The incidence of sexually inappropriate behaviour in adolescents is increasing. Understanding of the nature, incidence and characteristics of the perpetrators of such behaviours is growing; however a validated and conclusive aetiology of sexually inappropriate behaviour in adolescents remains elusive. A specialist project for adolescents with sexually inappropriate behaviours was accessed as a component of a national evaluation project, from where the research developed. It was the first aim of the research to explore the characteristics of a British sample of adolescents with sexually inappropriate behaviours attending a specialised intervention project. A retrospective analysis of case file records of young people was undertaken. A number of characteristics common to previous research were found as were a number contrary. A number of differences were observed between young people convicted and those alleged to have committed sexually inappropriate acts. Intervention for adolescent offenders has seen considerable growth. However, offending continues and adolescents continue to re-offend despite receiving intervention. As a consequence, the second and third aims of the research were to psychometrically assess a sample of adolescents with sexually inappropriate behaviours. The validity of a proposed model of sexually inappropriate behaviour was tested and the efficacy of a specialist intervention project was assessed. Sexually inappropriate young people, non-sexual offenders and non-offenders were comparatively assessed. A small number of statistically significant xi differences were found between the groups. However there were no statistically significant differences found in the majority of assessed areas. The adolescents who participated in the research were a heterogeneous group with differing characteristics and needs. No support was found for the tested model of sexually inappropriate behaviours in adolescents. Comparative analyses of the score results compared at two points in time showed no significant differences in scores after intervention by the specialist intervention project. Research has also acknowledged the need to look beyond the content of offending intervention to how it is delivered. Psychological therapy research has recognised the role and importance of the working alliance between a professional and patient and the concept has began to be explored within research and intervention with adult sexual offenders. The role of the working alliance within youth offending research has received limited research attention. Therefore it was the last aim of the research to explore the concept of a working alliance in youth offending intervention and its impact on successful outcomes. Interviews were conducted with youth offending professionals and young offenders and grounded theory analyses were completed to produce a model of interpretations of the role of the working alliance. The findings suggest that a working alliance exerts some influence on the success of youth offending interventions.

Increased understanding about the nature of child sexual abuse has led to the development of specialist facilities to improve the service provided to alleged victims and their families. The research reported here aims to investigate the effects on agency investigations in cases of suspected sexual abuse, following the opening of one such centre in Liverpool, the Rainbow Centre. Data were gathered on all alleged or suspected cases of child sexual abuse coming to the attention of the police, social services and paediatricians, in a twelve month period prior to the establishment of the Centre, and for a six month period following the opening of the Centre, in a cross-sequential design. One focus of the study was interagency communication. It was found that, in a substantial proportion of cases, professionals reported that other agencies 'had not been involved in the investigation, whilst data collection revealed that information had, in fact, been provided by more than one agency. Such results indicate a lack of communication and collaboration between the agencies.

This research was based on the fundamental right of children and young people to be e involved in decisions that affect their lives. It compared the participation experiences of young people who were involved in two types of family intervention within a Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland. The interventions were the Family Group Conference and the Child Protection Case Conference, both of which have a requirement to facilitate the participation of young people. The research involved twenty four young people in semi-structured interviews and four focus groups of parents and professionals. The methodology was influenced by a participatory design of peer research. This involved the establishment of a Research Advisory Group made up of five young people who also had experience of a range of meetings with Social Services. This group of young people were active participants in the research design, implementation and review of this study. The study found that the Family Group Conference offers a high level of participation experience for young people which was lacking in Case Conference. It did not however follow that outcomes from Family Group Conferencing were more favourable from the young person's perspective with more positive results being seen from Case Conferences. The research concludes that both types of intervention have valuable lessons to learn from each other and identifies a range of individual, systemic and organisational influences on participation opportunities for young people.

An online survey was conducted to glean the self-reported experiences of childhood adversity amongst a university student population. The survey, known as The Big Ask, included: the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) 10-item questionnaire - a retrospective measure of neglect, abuse and household dysfunction; subjective measures of conflict-related experiences and inter-/intra- community violence, and self-rated measures of health status and life satisfaction. These variables were examined for association with Academic Resilience and levels of social service contact. All full -time, first year undergraduates of Queen's University, Belfast (N "" 41 14) received an email directing them to the study website. The study response rate was 18.6% (n = 765) and results for this student population were on par with those across whole population studies in the United States. Some 56% (n " 429) of respondents reported at least one adversity. Over 12% (n - 95) reported an ACE score of 4+. Logistic regression showed gender and school-type to be non-significant with regard to ACE score, nor was there significant effect of religious affiliation on ACE. Entitlement to Free School Meals, witnessing • community violence sometimes or often, being personally affected by the 'Troubles' quite a bit or an extreme amount and having an Access qualification were all significant predictors of an ACE score of 4+ (p < 0.001). Respondents exposed to Household Mental Illness (over one-third of sample) were most likely to have experienced no further adversities. Eight-six per cent of those who witnessed domestic violence, however, experienced at least three additional adversities. Those in the 4+ACE group were 23 times more likely to have been in contact with social services, than those who reported no childhood adversities. Surprisingly, life satisfaction was shown to mitigate the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences within the sample. Those with high levels of life satisfaction were found to have better health and education outcomes - regardless of number of Adverse Childhood Experiences reported - than those with low life satisfaction yet no reported experiences of childhood adversity.

No description available.

The child protection conference is a key part of the child protection process in England and other UK countries. This study sought to explore how child focused these meetings are in cases of child neglect and the factors which affect child focused information sharing, assessment and decision making. The study used an interpretivist approach and mix of qualitative methods. Data were gathered from two areas in three stages: audio recordings of 14 child protection conferences, documentary analysis of the reports from these meetings, interviews with 26 staff who chair or minute conferences and six focus groups with practitioners from a range of agencies. The thesis proposes a model of child focused practice which considers the individual child’s experience of child neglect, draws on knowledge of their daily life, promotes the active engagement of children and young people in child protection processes and decisions; and is orientated towards promoting child welfare outcomes which directly relate to the individual child’s experiences and circumstances. This concept is examined through consideration of the stages of the conference. It details how the work of practitioners prior to the conference, in their assessments with families and production of reports, can shape the child focus of the meeting. The influence of child and family participation in conferences is assessed and the meeting itself is explored through analysis of the conference discussion and the decision making and planning which takes place. The study found that practitioners can find it difficult to be explicit about child neglect in conferences. The thesis argues that factors such as the family’s participation, the role of the chair and the competence of practitioners can influence the degree to which the conference is child focused. The extent to which a child protection conference can be considered child focused and the implications of this for theory and practice are explored.

No description available.

Researchers speculated that some child sex offenders who gather and accumulate indecent images of children (IIOC) appear to be engaged in some form of collecting behaviour. Original sentencing guidelines (2004) for IIOC offending recommended higher sentences based on the nature of the images accumulated, the size of the IIOC accumulation and whether it is organised. Updated sentencing guidelines, such as the A, B, C classifications (Sexual Offences Definitive Guidelines in 2014) still see some collecting processes pointing to deviancy in IIOC offenders. This collecting-offending hypothesis is untested and was a prompt for undertaking this thesis. Collecting terminology is not well-defined, there is no unifying psychological theory of collecting and no empirical studies investigating image collecting. Chapter one sought to review the literature in an attempt to operationalise the concept of collecting. From this first formal review of collecting literature coherence in collecting language emerged and a new collecting frame was posited. This collecting frame is thought to incorporate three core collecting units termed the collectible, the collection and the collector. Three core elements are proposed, that is nature, function and process, and these along with the collecting units form part of a relational matrix which was termed the collecting frame. In chapter one the boundary between pathological (hoarding disorder) and normative collecting is also reviewed and it was concluded that whilst further boundary refinement work is needed they are likely to be distinct phenomena. Chapter two contributes original work, as IIOC offending research is reviewed through a collecting lens. Applying the new collecting frame from Chapter one to IIOC offending was not straightforward, and the terms used for core collecting units needed to be adapted to account for the abusive and illegal nature of some images and to avoid reinforcing offence supportive distorted thinking which might encourage further IIOC offending (Sheldon & Howitt 2007). The term collector was changed to IIOC offender, the collectible became the IIOC or images of child erotica, and collection was referred to as the IIOC accumulation. The collecting process was discussed in regard to actual behaviours, that is, gathering, acquiring, keeping and maintaining accumulations. Applying the collecting frame helped map the topography of the extant IIOC literature which pertains to the collecting-offending hypothesis under study. It was identified that whilst the use of objective measures of IIOC classification and collection configuration are popular and useful, this approach fails to take account of the dominant view from collecting theory which emphasises that what is defined as a collectible and collection can also be subjectively defined. The implications of examining the subjective and objective nature of collecting amongst IIOC offenders is examined, and the lack of studies holistically and prospectively studying the function and processes in IIOC offenders accumulating is pointed out based on the review of expert opinion and empirical papers. A case is also made for systematic testing of McIntosh and Schmeichel's (2004) psychological model of collecting process, using a parsimonious model which integrates collecting and offending processes. This thesis also contributes three original studies, using a mixed method design to explore the collecting-offending hypothesis. The first IPA study in this thesis addressed a gap in the collecting literature by exploring the experiences of image collectors. Next a similarly designed IPA study was conducted to examine the subjective experiences of a sample of convicted sex offenders who self-reported gathering and accumulating indecent images of children. Finally in study three a newly developed survey drawn from collecting theory and IIOC research was implemented to examine whether a collecting group could be identified, along with the nature, function and process of collecting-offending in a convicted sample of IIOC offenders. This study also aims to examine the pathological collecting-offending hypothesis suggested by Sheldon and Howitt (2007) and Murrie, Warren, Kristiansson and Dietz (2002), by measuring hoarding and Asperger related symptomology. In this thesis qualitative and quantitative data were given equal priority and the findings from all the studies were merged in the final conclusion to give meaning and detail to our understanding of collecting behaviour and the collecting-offending hypothesis associated with IIOC offending. Key findings: Using an adapted version of McIntosh and Schmeichel's (2004) model of collecting, a collecting group was identified in the IIOC sample in study three. For both image collectors and IIOC offenders, collecting their objects of interest was an evolving process, and similar collecting processes were found for image collectors and IIOC offenders with a collecting interest, that is the hunt, acquisition, post-acquisition behaviours and refinement. Both groups gained from input with like-minded others, but involvement in collecting communities was especially popular amongst image (postcard) collectors. The function of collecting served cognitive, emotional, behavioural and social functions, and seems to be perpetuated by both positive and negative reinforcement. A possible pathological collecting function was identified for a small minority of IIOC offenders in study three, and any link between IIOC offending and collected related disorders would need further investigation before conclusions could be drawn. Cognitive-emotional processes used to relate to the image and to continue collecting differed significantly between image collectors and IIOC offenders. IIOC offenders seem to project shame and anxiety onto the image, and use cognitive distortions to support abuse of children. The image collectors appear to imbue images with affection and many built long-term attachments to the images they collected. With more clarity about the processes or steps taken when collecting, McIntosh and Schmeichel’s (2004) model of collecting was adapted and updated to develop a new testable model of normative collecting and a modified version of this new collecting model was developed for IIOC offenders. Limitations and implications for each of the studies are discussed, along with ideas for future research.

Domestic abuse has been widely researched, however one area relatively absent from such research is that of parent abuse, which sees abuse perpetrated by children against parents. Academic research into parent abuse has begun to increase over recent years, yet this still remains a significantly under-researched area of family violence. This thesis seeks to develop an understanding of key themes and collaborative prevention opportunities in relation to parent abuse in Greater Manchester, and makes recommendations for the development of practitioner responses. Accordingly, the research follows a qualitative paradigm in order to build a better understanding of key issues and to explore opportunities for collaborative responding in the current austere economic climate. The research design consisted of in-depth interviews conducted with practitioners drawn from a variety of public and third-sector agencies working within three boroughs across central Greater Manchester, and utilised open coding in a grounded theoretical approach. The research findings suggest that parent abuse is a unique problem that is complicated by bonds that exist between parent-victims and their abusive children. Parental reluctance to report incidents, through a fear of criminalising or losing their children adds to the difficulties for those responding to parent abuse. Furthermore, the research found problems created by an absence of specific policy, resulting in parent abuse being dealt with via child protection, social care or criminal justice processes. The research also revealed that young male perpetrators were highly prone to mental health and behavioural problems, and there was disproportionate cannabis use amongst young perpetrators. Whilst this may also be the case in the wider youth population, the potential for such correlation is worthy of specific consideration when seeking to further an understanding of parent abuse. Additionally, the importance of collaborative working was highlighted, which revealed opportunities for early intervention. Accordingly, the need for an integrated ‘toolkit’ for responding effectively to deal with parent abuse is proposed, which considers the key issues identified within this thesis. These issues contribute towards both academic knowledge and professional practice in an important but under-researched area of crime and victimisation.

PURPOSE: This qualitative study explores the day-to-day care experiences and livelihoods challenges of the elderly carers of orphan and vulnerable children (OVCs) in rural Chiradzuru district in Malawi. The study aims to highlight the impact of AIDS mortality on Elderly Households’ livelihood assets. METHOD: Using case study approach data was collected from 43 cases comprised of 23 individuals and 3 Focus Groups. The main study participants were elderly-headed households caring for OVCs. Data was collected and the evidence converged using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) to analyse findings. FINDINGS: The main ten study participants were between the ages 55-90+ caring for thirty-eight OVCs; seven of whom were single females caring for OVCs aged between 2-16 years old-some of them caring for second generation of orphans(great grandchildren). Although this is crisis-led fostering, most of the elderly have accepted the responsibility regardless of their capabilities. This highlights the value of family based care in these families. Six of the ten elderly carers had lost a significant number of assets to AIDS sickness and death of family members. A few had given up their wage earning livelihoods to care for OVCs while for the very old (71-90) their physical old-age disabilities affected pursuance of livelihoods impacting their food security and acquisition of basic needs. There was mutual reciprocity between the OVCs and their carers to pursue livelihoods which increased household resilience. Conclusion: The elderly in Chiradzuru need social security support so that they must not give up care of their children to alternative care arrangements which can contribute to trauma on OVCs.