Personalisation as contribution-focused social work practice

Children's responses to violence: resisting misunderstanding

“…Indigenous and minority/refugee children) are exposed to violence with virtual impunity in North America and why the state has not taken steps to create safety for these children. Statistics are clear that the responses to these children are taken to further extremes, and more pathologized than in the mainstream (CBC News, 2014;Federation of Aboriginal Children & Youth, 2014;Richardson, 2008). When young people respond to and resist violence or oppression, their actions often defy the assumed predictability of "child development" models.…”

“…When young people respond to and resist violence or oppression, their actions often defy the assumed predictability of "child development" models. While child development includes strength and resilience, their physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual responses cannot be categorized as normal or abnormal; rather under careful scrutiny these responses most often become understandable only within the context that they occur (Coates & Wade, 2007;Richardson, 2008;Wade, 1997). They can be reformulated as healthy responses to highly problematic and dangerous circumstances.…”

“…I have borrowed some ideas from ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA) with emphasis upon "demonstrable evidence of the participants" own view-their creation, treatment and understanding of the events as they occur" (Nevile, Haddington, Heinemann, & Rauniomaa, 2014, p. 9). In other words, I have attempted to bring forth the rich contextual detail provided throughout the text, inclusive of the physical, spiritual, emotional and intellectual responses (Richardson, 2008) that are described. As I reviewed the written words of each narrative, I used the Response-based contextual analysis as a framework to identify all six categories (See Appendix 1).…”