Search results for ‘Subject term:"vulnerable children"’ Sort:
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Risk, resilience and outdoor programmes for at-risk children
- Authors:
- UNGAR Michael, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work, 5(3), December 2005, pp.319-338.
- Publisher:
- Sage
The authors explore a continuum of interventions that offer at-risk children and youth experience in outdoor wilderness environments. Though these experiences are thought to enhance the well-being of participants, the mechanisms by which programming in natural environments promotes health have been poorly understood. In this article we discuss different types of outdoor programmes in which social workers and allied professionals participate, linking programme goals and outcomes to research on mitigating risk and promoting resilience in at-risk populations. Findings are based on qualitative data gathered as part of regular programme evaluations and a separate study of 14 participants’ reactions to programming. Results show favourable outcomes in terms of relationship building and a sense of spirituality and purpose, though there was little increased awareness of environmental issues. Follow-up and support after programming helped to reinforce changes made during the outdoor experience. These case studies, combined with a review of the literature, provide the basis for a theoretically sound approach to understanding the health-enhancing mechanisms that operate through outdoor experience-based education and treatment. Similarities between the gains made in well-being and resilience are highlighted.
Pathways to resilience among children in child welfare, corrections, mental health and educational settings: navigation and negotiation
- Author:
- UNGAR Michael
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Youth Care Forum, 34(6), December 2005, pp.423-444.
- Publisher:
- Springer
The author explores how social service delivery systems influence the pathways children travel to resilience. In particular, the article looks at children’s navigation to the health resources that are available through service delivery systems and their negotiation with service providers for service once under a provider’s mandate. Two case examples are used to illustrate health-enhancing and health-challenging patterns of service provision and utilization among high-risk youth. Two questions that are critical to understanding children’s pathways to resilience are then addressed: “What services do children say they need to achieve resilience?” and “How does the structure of services affect children’s access to the health resources required to nurture and sustain resilience?”
Resilience among children in child welfare, corrections, mental health and educational settings: recommendations for service
- Author:
- UNGAR Michael
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Youth Care Forum, 34(6), December 2005, pp.445-464.
- Publisher:
- Springer
What are at-risk and resilient children’s patterns of service utilization across Child Welfare, Corrections, Mental Health and Educational settings? And how do systems constrain the capacities of children to access the health resources they need to sustain and nurture resilience? This paper examines how children exercise personal agency in their navigation between service delivery systems and explores their negotiation for health resources from these systems. Drawing on the literature with high-risk youth in each of these four settings, and the authors own research, six principles are identified that underlie better service provision that builds resilience in at-risk children and youth. The article is written from a Canadian perspective.
Rules or no rules? Three strategies for engagement with young people in mandated services
- Authors:
- UNGAR Michael, IKEDA Janice
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 34(3), 2017, p.259–267.
- Publisher:
- Springer
A qualitative study of 61 youth receiving mandated services (child welfare, mental health, probation) or services where there were no alternatives (residential care for homeless youth) explored worker-client relationships from the perspective of young people themselves. Findings suggest three different but related roles played by workers that successfully engage adolescent clients: (1) “Informal supporters” de-professionalise their role and flatten hierarchies, emphasising empathy and enforcing few rules; (2) “Administrators” enforce rules that are in the child’s best interest but do so with little emotional engagement; and (3) “Caregivers” who hold reasonable expectations and impose structures but are flexible in their negotiations with youth when rules were broken. While youth spoke most positively about their workers when they acted as informal supporters, a deeper analysis of the data showed that youth also engaged well with workers who enforced rules when those rules were necessary for the child’s safety, applied flexibly, age-appropriate, and fit with cultural norms. Use of all three approaches to youth engagement may help workers create better therapeutic relationships with youth receiving mandated services. (Edited publisher abstract)
Understanding service provision and utilization for vulnerable youth: evidence from multiple informants
- Authors:
- LI Haibin, LIEBENBERG Linda, UNGAR Michael
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 56, 2015, pp.18-25.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
Research has demonstrated that the ability of children to cope well with risk exposure can be partly attributed to the social ecology that surrounds them, including their access to resources. Few studies however have explored the interaction of services that many vulnerable children receive in relation to surrounding risks and available resources. This study reviews data of a paired sample of 166 Canadian multiple service using youth (at least using two of five public service systems) and a youth-nominated person most knowledgeable (PMK) focused on the contextual risk factors, service use variables, and psychosocial outcomes of youth participants. Despite low to moderate correlations between youth and PMK (the person who is most knowledgeable about youth's lives) reports, findings showed that both PMKs and youth perceive service provision as a mediator between risk and psychosocial outcomes. For youth however, better quality of service provision is key to improved developmental outcomes. Furthermore, the more risk factors youth face at home and at school, the less likely they are to perceive their services as helpful or appropriate to their needs. Youth data also reflects far more complex interactions between risks, service provision and outcomes than PMK data. Greater sensitivity is needed to both an adult and youth's perceptions of risk and related service needs if service access is to be provided optimally. (Publisher abstract)
Community resilience for youth and families: facilitative physical and social capital in contexts of adversity
- Author:
- UNGAR Michael
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 33(9), September 2011, pp.1742-1748.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
The author reviews what is known about community resilience and how formal social services and informal social support can protect young people and families who are exposed to risk and promote resilience. A discussion of the relevant research highlights the way protective processes function when children, youth and families are exposed to catastrophic human-made and natural events. Five principles are suggested to help promote community resilience: individual characteristics of members, quality of the environment, access to resources to support wellbeing, the processes that individuals and groups use to negotiate and convince institutions to provide useful resources, and the cultural identity. Implications for the design and implementation of interventions are discussed with a focus on making informal supports more available and formal services coordinated, continuous, co-located, negotiated, culturally relevant and effective.
The social construction of resilience among problem youth in out-of-home placement: a study of health-enhancing deviance
- Author:
- UNGAR Michael
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Youth Care Forum, 30(3), June 2001, pp.137-154.
- Publisher:
- Springer
This American study presents case studies of 43 young people with experience in child welfare, mental health, and correctional settings to examine how resilience is socially constructed by participants and their caregivers. The deviant behaviours of these youth are explained as ways they successfully cope with the risk factors they face. Placement in institutions and community-based residential programmes offers high-risk youth 'forums' in which to create continuities or discontinuities in their identity stories. Collaboration between service partners can have a negative of positive impact on the development of healthy identities in high-risk youth depending on whether care providers participate in the construction of problem-saturated or health-enhancing identities.
Resilience in action
- Editors:
- LIEBENBERG Linda, UNGAR Michael, (eds.)
- Publisher:
- University of Toronto Press
- Publication year:
- 2008
- Pagination:
- 412p.
- Place of publication:
- Toronto
This publication looks at the interaction between young people's vulnerabilities, personal strengths, nurturing relationships, and access to resources, and how these components can combine to foster resilience. It is organized into four sections, each dealing with a different aspect of work with at-risk youth. The first section focuses on individual health and the ways in which intervention and therapy strengthen personal resources. The second section explores the dynamics of interventions in relation to specific contexts and localized relationships, emphasizing holistic approaches to youth work. A review of the cultural relevance of resilience follows in section three, and the fourth considers ways of increasing the accessibility to resources that encourage healthy development.