Street children in Trinidad and Tobago: understanding their lives and experiences

A community-based action research process, over a three-year period, employed interviews and participant observations with five children living on the streets in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Data revealed violence in the family to be a contributing factor to children's presence on the streets: it was also a feature of their lives on the streets. A complex pattern emerged of violence, hostility, and distorted social interactions amidst negative attitudes and disdainful behaviour all around them. It is argued that, although it is not easy, more people – professionals and citizens – would do well to listen to, and understand the lives of, street children in order to be motivated for change.     

The lives of disabled women in Nepal: vulnerability without support

The study examines a broad range of problems faced by physically disabled women. Qualitative interviews with 30 women with physical disabilities (congenital and acquired) were administered to understand various aspects of their lives. The research explores the causes of disability, which include gender discrimination, poverty, an inactive state security system, inadequate family support, negative attitudes and a lack of commitment on the part of government. The available services from non-governmental organizations have been proved to be unsatisfactory and gender biased in terms of training and employment. The importance of disability and its relation to gender has not been recognized by the state.     

Negotiating identities: the lives of Pakistani and Bangladeshi young disabled people

Research has generally amalgamated minority ethnic (all called 'Asian' or 'black') disabled young people's experiences and failed to acknowledge the multiple aspects of Asian and black disabled identities, for example how the combined attributes of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, culture, class and disability shape their perspectives and experiences. In an attempt to address this issue my doctoral research explored the experiences and perspectives of 13 young Pakistani and Bangladeshi disabled people. By drawing on the substantive and theoretical findings which emerged from my analysis in this paper I shall consider how multiple aspects of identity, such as ethnicity, disability and gender, affect this population's identity and self-image and how this makes their experiences different from white disabled young people and other minority groups' experiences.     

Private and public experience captured: young women capture their everyday lives and dreams through photo-narratives

Recent studies about young people suggest a need to change the way researchers and policy-makers have traditionally understood the concepts of youth, transitions to adulthood, educational participation and the need for young people's voice to be heard. For many young women the taken-for-granted features of everyday life such as family, social, education and paid work are the priorities in their lives. Yet those priorities are frequently masked in large-scale studies, resulting in homogenising the diversity of young people's experiences and abstracting educational engagement from other parts of their lives. The study reported in this paper approaches the issue of young women's construction and defining of their identities in interaction with the broad institutional milieu that is part of their everyday experiences. This approach seeks to understand this lived experience through the use of photo-narratives. The paper explores a rationale for this approach in methodological and ethical terms. It allows for an exploration of the complexity of young women's multiple identities and the changing nature of young people's engagement with post-compulsory senior secondary education.     

The changing landscape of public service delivery systems for disabled people in China: a Shanghai case study

This article will consider the current development of an emerging contract culture for the delivery of social services and its impact on disabled people in China. The discussion is based on an original qualitative study in Shanghai. The past 30 years have seen dramatic changes in China, which in parts have led to improvements in the lives of disabled people. The China Disabled Persons’ Federation (CDPF) became a key player in delivering these changes with the government. However, the CDPF is being criticized by disabled people for being too bureaucratic and not being effective enough in its delivery of services. One of its responses is to work with newly emerging not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) of and for disabled people. The CDPF has now begun to contract the delivery of some services to such NPOs. It is hoped that this may improve their effectiveness but the development of a contract culture in the delivery of services for disabled people may also be seen to pose a threat.     

No sign of harm: issues for disabled children communicating about abuse

While all children may be the victims of abuse, disabled children are particularly vulnerable. This paper explores the views of professionals working with children using alternative/augmented communication systems on the issues relating to communication about abuse. Interviews were carried out with 20 staff from eight establishments for disabled children across Scotland. It describes the range of alternative/augmented communication systems used and the barriers to communication about abuse. Staff generally accepted the importance of providing the appropriate vocabulary in augmented communication systems, but systems that provide such vocabulary were not widely used. Staff considered that a major difficulty concerned the level of understanding disabled children might have about concepts of abuse. They were unsure how the appropriate vocabulary could be introduced in a natural way and how links could be made between the signs and their meanings. Staff saw themselves as those most able to protect the children, but it was felt that discovery of abuse was more likely to come from them noticing physical signs, behaviour or mood changes than from the child communicating explicitly about abuse. The need for appropriate training and increased coordination between social work, health and education is highlighted. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Abuse of disabled children in Ghana

Even though disabled children are targets of various forms of abuse, such issues remain mostly undocumented open secrets in many countries including Ghana. The article is based on a qualitative data provided by three key informants. Six stories emerged from the data and are discussed in terms of four main forms of abuse. Labelling theories are employed to strengthen the discussions. The article is aimed at increasing awareness on the various forms of abuse experienced by disabled children in Ghana. The study is also meant to capture the attentions of stakeholders that have the responsibility to end abusive practices against disabled children in Ghana.     

No regrets: Widows' stories about the last days of their husbands' lives

This article looks at the stories older women, who were participants in a study of older women's experiences of widowhood, told about their husbands' deaths. The findings are based on in-depth, narrative interviews with 28 women over 50 whose husbands had died within the previous five years. Most participants told their husbands' death stories without being asked to. There were three major parts to these death stories: finding out their husbands were dying; taking care of their husbands while coming to terms with the fact of their impending deaths; and the period immediately before and at the actual time of death. These stories appear to give meaning and comfort to widows as they recount them. They provide bridges or transition experiences through which women come to understand their own journey from wife to widow.     

Predictors of well-being in the lives of student service members and veterans

Objective: The current study examined predictors of well-being, including quality of life and academic engagement, in a sample of student service members and veteran college students. Methods: Eighty-seven student service members/veterans (SSM/V) completed an online survey containing questions about post-deployment social support, emotion regulation skills, psychological distress, academic engagement, quality of life, and demographics. Participants were recruited from September 2012 through May 2014. Results: Results provided partial support for the proposed bi-directional mediational relations between post-deployment social support and emotion regulation predicting to quality of life and academic engagement. Path models indicated that both post-deployment social support and emotion regulation skills partially mediated the relation with quality of life while accounting for the effect of psychological distress, and that emotion regulation skills fully mediated the relation between social support and academic engagement. Conclusions: These findings suggest that both social support and emotion regulation skills may be useful targets for health promotion and intervention efforts for this population. Limitations and clinical implications for the development of on-campus SSM/V focused health promotion services are discussed.     

Treating substance-using women and their children in public housing: preliminary evaluation findings

The Key West Housing Authority created SafePort, a residential substance abuse treatment program within public housing to provide drug treatment to parenting women. All family members-women, children, and significant others-receive comprehensive assessments to determine appropriate therapeutic interventions to resolve their problems. Preliminary evaluation findings suggest that women who participate with their children are more likely to remain drug free than are those who participated without their children.     

The use,role and application of advanced technology in the lives of disabled people in the UK

Disabled people are excited by the potential benefits of using advanced technologies at home. However, many devices are abandoned early and lie unused. This research project aimed to explore why this happens, what the users of such technologies require, how advanced technologies can rise to the challenges of flexibility and user choice, which applications enhance independence and improve quality of life and what the barriers are to take‐up and future utilization. It was found that disabled people wish to use advanced technology to increase independence in and beyond home but the cost of both mainstream and ‘specialist’ devices are prohibitive. The role of advanced technology should be to enhance independence and provide mainstream solutions that disabled people request, rather than designing and engineering ‘specialist’ expensive products. Furthermore, the application of advanced technology for use in the home should be directed by disabled people, collectively and individually.     

Agency practices in successful adoption of developmentally disabled children

The authors discuss the variables associated with success in placing developmentally disabled children for adoption by public and private agencies. They also describe the results of their national study of 199 agencies.     

Living in the war zone: mothers and young children in a public housing development

This paper explores how mothers who live in two Chicago neighborhoods share the possibility of real danger with their preschool children. A structured interview was conducted with 20 mothers: ten who live in a high-rise public housing development and ten residents of a nearby community. The initial findings raise critical questions for those concerned with mental health issues in child development.     

Private lives and public programs: an Australian longitudinal study of the elderly

Major late life events, reported in the Dubbo longitudinal study of older Australians, are used to examine the interaction of private lives with public programs. First, the data indicate strong supportive effects of publicly funded income, health, and aged care programs in reducing family burdens from major life changes. In particular, financial crises were rarely mentioned, directly or indirectly, as major threats. Next, the central role of informal social support in these events is demonstrated, first, as in previous studies, family support was responsive to risky events and to aging itself. Also, in new findings, one-third of surviving elderly respondents coped with the burdens of family crises as a substantial proportion of the "major" life changes that occurred over 13 years of the study. Within the security and support provided by the Australian welfare system, and with strong social networks, families with older persons in the Dubbo study manage multiple, major life changes. With rapid population aging, the development of more, and more easily accessible, services for a growing population of older people is a priority. The critical challenge will be to harmoniously grow public financing, private funding, and informal caregiving to deal with the growing burden arising from an aging society.