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Based on an extensive literature review, this chapter outlines key developments in global health and research during the last century with focus on the emergence of violence and child maltreatment as international public health priorities. Violence has been known to humans for millennia, but only in the late 1990s was it recognised as a global public health issue. Every year, an estimated 1 billion children are exposed to trauma, loss, abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment takes a social and economic toll on countries. Research initiated in 1985 found child maltreatment to be associated with increased disease, disability and premature death in adult survivors. The global availability of data on child maltreatment is, however, sporadic with low validity and reliability. Few global experts have consulted and involved the survivors of child maltreatment, as the experts by experience, in their attempts to provide a more comprehensive picture of reality. Youth and adult survivors of child maltreatment are often traumatised by the experience, and it is important to use trauma-informed approaches to prevent re-traumatisation. Participatory and inclusive research on child maltreatment is only in its infancy. There is a need for more inclusive research, designed by survivors for survivors, hereby strengthening local capacity building and informing policymakers from the bottom up. This chapter reviews lessons learnt and provides recommendations for how to enhance the participation and inclusion of the experts by experience in research on child maltreatment.

The population of internationally forcibly displaced people, which includes refugees and asylum seekers, is large and heterogeneous. To determine the varying reasons for and experiences during the migration journey, including exposure to violence and health- and integration-related needs, there is an urgent need to involve children with refugee backgrounds in research and development activities. This chapter describes a model for the child participatory approach developed at Barnafrid, a national competence centre on violence against children at Linköping University in Sweden. The model has been tested in the Long Journey to Shelter study, which investigated exposure to violence and its consequences on mental health and functional ability among forcibly displaced children and young adults. As part of this project, we conducted workshops with children (n = 36, aged 13–18 years) to design a questionnaire on exposure to community violence in the country of resettlement. Experiences recounted during the child participatory workshops indicated no problems involving newly arrived children with refugee backgrounds and Swedish-born adolescents in research activities. However, attention should be paid to proper preparatory work and the need for adjustments. We discuss the results in light of other studies on refugee child participation, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child and diversity considerations.

The purpose of this study was to explore 232 service providers’ and policymakers’ experiences of supporting children’s well-being during the pandemic, across sectors, in 22 countries – including Kenya, the Philippines, South Africa, India, Scotland, Sweden, Canada and the USA, in the last quarter of 2020.

A smartphone survey delivered via a custom-built app containing mostly open-ended questions was used. Respondents were recruited via professional networks, newsletters and social media. Qualitative content analysis was used.

The findings reveal numerous system-level challenges to supporting children’s well-being, particularly virus containment measures, resource deficiencies and inadequate governance and stakeholder coordination. Those challenges compounded preexisting inequalities and poorly affected the quality, effectiveness and reach of services. As a result, children’s rights to an adequate standard of living; protection from violence; education; play; and right to be heard were impinged upon. Concurrently, the findings illustrate a range of adaptive and innovative practices in humanitarian and subsistence support; child protection; capacity-building; advocacy; digitalisation; and psychosocial and educational support. Respondents identified several priority areas – increasing service capacity and equity; expanding technology use; mobilising cross-sectoral partnerships; involving children in decision-making; and ensuring more effective child protection mechanisms.

This study seeks to inform resilience-enabling policies and practices that foster equity, child and community empowerment and organisational resilience and innovation, particularly in anticipation of future crises.

Using a novel approach to gather in-the-moment insights remotely, this study offers a unique international and multi-sectoral perspective, particularly from low- and middle-income countries.

This study aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted parents of autistic children and their families in Ireland.

A qualitative thematic analysis methodology was applied using semi-structured interviews. A total of 12 parents (ten mothers, one father and one grandfather speaking on behalf of a mother) of autistic children were asked how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted them and their autistic child with a particular focus on how it has impacted their access to respite care. Interviews were completed remotely from July 2021 to October 2021.

Data analysis identified four themes that reflect an adverse pandemic impact. These were: world gone; alone and isolated; constantly fighting for help; and negative and positive impact of COVID-19 on child and family. Two parents reported positive outcomes of the pandemic such as social distance requirements. Five parents (42%) reported an increase in the amount of respite received. Three parents (25%) reported a decrease and four (33%) parents reported no change in their access to respite.

COVID-19 has turned a spotlight on mental health for politicians, policymakers and the public and provides an opportunity to make mental health a higher public health priority for autistic children and their families.

This study highlights the need for access to respite for autistic children and for respite services to be responsive to the ongoing needs, in particular, the mental health needs of autistic children and their family, particularly in a crisis situation.

The paper investigates whether cultural lineage mediates gender gaps in child nutrition. It captures nutrition using height-for-age and stunting. The analysis uses the 2014 Malawi Millennium Development Goals Endline Survey data. We find evidence of male child nutrition deprivation in matrilineal cultural lineage. The gender of the household head does not relate to the mediating role of lineage on gendered nutrition gaps. As such, the analysis of gendered nutrition should account for the potential impact of culture to produce policy relevant estimates. Furthermore, deficiencies in male nutrition remains a strong health problem, particularly in cultures that benefit most from returns on female children. In these cultures, lineage dominates personal parental preferences. Therefore, there is a need to revisit received wisdom that providing more resources to female heads eliminates gender gaps by provision of culture-tailored nutritional interventions.

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.

In 2009, the Liberal government of Ontario released their first “streamlined” poverty reduction strategy to end child poverty in the province. The strategy was renewed in 2014, and an updated strategy was released in 2021 by the Conservative government of Ontario. Based on ongoing research, this chapter explores how these Poverty reduction strategies mobilize a historical conception of low-income urban environments as threats to child development. I show that, rather than end poverty, these conceptions are used to justify community revitalization efforts that displace low-income populations while prioritizing and benefiting private market investment. Central to these strategies is the figure of the child, who is constructed as innocent and vulnerable, requiring protection and saving from the perils of poverty by middle- and upper-class interventions. The chapter concludes by examining the neoliberal logic that continues to inform the 2021 strategy.