Understanding the Psychosocial Impact of War on Children: A Holistic Approach

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Understanding the Psychosocial Impact of War on
Children A Holistic Approach

• Dr. Michael Wessells
• Christian Childrens Fund
• Randolph-Macon College

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Overview

• Psychosocial impact--variegated, ecological
  perspective emerging from research that brings
  forward childrens voices agency
• Seven gaps in contemporary analyses of
  psychosocial impact--critical perspective
  necessary for helping to systematize the field
  protect childrens wider rights
• Holistic framework for understanding psychosocial
  impact

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Psychosocial Impact

• Psychosocial well-being cognitive, social,
  emotional, physical, spiritual dimensions and
  their dynamic interaction
• Expanding beyond the trauma discourse
• Variation in impact by class, gender, age,
  culture
• Sources of risk attack, losses, separation,
  poverty, displacement, disability, sexual
  violence, HIV/AIDS, landmines, living working
  in streets, heavy dangerous labor, early
  marriage, soldiering, trafficking, heading a
  household
• risk accumulation leads to negative outcomes
• coping, protective factors, resilience

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Gender

• Emphasis on boys--child soldiers
• Gendered nature of childrens war experiences
  risks
• Afghanistan early marriage
• Sexual violence exploitation, rape, physical
  damage (cervical tearing, uteral deformation,
  etc.), maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS
• Honor, stigmatization, social
  role--marriageability
• Monolithic images of gender violence

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Excessive Individual Focus

• Shattered social trust and culture of violence
• Key family community support systems become
  sources of risk--family violence, polarized
  community, damage soldiering
• Destructive social relations are often childrens
  greatest worry
• Individual effects mediated by family community
  relations--Uganda return
• Collectivist societies--wounds as communal
• Aid privileging of individuals, focus on
  individual well-being

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Deficits Emphasis

• Labeling--victims or survivors?
• Images of the traumatized children
• Pathologization stigmatization
• Underestimation of childrens resilience
• Social meaning, ideology, competencies
• Too little attention to childrens coping
  active engagement
• Need to focus on individual, family, and
  community assets, positive sources of support

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Culture

• Views of children childhood are culturally,
  socially, and politically constructed
• Impacts mediated by cultural beliefs--girls in
  Sierra Leone
• Need to start from how local children understand
  their experiences situation
• Imposition of outsider understandings
• Marginalization of local people culture
• Critical perspective--need for ethnographic
  research and avoidance of romanticization

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Excessive Focus on Past Violence

• Psychological theory and sequelae of violence
• Ongoing, multiple stressors--wheres the post?
• Some of most severe impacts relate to the current
  situation--economic, status, lack of life skills,
  no access to education
• Impact of current, destructive relations
• Children mundane, daily concerns
• Need for holistic conceptualization

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Impact in Ecological Perspective

• Security Economic
• Health well-being
• Family Marriage
• relations
• Roles Peer relations
• Spiritual well-being

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Young People

• Transitional status--competing images
• Marginalization, idling, alienation,
  hopelessnes
• Lack of education, skills, resources, positive
  life options
• At risk due to competencies, size, relative
  maturity
• Research capacities
• Agents of their own protection

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Competing Images Innocents vs. Hardened Killers
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Research

• longitudinal
• holistic, multidisciplinary
• ethnographic
• linkages between micro-, meso-, and macro-level
  aspects of childrens experiences
• participatory action research

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Toward a Holistic FrameworkThe Psychosocial
Working Group

• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation support
• Academic-Practitioner Collaboration
• Academic Partners Columbia, Harvard, Oxford,
  Queen Margarets, University of Pennsylvania
• NGO Partners Christian Childrens Fund,
  International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, MSF
  Holland, Save the Children/U. S.
• conceptual framework, research agenda and
  projects, training and assessment ideas
• website on www.forcedmigration.org

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A Holistic Conceptualization of Psychosocial
Impact and Intervention in Complex Emergencies
Impacted Community
HUMAN CAPACITY
SOCIAL ECOLOGY
CULTURE/ VALUES
EVENTS
Internal
PROGRAMMATIC INTERVENTION
External
External Community
HUMAN CAPACITY
SOCIAL ECOLOGY
CULTURE/ VALUES
AA/AS 6/01 CIHS