This research explores how concepts of women’s independence are constituted, through neo-liberal and feminist discourses, by members of a feminist organization for women leaving abuse. Analysis of eight interviews and eight focus groups with organizational members, collected over a four year period, surface contesting discourses about individualism, choice, economic independence, collectivity and structural analyses. These discourses interact to produce complex conceptualizations of women’s independence, and produced new subjectivities for women within the organization. In the data, neo-liberal and feminist influences produced an integration of self-responsibility and collectivity, creating new ways of understanding women’s agency. Knowledge of these changing notions of gendered independence in organizations allows feminists to be strategic and reflexive about feminist political work within changing social and political terrain.

In British Colombia, youth are subject to risks that influence their capacity to develop into healthy adults. Community-based youth projects play an important role in supporting youth to develop the motivation, skills and knowledge to overcome challenges in their lives and surroundings. In this grounded theory study 1 examined how community-based youth projects can assist youth to make and maintain positive changes in their lives. Data were collected from staff as well as from people in the community involved with youth in the projects. The findings demonstrate that adults staff and people in the community) involved with the projects engage in a process, named in this thesis as "Supporting Transformation", a process that includes the following categories of action: "Figuring it Out", "Creating Willingness to Engage", 'Introducing a New Way", and "Maintaining Willingness to Engage". By articulating the process of Supporting Transformation, it is hoped that adults will increase their understanding of how to create the conditions that lead to sustainable change in youth.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experience of front-line practitioners working with suicidal children and youth. Five front-line practitioners who had experienced working with children or youth who were suicidal participated in the semi-structured interviews. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed and summarized under the following three areas of experience: Participants' Descriptions of Working with Suicidal Children and Youth, Knowledge Valued by Participants' to Inform their Practice with Suicidal Children and Youth, and Participants' Physical and Emotional Responses to Suicidal Children and Youth. There were a total of sixteen emergent theme clusters. The themes related to the experience of practice with suicidal children and youth provided a rich context for understanding the nature of meaning of the suicidal behaviors for participants. The emergent themes relating to the knowledge valued by participants to guide their approach provided a specific understanding of the multiple sources of knowledge participants were drawing from in the encounters. The emergent themes relating to the physical and emotional responses participants experienced in relation to their encounters with a suicidal child or youth provided an awareness of the impact the encounters had on participants. The major findings included the participants' broad scope of knowledge they used to guide their approach, as well as that encounters with suicidal children and youth did evoke strong physical and emotional responses amongst participants. The study concludes by describing the implications of these findings for Child and Youth Care practice and for future directions in research.

The notion of ‘absolute’ power underpins my own interest in power relations in Child Welfare practice but I shift the focus to the perspective of frontline child protection social workers. Missing in social work literature are the stories from workers in child protection practice. How do workers conceptualize power? How is this grey space of practice – which is not easily discussed – understood by practitioners themselves, the academy, and the system in which they practice? My completed master’s research draws on narrative methodology, adopted from Fraser’s (2002) model. It is a collection of six narratives. By using this open-ended approach, practice narratives were shared without limitation or parameters. From this rich data I analysed workers’ experiences, drawing out examples of power relations. My conclusions include; (a) the ways that frontline workers conceptualize power are strongly impacted by dominant notions of power, (b) relational practice with clients is occurring – and does so in isolation of the larger system of child welfare, and finally, (c) there is value in examining the perspectives of frontline child protection social workers as they are the one which have the greatest potential to initiate structural change from the bottom-up through transformative practice, which is happening every day.

Child protection is a reactive, non-linear, social process carried out in a context of unpredictability, uncertainty and complexity. One way professionals respond to this context is by negotiating almost every aspect of the work, negotiating both with people and through practice problems. This negotiation process has a cultural basis. I contend that: 1) skillful negotiation is culturally embedded in the activities and practices of child protection teams and individual workers; 2) child protection practice in this team is the skillful negotiation of practice problems while maintaining a balance between helping and enforcement activities that protect children; and 3) workers’ negotiation is not only activity-based but also a cultural way of thinking and being in the midst of this complex environment. I use the idea of a cultural repertoire as a framework for how professionals think and act and use ethnographic observation and participant interviews to explore its use in every-day practice.

Themes of hope and despair are central in the care of child and youth survivors of abuse trauma. Acts of abuse can disrupt a person's hope while shaking beliefs about purpose and meaning. Part of a trauma therapist's role is to implicitly offer one's own hopeful faith in possibility to clients, especially in moments of client despair. However, trauma therapy offers a challenge to therapists, prompting us to question our own meaning frameworks. A central aspect of this challenge involves negotiating hope and despair. Through my research I consider issues of hope and despair in practice for therapists supporting survivors of trauma, and ponder the role of narratives beliefs and ways of being - in cultivating sustainable practice. In this study I explore the central question: `how can therapists negotiate hope and despair in a way which fosters resilience and sustainable practice?' This thesis interest was born from personal experience as a junior therapist struggling with hope and despair. I researched the subject through creative self-reflection followed by interview conversations with 8 more-senior therapists working with trauma survivors. Interpretation of the conversations generated the following. The participants' negotiations involve (a) re-imagining hope and despair through process and paradox, from a stance of possibility and uncertainty, and (b) re-imagining health as non-attachment, non-aversion, and engagement. In addition, the conversations with participants suggest/s that practitioners can maintain an engaged non-attachment through narratives for practice which (a) distinguish between suffering and pain (b) describe and encourage innate human resilience, (c) affirm the power of the relationship as a site of re-connection (d) reflect a grounded view of change processes, and (e) promote playfulness in the process. Finally, participants develop resilience through processes of congruence - narrating their lives through (a) practicing reflective engagement with challenge and (b) infusing their practice with this learning. This process forges a connected, transformative story of (c) client and therapist as two travelers and (d) life challenges as useful teachers. In short, participants negotiate narratives which offer them a meaningful response to the challenges of therapy; these narratives reflect a desire to be of deep service for others from a position of personal aliveness and a vision of enhanced community health. Following the explication of the themes detailed above, further implications and recommendations for fostering practitioner and community resilience are provided.

While it is generally agreed that family homelessness is rapidly increasing, there is very little research to find out how families have exited homelessness and become stable. There is even less research to investigate the strengths that were employed by family members as they journey toward housing stability. Is it possible that this potentially dis-empowering experience can be enriched by the care and support of fellow community members and helping professionals? More importantly, can family members draw on this experience to recognize their inner strengths and move toward greater happiness and self-sufficiency? This thesis shows how families who have been displaced from their community due to an experience of homelessness can be better supported to return to a stable life. A narrative lens was used to investigate the findings from semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with three mothers. One of the main criteria was that they found and retained stable housing for at least one year. The families in question currently live in Victoria, B.C. Canada, where this research took place. Examination of participant’s narratives revealed a five-stage process in which inner strengths and outer community supports combined to assist them in moving toward their goals. Participant mothers were able to access new ways to view the situation that did not leave them feeling marginalized. They also built both material and social assets that led to greater happiness and stability. Participants were able to develop resilient behavior by drawing upon past experience for knowledge, insight and inspiration. They overcame inner and outer barriers to these strengths by communicating their needs and reaching out to family, friends or services in a more confident way.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and support needs of community mental health and addiction services providers in the context of rapid social and economic change in communities in the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada. Two main questions guiding this inquiry were: How do community mental health and addictions workers experience and respond to rapid socio-economic change in relation to their professional practice? What are the support needs of practitioners in light of continued change in the region? Primary data consisted of personal interviews with 15 community-based mental health and addictions practitioners throughout the NWT. Findings drawn from the thematic analysis of these interviews highlight the positive and negative changes taking place in communities with respect to mental health and addictions, the significant impact of organizational change on front-line practice, and the possibilities that exist for the future of mental health and addiction service delivery in the NWT. In the discussion chapter, community-based practitioners’ views are related to key themes within the literature and recommendations to improve the NWT mental health and addiction services policies and practices are made.

Cette recherche exploratoire vise à documenter, du point de vue des intervenants, les conditions nécessaires à la mise en place de projets utilisant des outils de narrativité numérique, de même que les principaux apports de ces outils à l’intervention. Ces outils peuvent être des récits numériques qui sont de courtes vidéos (deux à cinq minutes) intégrant images, musique, texte, voix et animation, ou encore de courts fichiers audio, aussi appelés podcasting ou baladodiffusion. Il peut aussi s’agir de jeux vidéo interactifs ou d’un montage vidéo à partir d’extraits de témoignages. Dans un contexte où les pratiques d’intervention, dans les services publics en particulier, sont de plus en plus normées et standardisées, une recherche qui explore des outils d’intervention recourant à la créativité s’avère des plus pertinentes. Par ailleurs, ce champ n’a été que très peu exploré en service social jusqu’à maintenant. Des entrevues semi-dirigées ont été menées auprès de huit intervenants ayant utilisé ces outils dans leur pratique. L’analyse de leurs propos met d’abord en lumière les conditions nécessaires à la réalisation de ce type de projet, de même que les questions éthiques qui les accompagnent. Ensuite, du côté des principaux apports de ces outils, ils se situent, d’une part, dans le processus créatif collaboratif. Celui-ci permet d’enrichir l’intervention en donnant un espace de parole plus libre où intervenants et usagers créent des liens qui modifient le rapport hiérarchique entre aidant et aidé. D’autre part, l’attention professionnelle accordée à la réalisation des produits et à leur diffusion contribue à donner une plus grande visibilité à des personnes souvent exclues de l’espace public. Ainsi, en plus d’explorer les apports d’un outil artistique à l’intervention, cette recherche permet également d’analyser les enjeux de visibilité et de reconnaissance associés à l’utilisation de médias participatifs. / This exploratory study describes, from the viewpoint of social workers and other support workers, the conditions needed to set up a project that makes use of digital storytelling tools, as well as the main contributions of these tools as part of an intervention. The tools may be digital stories in the form of short, two-to-five minute videos (with music, text, voice, and/or animations), or short audio files (i.e., podcasts). They may also be interactive video games or a video montage created from extracts drawn from personal stories. A study exploring intervention tools that encourage creativity becomes all the more pertinent in a context where, particularly in public health and social services, intervention practices are becoming increasingly standardized. As yet, this field has been only minimally explored. Semi-directed interviews were conducted with eight workers who used these tools in their practice. Analysis of their statements sheds light on the conditions necessary to carry out this type of project, as well as the ethical questions that arise in the process. The analysis also reveals that one of the main contributions of these tools lies within the collaborative creative process. The process enriches the intervention by providing a space for freer speech where support workers and the people they help create ties that modify the hierarchical relationship between them. Moreover, the professional attention given to creating and sharing the products helps provide greater visibility to people who are often excluded from the public arena. Thus, in addition to exploring the contributions of an artistic tool to interventions, this study also makes it possible to analyze the issues of visibility and recognition associated with using participatory media.

Le conflit israélo-palestinien dure depuis plus de 60 ans. Non seulement perdure-t-il, il gagne aussi en complexité. Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’expérience d’exil des Palestiniens et plus particulièrement à celle de femmes palestiniennes vivant en camp de réfugiés au Liban. La mémoire palestinienne a longtemps été, dans son ensemble, occultée dans la littérature, et qui plus est l’expérience des femmes; la façon dont leurs récits sont construits nous le démontre bien. La présente étude s’inscrit donc dans la lignée de travaux qui font une place aux « voix silencieuses » que sont souvent celles des femmes réfugiées palestiniennes des camps. Cette thèse s’appuie sur une approche qualitative – récits de vie et observation participante – et fait suite à une recherche qui a été menée entre 2009 et 2011 dans le camp palestinien de Bourj El Barajneh au Liban. Les résultats dégagés confirment que, dans l’exil, une partie de l’expérience de la nakba palestinienne telle que vécue par les femmes s’est perdue. Ceci dit, si la quasi-absence des femmes caractérise l’exode, on voit ces dernières s’affirmer au fil de l’exil qui devient une réalité durable. Au cours des deux premières décennies, les femmes apparaissent comme des « résistantes du quotidien ». Puis, la montée du sentiment national palestinien et l’éclatement de la guerre civile libanaise amènent les femmes à investir de plus en plus l’espace public. En temps de guerre, toutes les femmes participent à la survie de la communauté, et cela, par l’extension de leurs tâches domestiques et sociales. Plus le conflit prend de l’ampleur, plus leurs activités se diversifient : elles intègrent d’autres tâches à celles qui leur sont traditionnellement assignées. À l’issue du conflit, une grande partie des femmes palestiniennes commencent à prendre leurs distances de la lutte nationale partisane. Pour plusieurs d’entre elles, la fin de la guerre est aussi la fin des illusions : elles ont le sentiment d’avoir été abandonnées par la classe politique. Ainsi, le mouvement nationaliste palestinien a certes bousculé les rôles de genre, mais il n’a pas permis d’induire des changements durables. Dans les récits des femmes, on voit qu’à travers l’exil s’est créé un lien avec ce milieu que l’on croyait temporaire, le camp de Bourj El Barajneh : un lien qui se situe au cœur d’une tension entre un pôle réel et un pôle symbolique. Le camp « réel » est décrit comme insalubre, instable et non sécuritaire, et la vie dans ce camp est à ce point précaire et difficile que les femmes s’accrochent à cet autre camp qui, lui, est porteur de mémoire, de souvenirs, de relations et de rêves. C’est d’ailleurs parce que ce second pôle existe que la vie dans le camp peut être tolérée. Si la lutte nationale a été pour une certaine génération de Palestiniennes la préoccupation première, la fin de la guerre signe la perte de vitesse de cette lutte qui s’est longtemps avérée structurante. Ceci dit, le modèle de résistance, lui, persiste. Les femmes continuent de lutter et apparaissent comme des « actrices de la transmission ». L’un de ces projets qu’elles font leur, la transmission de l’identité religieuse, prend rapidement de l’ampleur alors que la communauté palestinienne peine à se relever des affres de la guerre. Nombreuses sont les femmes qui cherchent un sens à la vie dans ce cumul de catastrophes, et la religion les soutient dans cette quête, mais en plus c’est à travers elle que le projet du retour en Palestine est porté. D’ailleurs, la mémoire de la Palestine est une autre valeur que les femmes cherchent à transmettre d’une génération à l’autre. Maintenir la mémoire de la Palestine est un rôle traditionnel de la femme palestinienne. Ceci dit, les femmes ne remplissent pas ce rôle « aveuglément » : elles transmettent une mémoire, un message qu’elles ont cherché, reconstruit, évalué et parfois critiqué. Enfin, un autre projet se manifeste rapidement dans l’exil : la transmission des connaissances, une valeur phare pour les Palestiniennes puisque à la fois stratégie de survie, de développement et d’ascension sociale. Mais pour quelques-unes, l’éducation est une lutte parce que confrontée à des contraintes contextuelles et au poids des traditions. Ainsi, c’est par des valeurs traditionnellement portées et transmises par les femmes – l’identité religieuse, la mémoire et l’éducation – que l’oppression et la colonisation des Palestiniens se combattent au quotidien. / The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has lasted more than 60 years and persists not only in time but also in complexity. This thesis focuses on the Palestinian exile and particularly, the experience of exile of Palestinian women living in refugee camps in Lebanon. Palestinian memory has for a long time been occulted in the literature and specifically, the experience of women and how their stories are constructed by gender. The present study is therefore in a line of work that gives a place to these “silent voices” that are often those of the Palestinian women of the camps. This research is based on a qualitative methodology – life stories and participant observation –, research that took place between 2009 and 2011 in the refugee camp of Bourj El Barajneh in Lebanon. The results show that, in exile, a part of the Palestinian nakba experienced by women, has been lost. That said, if a virtual absence of women characterizes the exodus, over exile, women become more assertive. During the first two decades in exile in Lebanon, women appear as “everyday resistant”. Then, the rise of a national sentiment which was rapidly followed by the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, made women more and more present in the public space. Indeed, in wartime, all the women were involved in the community’s survival, and that, by an extension of their domestic and social roles. The longer the conflict lasts, the more diverse are their activities: it includes other tasks than those traditionally assigned to them. At the end of the conflict, a large part of Palestinian women are beginning to distance themselves from the national struggle. For many, the end of the war also means the end of illusions: they feel they have been abandoned by the political class. Thus, if the Palestinian nationalist movement has certainly brought changes in gender roles, it has failed to bring about lasting changes. Also, in the women's narratives, we see that in time, a bond is created with the space “Bourj El Barajneh camp”, a, bond that is located in a tension between two poles. First, there is a “real pole” where the camp appears as unsafe and unstable. Second, life in the camp is so precarious and difficult that women cling to another pole, a “symbolic pole” which represents the camp as a bearer of memories, relationships and dreams. And it’s because this last pole exists that life in the camp can be tolerated. If the Palestinian national struggle – for a certain generation of Palestinian women – was the main struggle, the end of the war signed “the end of illusions” and the slowing of the national struggle which has long proven structuring. That said, the pattern of resistance persists while women continue to resist and appear as “actresses of transmission”. The transmission of religious identity quickly gained in importance as the Palestinian community struggled to recover from the horrors of war. Through religion, many women found meaning in a life and it is also through religion that the return to Palestine is now carried. Moreover, the memory of Palestine is another value that women seek to pass on from a generation to another. Even though, passing on the memory of Palestine is a role traditionally carried by women, they do not fulfill it “blindly” but they convey a message that has been sought, rebuilt and sometimes criticized. Finally, another project arrives rapidly in exile: the transmission of knowledge, a core value for Palestinian women as it is a strategy for survival, development and social mobility. But for some, because faced with contextual constraints and the weight of tradition, education is still a struggle. Thus, it is because women carry and transmit traditional values – religious identity, memory and education – that the oppression and colonization of Palestinians can be fought everyday.