Symposia Healthy communities: What have we learned from talking to children? .

SymposiaHealthy communities: What have we learned from talking to children?. Lisbeth T. Pike, Lynne Cohen, Julie Ann Pooley, & Mandie Shean

Resilience Resilience or Vulnerability? Salutogenic or pathogenic? Resilience and Prevention.

Definitions of Resilience • is an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. • Resilience is characterized as the ability to draw on personal or social resources, the ability to detect contingencies and predictability in complex situations, and the ability to react flexibly. • Likened to thriving, invulnerability, stress resistant, hardiness, and toughening.

Resilience • Conceptualized through • Risk Factors (Maladjustment) • Protective factors • Four categories • Background conditions (poverty) • Community resources (teachers) • Social relations (peers) • Personal Characteristics (cognitive functioning)

Community Resilience • Resiliency about the interaction with individual and environment. • Ecological, Contextual • Community Resilience • the ability of a community to not only deal with adversity but in doing so reach a higher level of functioning

Community Resilience • Comprises three components • interactions that are experienced as a collective, • the expression of sense of community, • community action. • Community Competence • Sense of community

The School Community: A Qualitative Study of Children’s Conceptualizations of their School

Introduction • Resilience • Development and Apprenticeship • School as a Community/Role of School (Context) • School Connectedness • Sense of Community and Sense of Belonging

Research Questions • What are children's conceptualizations of the school community?

Methodology • Qualitative • Semi structured interviews • Participants • 46 Children (25F and 21M) • Age Range 9-12 y.o. (10.8) • Five Different Schools

Findings and Interpretations • People • Friends, Teachers, Principal • Friendly/Unfriendly • Good/Bad • Places for Activities/Interaction • Not geographic • Functional • Formal • Safety • Personal • Environment (Emotional and Physical) • Bullying/Vandalism

People • We’ve got great teachers and a nice principal… and over the years that I have been here, since like two years of pre-primary and up I’ve just had really nice teachers (female, aged 11) • Well I know lots of people in my school community and most of my friends are from within the school and I know my mum knows lots of people from the school community as well (female, aged 12)

Places for Interaction • We’ve got good facilities, we’ve got a good library for books and learning and all that stuff • We just had the sports carnival, so that’s fun. We had the interschool sports last term • Well at lunch time and recess like I play with them, and sometimes after school and sometimes on weekends and holidays and we just go to the movies or down the park or play at each others houses.

Safety • I feel good about my school community because I know that I’m safe around here and I know all the places I need to go and where everything is, so I can’t get lost… if I’m at school I know where I am • Well, sometimes after the weekend, you come back and there’s glass all over the floor and beer bottles and there’s rubbish around the school and graffiti. I feel bad because everybody’s put a lot of effort into it and just say if you come back and it’s all wrecked like that

Findings and Interpretation Cont… • Cooperation • Wellbeing • Mentoring • Influence • School (Teachers, Principal, Student Council) • Process of Change • Functionality • Iterative • School Facilities

Cooperation and Influence • All the people joining together, and if you had a group of kids who didn’t really care, I don’t think it would be all that good and we wouldn’t get what we wanted .I think like that kids care – it makes it better. • Well, student councilors, they talk with our deputy principal, and they discuss issues and you can have them brought up at the assembly and they come back and discuss them and they come back and decide about it, so you can just come and tell the deputy or a councilor and they will discuss it at their meetings, because they have one every Thursday lunchtime

Functionality • There’s lots of sports equipment and we’ve recently, about two months ago, we were in the Jump Rope for Heart to raise money for people. Some money came back and we had some money to spend on the class and after this year’s finished it goes into the sports shed

Summary • Children can conceptualize school as a community. • Role of School in wider community. • Significance of Relationships. • Implications for Curricula • Children's Voice

Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll – The Rocky Road through High School

Research Questions • What are the relationships between risk and protective factors that impact on adaptation? • What are the predictors of Sense of belonging?

Methodology • Longitudinal and Cross sectional • Quantitative • Participants • 98 Primary (Yr 7) Children (m f in 6 Schools) • 95 Secondary (Yr 8) Children ( m f in 2 schools) • Scales • Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) • Self Perception Profile (SPP) • Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS) • Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM)

Results • Primary • CDI scores (0-37/54) M=8 • PSSM scores (35-88/90) M=71 • PSSM Predicted by CDI and ACS (Ref to others). • Secondary • CDI scores (0-29/54) M=8 • PSSM scores (36-85/90) M=64 • PSSM Predicted by CDI • Gender • Differences in coping, interpersonal problems, physical appearance, relationship with others, future happiness and behavior.

Summary • There is difference between Primary and Secondary Students. • Different types of coping used. • Implications for interventions • Promotion of wellbeing

Overall Conclusions • Young children can conceptualize community. • SoC and SoB are important. • Measurement Issues • Definition? • Multidimensional concept • Gender, culture, SES • Interventions at school/community level.

Symposia Healthy communities: What have we learned from talking to children? .