No description available.

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / In South Africa family foster care is the first option of alternative care for children removed from their biological parents, adoptive parents or guardians, due to neglect, abuse or abandonment. Similar to international trends, South Africa prioritises family foster care. However, when the foster care placement disintegrates, children are generally placed in child and youth care centres (CYCCs) in accordance with the South African Children’s Act 38 of 2005. This qualitative study aims to explain the adverse childhood experiences of adults regarding their transition from foster care to CYCCs, using family systems theory (FST) to contextualise these accounts. The population for this study was adults living in Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB), who were formerly moved to CYCCs after the break down of their family foster care placements.

Introduction: Homelessness is a living condition associated with a number of adverse health outcomes. Unaccompanied homeless youth are at risk for many of the same health outcomes as other homeless persons, but these youth are especially vulnerable because they are young and without the protection or support of an adult caregiver. Aim: The purpose of this capstone project is to present a basic overview of the topic as well as to highlight what more needs to be done to address this issue. Methods: This project involved a review of the literature related to homeless youth, child sexual or physical abuse, and mental health issues associated abused and/or homeless youth, focusing on United States information, for the years 1995 to present. Discussion: to discuss current prevention and intervention efforts, and to discuss needs for future research and intervention

In trying to understand ecological identity within adult environmental education, I embarked on an arts-informed exploration of my life history. I realized that everything I know about the environment grew from what I experienced as a child. My childhood experiences are most vivid in my memories of the natural world. I wanted to know more about the relationship between childhood experiences and ecological identity. Based on a personal transformation, and journey toward restoring awareness of the senses and how we know as human beings, I chose my life as the focus of this research. Had my childhood experiences influenced how I relate to the environment? How had they done that? What was it about those childhood experiences? This thesis is the culmination of my inquiry. It is my story and an offering to travel with me to my childhood and make sense of your own experiences in the natural world.

In trying to understand ecological identity within adult environmental education, I embarked on an arts-informed exploration of my life history. I realized that everything I know about the environment grew from what I experienced as a child. My childhood experiences are most vivid in my memories of the natural world. I wanted to know more about the relationship between childhood experiences and ecological identity. Based on a personal transformation, and journey toward restoring awareness of the senses and how we know as human beings, I chose my life as the focus of this research. Had my childhood experiences influenced how I relate to the environment? How had they done that? What was it about those childhood experiences? This thesis is the culmination of my inquiry. It is my story and an offering to travel with me to my childhood and make sense of your own experiences in the natural world.

Diploma thesis has an ambition to offer an access to solve society questions that do not tackle only architectural problems but the deeper ones - educational, existential. By using a network of disintegrated former pioneer basecamps and its activation and integration into society I create edcuational system which takes into account social development.

Cruel teasing can be pernicious for targets' psychological health. In this thesis I examined the extent to which trait mindfulness might mitigate the negative psychological effects associated with cruel teasing. Correlation results confirmed cruel teasing history related significantly and directly, and mindfulness inversely, to poorer psychological health. Moderated regression analyses confirmed that among targets of frequent cruel teasing those with high levels of mindfulness did not evidence the detrimental psychological effects as did those low in mindfulness. Subsequent moderated regression analyses with cruel teasing history, mindfulness, and sexual identity status suggest that when people are low in mindfulness cruel teasing experiences affect their psychological health systematically regardless of sexual identity. Discussion focuses on the role of mindfulness for well-being, particularly in mitigating the negative effects of cruel teasing for psychological health, the individual and social implications for promoting mindfulness, and other directions for future research.

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: Studies on the topic of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and childhood obesity collectively indicate an association, but there is a lack of replication in nationally representative sample of children aged 10-17 years. This study aims to expand on the definition of ACEs to include: socio-economic hardship, racial discrimination, witness or victim of neighborhood violence, and bereavement, and to examine their individual and joint association with BMI levels, especially childhood obesity (primary outcome). METHODS: The 2011-2012 National of Children’s Health (NSCH) was used for this study (N=45,309). One child interview weight was produced; hence, the estimates are generalized to all non-institutionalized children 10-17 years of age in the US and each state. Statistical methods used included descriptive statistics and multivariable multinomial logistic regression models. ACEs examined included: (1) Socioeconomic hardship, (2) Parental divorce or separation, (3) Bereavement, (4) Incarcerated family member, (5) Witness to domestic violence, (6) Victim/witness of neighborhood violence, (7) Household mental illness, (8) Household substance abuse, (9) Racial discrimination. BMI for the same sex and age (10-17 years) percentile relative measurement, using growth charts recommended by CDC, among children and teens were used as indicators of BMI. BMI-95th percentile or greater was considered obese. RESULTS: The prevalence of childhood obesity and ACE exposure was higher for boys compared to girls. Controlling for gender, among those who were obese, White-non-Hispanic children had the highest prevalence of obesity compared to other races for both genders. Southern States constituted 80% and 60 % of top 10 states with the highest prevalence of childhood obesity and ACE, respectively. Approximately 25.4 million (89.5%) children aged 10-17 years had experienced 3 or less ACE. The most prevalent ACE category of nine asked about for child was-living with parents who were either divorced or separated after his/her birth (26.77%) and the least prevalent was living with a parent who died (4.84 %). ACEs were not mutually exclusive, and all nine categories of ACEs were interrelated. The adjusted odds ratio of covariates to their reference groups that were only statistically significant for childhood obesity relative to healthy weight encompassed: a) Place of residence in metropolitan statistical area, b) two or more chronic health conditions of 18 asked about, c) Watching TV, videos, or playing video games across categories >1 to≥4 hours, d) family members in the household eat a meal together 7 days of the week, e) and computer, cell phone or electronic device use ≤1 hour. Moreover, the explanatory variables, namely, age, sex, the physical health status of parents, and physical activity, were strongly related to childhood obesity (associated both with higher odds and lower odds of outcome) compared to overweight and underweight BMI categories. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to explore the co-occurrence, individual and joint association of ACEs with childhood obesity using nationally representative sample of children aged10-17 years in the U.S. Having childhood obesity, BMI-95th percentile or above was strongly related to ACE dichotomy, ACE score ≥2 and two ACE types (socioeconomic hardship and bereavement) than the probability of overweight, BMI-85th to 94th percentile. Underweight-BMI less than 5th percentile had only statistically significant association with socioeconomic hardship ACE category. Sociodemographic, parental, and childhood related factors were also independently associated with childhood obesity.

The classically idyllic, carefree world of childhood would appear to be diametrically opposed to the horrors of war and world-wide conflict. However, throughout film history, filmmakers have continually turned to the figure of the child as a prism through which to examine the devastation caused by war. This thesis will investigate the representation of childhood experience of the Second World War across six fiction films: Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan (1946) and Germany Year Zero (1947), René Clément’s Forbidden Games (1952), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Jan Nemec’s Diamonds of the Night (1964) and Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985). Spanning forty years, I will examine how these films, whilst sharing many thematic and formal concerns, are unquestionably diverse. They are products of specific socio-cultural milieux, but are also important works in the evolution of cinematic style in art cinema. The films can be aligned to various trends such as neorealism (Paisan, Germany Year Zero), Modernism (Ivan’s Childhood, Diamonds of the Night) and Neo-expressionism (Come and See). Structured in four parts – on witness, landscape, loss and play – I will suggest that just filmmakers utilise childhood experience – often fragmented and chaotic in terms of temporality - to reflect the chaos of war. The first part of my study focuses on the child as witness, the child as Deleuzian seer. I draw on the writings of Gilles Deleuze as well as post-Deleuzian interventions of Tyrus Miller and Jaimey Fisher to argue that whilst Deleuze’s characterization of the child figure as passive is somewhat problematic when applied to the neorealist works, it can, however, be more rigorously applied to Come and See, a film in which, I suggest, the child embodies a much purer form of the Deleuzian seer. In the second part of my study, drawing on the work of Martin Lefebvre and Sandro Bernardi amongst others, I discuss the representation of landscape and its relation to the figure of the child. The third part will examine the representation of loss as well as the symbolic quality of water and its links to the maternal with reference to psychoanalytic theory and the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. The fourth and final part also draws on psychoanalysis in examining the role of play in the six films with particular reference to the work of D.W Winnicott and Lenore Terr. My study seeks to contribute to the comparatively under-explored subject of the child in film through close analysis of film aesthetics including mise-en-scène, editing, and film sound.

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been linked to a number of adverse effects in adulthood including higher levels of depression, shame, guilt, self-blame, somatic concerns, anxiety, dissociation, repression, denial, relationship problems, and sexual problems. Little is known, however, about the influence CSA has on parenting, specifically among African American mothers, as previous researchers have primarily focused on the trauma experienced by survivors. Examining the impact of CSA on African American mothers' parenting is important as those children of survivors will often also experience the impact of the long-term sequelae associated with CSA. Guided by womanist theory, the purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative inquiry was to explore the lived experiences in relation to parenting of African American mothers who survived CSA. Experiential anecdotes of data collected from interviews with 7 participants were hand coded for emergent themes; analysis generated 4 essential themes and 10 subthemes of experience. Themes included impact of abuse, bonding, efforts to protect, spirituality, and desires. This study's implications for positive social change include contributing to the knowledge base about the process of parenting experienced by African American female survivors of CSA. Findings may add insight shedding light on cultural nuances in parenting and coping with trauma and inform culturally-competent practice. Using study findings, mental health providers may be able to develop tailored treatment interventions and better support services for the prevention of adverse long-term effects of CSA in African American women.