social capital accumulation, and how one’s socio-economic background affects the connection between digital literacy and online social capital.

A total of 1,747 participants aged 13–30 were invited to take part in a quantitative study. Spearman's rank correlation analysis, hierarchical regression analysis and mediation analyses were performed to investigate the relationship between participants' demographic background, engagement in the online platforms, digital literacy and online social capital.

The results showed that the creative dimension of digital literacy was mostly significantly predictive of online social capital accumulation. Also, education significantly affected the relationship between the creative dimension of digital literacy and online social capital more than demographic background.

Results suggest that education helps enhance digital literacy, offsetting the influence of socio-demographic background. The author examines the implications of how to implement training programmes in youth settings to enhance students' digital literacy and benefit those who are marginalised.

This paper aims to provide reflective practice insights on the use of the participatory approaches of World Café and Forum Theatre as crime prevention education and research tools with young people and young adults through a social learning theory lens.

Four independent case-studies showcase World Café and Forum Theatre methodology. World Café events investigated new psychoactive substances (NPS) awareness with young hostel users and college pupils (N = 22) and race hate crime with school and college pupils (N = 57). Forum Theatre events explored loan shark crime with college and university students (N = 46) and domestic abuse crime with young hostel users and college and university students (N = 28). Anonymous survey data produced qualitative and descriptive statistical data.

Learning impacts from participatory crime prevention education and research events were evidenced. Participatory approaches were perceived positively, although large group discussion-based methodologies may not suit all young people or all criminological topics.

Participatory approaches of World Café and Forum Theatre are vehicles for social learning and crime prevention with young people and young adults; eliciting crime victimisation data; and generating personal solutions alongside wider policy and practice improvement suggestions. Whilst World Café elicited greater lived experience accounts providing peer-level social learning, Forum Theatre provided crucial visual role modelling for communicating safeguarding messages.

This study aims to evaluate a novel mobile therapeutic videogame for adolescents with anxiety disorders (ADs), combining elements of cognitive-behavioural therapy and attention-bias modification, in terms of both its therapeutic efficacy over a controlled intervention and two-month follow-up, as well as the extent and implications of self-directed play.

A within-groups design with two parallel conditions [clinical anxiety (N = 16) and subclinical/at-risk (N = 15)] were measured on both self-reported anxiety and threat-detection bias (TDB) across three timepoints (pre- and post-intervention and two-month follow-up).

Significant reductions were observed in both self-reported state and trait anxiety and TDB over the course of the two-week intervention, which were maintained at follow-up. Engagement in self-directed play during the follow-up period significantly predicted outcomes at two-month follow-up for clinical participants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper represents the first of its kind to evaluate a mobile therapeutic game designed with and solely for adolescents with ADs. This study also represents the first of its kind to examine the extent and implications of self-directed play for outcomes.

From an ethical point of view, the inclusion of children and young people in research is problematic due to their inability to give informed consent and meaningfully express their views. The ethical aspects of research are multiplied if the research participant might have experienced child abuse, neglect, exploitation, or other forms of violence or assisted in such acts. Talking about victimization might be difficult and generate a sense of betrayal of attachment figures. On the other hand, the usual ethical procedure of asking parents or other caretakers to give consent for their children to discuss issues of maltreatment gives them the power to act as gatekeepers to stop children from participating in research. Therefore, researchers should contemplate if parental consent should be waived and how research can be developed to mobilise children's agency and ensure their meaningful cooperation in researching different aspects of violence that affect them. This chapter presents and critically analyses different research examples and discusses their ethical dimensions from a children's rights perspective. The research questions start with discussing the utility of consulting children in research on maltreatment; the gatekeeping role of caregivers; the distress and harm eventually caused to children and young people by participation in research and the benefits of participation for children. The survey examples discussed lead to the conclusions that research on maltreatment might sometimes cause distress; caregivers' power to refuse consent for their children's participation in research on maltreatment can alter epidemiologic data and impede children's right to express their opinion on issues that are central to their lives and therefore, it should be waived; consulting children is essential for collecting data on and improving responses to child maltreatment; and children's contribution to research on maltreatment depends on the adopted methodologies of the research, more advanced forms of participation, and training children to express their opinions, thus enriching scientific knowledge and promoting change.

Using Lundy's model (2007), this chapter adopts a child-centred approach to discuss decision-making in relation to designing a study which aimed to amplify childhood voices of parental separation (Kay-Flowers, 2019). It examines the role of young people in designing and co-producing the research tools, specifically designed to give voice to childhood experiences of parental separation and divorce. It explains how the research findings were shared with different audiences and reflects on the effectiveness of the approaches taken.

The chapter starts by outlining the four elements of ‘space’, ‘voice’, ‘audience’ and ‘influence’ in Lundy's model (2007) before going on to identify the gap in existing research on children's experience of parental separation and divorce, explaining why their voices need to be heard.

A focus group of young people were involved in designing the study. Finding current methods unsuitable for addressing the research question, they co-produced new research tools specifically designed for the study, alongside the researcher, in a process known as bricolage. The chapter explains the processes involved in creating the bricolage and describes the newly created research tools which were an online questionnaire and Prompt Simulation Video (PSV).

The last part of the chapter explains how ‘audience’ and ‘influence’ informed decision-making about how the study's findings could be presented to amplify childhood voices of parental separation and divorce, to ensure they were heard by different audiences of academics, practitioners, parents, public and children. It concludes with consideration of the effectiveness of this approach.

Involvement of children in research on different aspects of children's rights, including research on violence against children, is continuously increasing, as is the interest in participatory approaches (European Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA], 2014; Larsson et al., 2018; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2011). Svevo-Cianci et al. (2011) noted that ‘as researchers commit to learning from community members, including children and adolescents themselves, it has become more clear that an understanding of the lived reality and definition of violence for children in their individual communities, is essential to envision and implement effective child protection’ (p. 985).

In this chapter, the legislative context regarding children's rights to be heard and participate is initially discussed; currently applied age requirements for children to acquire rights across the countries of the European Union (EU) are briefly presented; and children's potential roles and relevant provisions for their participation in social research are explored. The last part is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR; Regulation [EU] 2016/679, 2016) – specifically, children's personal data–related recitals and articles; the importance of the definition of a legal basis for personal data processing according to the GDPR, including consent; and the necessary information to be provided to children before their data are processed.

The topic of parent migration and its effects on the family environment has become a focus of moral dilemmas in East Europe for the last three decades. Children have been portrayed as social orphans and parents working abroad as neglectful parents. Today, with more evidence from research and experience, the impact of parental migration is much more comprehensive and nuanced, recognising its noxious or even harmful but also possibly empowering effects. This chapter reflects on the involvement of left-behind adolescents as co-researchers in a study of transnational families. It acknowledges the agentic role of children (often automatically labelled as victims of neglect), amplifies their voices to inform existing data on the impact of parents' departure to work abroad and identifies directions for intervention that might strengthen families.

The research is an integral part of CASTLE – Children Left Behind by Labour Migration, an ongoing project (June 2021–December 2023). ¹ This chapter presents the research collaboration experience with 12 co-researcher adolescents with previous left-behind experiences, originating from Moldova and currently residing in Romania. The co-researchers participated in all stages of the research process: training, design of data collection, recruitment of research participants, data analysis and dissemination of results. Taking co-researcher roles had an empowering effect on adolescents, who learnt how to express their views on the topic, voiced their experiences about the emotional costs of being left behind by their parents and reflected on sensitive issues like separation of family members and violence in the family.

This paper aims to report a non-randomized control study undertaken to investigate prevalence and correlates of conduct disorder among male secondary education students in South-West Nigeria and to assess the impact of a problem-solving skills and attributional retraining (PSSAR) intervention with this population.

In total, 787 male students from two schools were screened for conduct disorder. All participants who met criteria for the disorder were allocated to either treatment (n = 55) or control (n = 47) groups. Outcome measures comprised the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ; teacher and student versions) and the teacher rating of students’ aggressive behaviors.

Of the sample, 13% were found to present with difficulties that met criteria for conduct disorder. The presence of these difficulties correlated with several demographic variables, including parental conflict and alcohol use. A statistically significant reduction in mean scores was observed for the treatment group in the student rating of the SDQ emotional subscale and total difficulties scores. Teacher ratings were less consistent in that conduct problems, prosocial behavior and total difficulties increased following the intervention, whereas peer problems and aggressive behavior were reported by teachers to reduce. No statistically significant change was found in the outcome measures for the control group.

In resource-constrained settings, school-based interventions are an important means through which treatment gaps in child and adolescent mental health can be addressed.

In resource-constrained settings, school-based interventions are an important means through which treatment gaps in child and adolescent mental health can be addressed. This study’s findings offer some preliminary support for the PSSAR intervention for conduct disorder in this context and indicate areas for further research.