Psychosocial Concepts in Humanitarian Work with Children A Review of the Concepts and Related Literature (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction and Contents of Report
Introduction and Contents of Report
Pages 1-23
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This becomes especially relevant in humanitarian work, in which the natural social structures that support child development have been torn and disrupted. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term pertains to "the influence of social factors on an individual's mind or behaviour, and to the interrelation of behavioural and social factors; also, more widely, pertaining
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These consequences are frequently conceptualized as trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, stress, and mental illness and are based on the assumption that conflict and displacement have negative effects on the mental health of refugees. The diverse expressions of psychosocial work among humanitarian workers and their agencies have resulted in the term's eliciting diverse interpretations as well as common expectations that psychosocial programs are concerned with counseling, psychiatric symptoms, and therapy.
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The research that developed out of the Vietnam War focused less on psychopathology and more on the psychological and social functioning of individuals and communities. Only since the late 1980s does research address the needs of populations of refugees from a psychosocial perspective.
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Article 39 specifically refers to children in armed conflicts and requires states to take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery of children who have been victims of"any form or neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child." This imperative has helped to ensure that in recent times psychosocial work
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What were the effects, if any, of these separations? In a review of studies investigating psychological deprivation in childhood that is, social settings that can have negative consequences for child development Langmeier and Matejcek (1975)
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They reported that, in spite of the popular expectation that children directly experiencing war would be traumatized by air raids and would go on to develop war-related neuroses, the children they examined did not show these signs of traumatic shock. Among the children studied, they noted that if the children were young and in the care of their own mothers or a substitute, they did not seem to be psychologically negatively affected by the bombing.
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, he observed that the studies of children evacuated during World War II revealed that those who were able to handle evacuation best enjoyed positive relationships with their families. When he reviewed the studies of refugee children and children who had been imprisoned in concentration camps, he expressed surprised that many of them adapted reasonably well after a relatively short time, with the majority showing no symptoms of mental disorder.
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highlight that Moskovitz had shifted the focus for studying the effects of war on children, from studies of predisposing factors that could be related to the origins of psychopathological states in children, to an emphasis on "protective factors," that is, factors that provided children with a resistance to risk. Of further significance to Garmezy in his review of the earlier studies was the critical factor of individual variation in response to stress, which led to studies of the protective factors in children's lives as well as their patterns of adaptation under extreme circumstances.
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explored the roles of "ameliorating factors" that they had identified from earlier research on children in difficult life circumstances. These factors included actively trying to cope with stress, cognitive competence, experience of self-efficacy, a stable emotional relationship, an open, supportive educational climate, and social support from persons outside the family.
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Second, a number of personality dispositions seem to have protective functions, could possibly moderate stress, and contribute to an understanding of resilience: level of distractibility, stimulation threshold, approach to novel stimuli, intellectual ability, sense of humor, effective social problemsolving skills and coping strategies, and an internal locus of control (the latter is a belief that positive consequences result from one's own behavior and are not the product of external agents)
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The personal factors included socioeconomic status, gender, level of education, age, and previous life experiences. In 1987, Rutter (1987)
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At the end of this study, Luthar commented that in future work it would be important to take into consideration that children's appraisal of negative life events may differ significantly from that of adults (Luther, 19911. Resilience The shift in emphasis from studies of predisposing factors for psychopathology to risk and resilience studies continued into the next two decades.
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absence of early separation and losses. They listed specific features of a child's immediate circumstances: competent parenting, a good relationship with one of the primary caregivers, availability in adulthood of social support, better networks of informal relationships, better educational experience, and involvement with organized religious activity.
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Rutter described the factors that seemed to characterize resilient children more as a set of psychosocial processes than a list of attributes. Overall, vulnerability and resilience did not seem to have a single source.
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and facilitating the coping of the adolescent. Adolescents who were experiencing environmental stresses, such as family breakdown or the absence of family, were found to be at increased risk of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
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In addition, there is a growing concern around the ethical issues surrounding research with refugees and war-affected populations. Many of these concerns arise from the tension between the need to develop emergency measures and the need to protect vulnerable populations from exploitation (Leaning, 20011.
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This working paper remains a significant resource on psychosocial work with children. Trauma Another literature that has come to influence psychosocial work in humanitarian work is the research arising out of the trauma discourse.
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Like researchers of resilience, he has explored why some children adapt well in situations of disaster, and others do not. In his exploration, Yule reviews the work that considers single versus multiple traumas for children and refers to studies focused on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and situations of war, both situations of chronic stressors.
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The terms "emic" and "etic" have also been used to describe the different approaches to health and illness: an etic approach examines issues from a position outside a particular social or cultural system, for example, using biomedical lenses through which to view illness; an emic approach emphasizes the world view of the people themselves and studies behavior and illness from within a cultural or social system (Berry et al., 19921. Similarly, some cultural psychologists argue that culture and society fundamentally influence all aspects of human development, behavior, emotion, thought, and wellbeing, so that conclusions reached by psychologists using Western models and theories cannot be adequately applied to people from other cultures.
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It is widely believed that only a small fraction of the affected community will have serious psychological problems requiring specialized care. It is thought that the vast majority of the population will return to normal
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have argued that, in the area of psychosocial assistance, there is a need to end the debate between population versus individual assistance and to accept a twofold approach based on needs (Petevi, 19961. In 1996, Naomi Richman, a practitioner who has dedicated most of her work to this task, described two major approaches that seek to best assist children affected by conflict (Richman, 19961.
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It aims to prevent secondary stressors affecting the community and it adopts a "horizontal" approach with programs influencing different sectors of assistance (Richman, 19961. In this approach, a psychosocial program may be embedded in other sector programs, such as a health program, an income-generating program, or an education program; within these programs, psychosocial support is given to individuals and families as part of a more extensive program.
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A lot of the literature focuses on emergency work with children and has been selected for annotation because its content reflects the core psychosocial concepts that are outlined above, informing present-day psychosocial assistance with children in humanitarian work.
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