After the Assault: Cognitive Trauma Therapy with a Single Event Trauma Survivor

This article explores the specific context of a single event criminal assault, (i.e., a stranger non-sexual assault that occurred during a robbery) and shares the theoretical framework that successfully guided the clinician’s assessment, treatment planning, and interventions. Based on a literature review and employing a case study, this article presents the potential norms of trauma aftermath following a single event non-sexual criminal assault. It provides an overview of those theoretical frameworks that have consistently proven effective with this population; this article shares the rationale for selecting cognitive trauma therapy and illustrates its application to an assault survivor.

Teaching social research methods after the critical turn: challenges and benefits of a constructivist pedagogy

An increasing challenge for teaching methods courses in the social sciences is the ‘critical turn’, which has encouraged some students to adopt an anti-empirical orientation. We present a case study of a compulsory undergraduate methods course in a political science department strongly influenced by post-structuralist philosophies. The first author redesigned the course to implement four constructivist pedagogical principles: (1) develop a full understanding of students’ pre-existing perceptions of political science research methods; (2) encourage students to see methodology as an inevitably contested field; (3) provide space for students to choose a methodological approach that best aligns with their personal stance on knowledge; and (4) encourage students to view research as an ongoing ‘conversation’. We critically reflect on the implementation of these constructivist pedagogical strategies and argue they improve students’ critical engagement with course material, increase linkages between methods teaching and other disciplinary subject matter, and accommodate diverse student perspectives and needs.     

Beginning street life: Factors contributing to children working and living on the streets of Khartoum, Sudan

Understanding why some children work on the streets while others live there, and how causal factors differ by gender, is important in developing effective services for them. This study examined these questions in Sudan using participant observation, qualitative interviews, and surveys of working boys (n = 1025), working girls (n = 192), street boys (n = 397), and street girls (n = 35). Street children were less likely than working children to have local families (66% and 77%, p < 0.001), and more likely to have experienced some prior hardships, e.g. a mother's death (17% and 10%, p < 0.001), or coming from the war-torn south (30% and 10%, p < 0.001). 70% of street children and 10% of working children had abused (i.e. sniffed and sucked) glue (p < 0.001); initiating glue abuse often coincided with a transition from working to living on the streets. Within groups, conditions ‘pushing’ girls to street life were often harsher than for boys. For working girls, these included death of both parents (10% and 3%, p < 0.001), and/or insufficient food at home (59% and 43%, p < 0.001). For street girls, they included having a homeless family (23% and 9%, p = 0.019), and/or insufficient food at home (63% and 40%, p = 0.008), but street girls also more often reported boredom at home (80% and 48%, p < 0.001). Services should be tailored to the particular needs of each group by gender, including community-based prevention, street-based health and safety interventions, and street child counseling and re-integration programs.     

Domestic violence: a worldwide exploration

The concept of domestic violence is important to nursing because further knowledge of this phenomenon can help drive more effective intervention and prevention approaches. Domestic violence, also known as gender violence, interpersonal violence, and domestic abuse, is a daily and often a deadly fact of life for millions of women and girls around the world. Attacks are perpetrated in settings that include public streets, at places of employment, in the home, while serving in the military, and in prisons and jails. The costs of this violence, both monetary and in human lives, are tremendous. Although nurses are in a unique position to screen for domestic violence and provide assistance and advocacy for victims, barriers exist related to victim disclosure and staff training and comfort levels. Advanced practice nurses can address the issue directly through appropriate treatment facilitation, including both physical and psychosocial intervention.