Trauma and Resilience Among Child Soldiers Around the World
Trauma and Resilience Among Child Soldiers Around the World

Author: Patricia Kerig

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-12-22

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1317672976

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It is estimated that approximately 300,000 children actively serve in various kinds of military groups around the world. Some of these children are forcibly conscripted through abduction or threats of violence to themselves or their families, others are coerced or manipulated into joining, and still others are more subtly compelled by circumstances that lead choosing to enlist to represent the lesser of the evils life has placed before them. No matter how they come to serve in war, however, child soldiers are exposed to, subjected to, and often forced to perpetrate horrors that meet or exceed our diagnostic criteria for trauma exposure. This volume brings together leading investigators in the field to share new research regarding the traumatic impact of child soldiering from diverse international contexts, including Burundi, Colombia, Liberia, Mozambique, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and—provocatively—among gang-involved youth in the United States. Contributions include data from longitudinal studies following former child soldiers into adulthood as well as investigations of the intergenerational impact of childhood conscription on former child combatants own children. In addition, research presented in this volume uncovers sources of resilience among these youth and details efforts to bring trauma-informed intervention and rehabilitation programs to these war-torn regions. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma.

Handbook of Resilience in Children of War
Handbook of Resilience in Children of War

Author: Chandi Fernando

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-23

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1461463750

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Their frightened, angry faces are grim reminders of the reach of war. They are millions of children, orphaned, displaced, forced to flee or to fight. And just as they have myriad possibilities for trauma, their lives also hold great potential for recovery. The Handbook of Resilience in Children of War explores these critical phenomena at the theoretical, research, and treatment levels, beginning with the psychosocial effects of exposure to war. Narratives of young people's lives in war zones as diverse as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Columbia, and Sudan reveal the complexities of their experiences and the meanings they attach to them, providing valuable keys to their rehabilitation. Other chapters identify strengths and limitations of current interventions, and of constructs of resilience as applied to youth affected by war. Throughout this cutting-edge volume, the emphasis is on improving the field through more relevant research and accurate, evidence-based interventions, in such areas as: An ecological resilience approach to promoting mental health in children of war. Child soldiers and the myth of the ticking time bomb. The Child Friendly Spaces postwar intervention program. The role of education for war-zone immigrant and refugee students. Political violence, identity, and adjustment in children. The Handbook of Resilience in Children of War is essential reading for researchers, scientist-practitioners, and graduate students in diverse fields including clinical child, school, and developmental psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; social work; counseling; education; and allied medical and public health disciplines.

Child Soldiers
Child Soldiers

Author: Michael Wessells

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780674023598

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Compelling and humane, this book reveals the lives of the 300,000 child soldiers around the world, challenging stereotypes of them as predators or a lost generation. Kidnapped or lured by the promise of food, protection, revenge, or a better life, children serve not only as combatants but as porters, spies, human land mine detectors, and sexual slaves. Nearly one-third are girls, and Michael Wessells movingly reveals the particular dangers they face from pregnancy, childbirth complications, and the rejection they and their babies encounter in their local contexts. Based mainly on participatory research and interviews with hundreds of former child soldiers worldwide, Wessells allows these ex-soldiers to speak for themselves and reveal the enormous complexity of their experiences and situations. The author argues that despite the social, moral, and psychological wounds of war, a surprising number of former child soldiers enter civilian life, and he describes the healing, livelihood, education, reconciliation, family integration, protection, and cultural supports that make it possible. A passionate call for action, Child Soldiers pushes readers to go beyond the horror stories to develop local and global strategies to stop this theft of childhood.

Handbook of Resilience in Children of War
Handbook of Resilience in Children of War

Author: Chandi Fernando

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-04-23

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 9781461463764

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Their frightened, angry faces are grim reminders of the reach of war. They are millions of children, orphaned, displaced, forced to flee or to fight. And just as they have myriad possibilities for trauma, their lives also hold great potential for recovery. The Handbook of Resilience in Children of War explores these critical phenomena at the theoretical, research, and treatment levels, beginning with the psychosocial effects of exposure to war. Narratives of young people's lives in war zones as diverse as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Columbia, and Sudan reveal the complexities of their experiences and the meanings they attach to them, providing valuable keys to their rehabilitation. Other chapters identify strengths and limitations of current interventions, and of constructs of resilience as applied to youth affected by war. Throughout this cutting-edge volume, the emphasis is on improving the field through more relevant research and accurate, evidence-based interventions, in such areas as: An ecological resilience approach to promoting mental health in children of war. Child soldiers and the myth of the ticking time bomb. The Child Friendly Spaces postwar intervention program. The role of education for war-zone immigrant and refugee students. Political violence, identity, and adjustment in children. The Handbook of Resilience in Children of War is essential reading for researchers, scientist-practitioners, and graduate students in diverse fields including clinical child, school, and developmental psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; social work; counseling; education; and allied medical and public health disciplines.

Trauma, Survival and Resilience in War Zones
Trauma, Survival and Resilience in War Zones

Author: David Winter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-16

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1317628624

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This book, based upon a series of psychological research studies, examines Sierra Leone as a case study of a constructivist and narrative perspective on psychological responses to warfare, telling the stories of a range of survivors of the civil war. The authors explore previous research on psychological responses to warfare while providing background information on the Sierra Leone civil war and its context. Chapters consider particular groups of survivors, including former child soldiers, as well as amputee footballers, mental health service users and providers, and refugees. Implications of the themes emerging from this research are considered with respect to how new understandings can inform current models of trauma and work with its survivors. Amongst the issues concerned will be post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth; resilience; mental health service provision; perpetration of atrocities; and forgiveness. The book also provides a critical consideration of the appropriateness of the use of Western concepts and methods in an African context. Drawing upon psychological theory and rich narrative research, Trauma, Survival and Resilience in War Zones will appeal to researchers and academics in the field of clinical psychology, as well as those studying post-war conflict zones.

Children Affected by Armed Conflict
Children Affected by Armed Conflict

Author: Myriam Denov

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-08-08

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0231539673

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Societal turbulence, state collapse, religious and ethnic conflict, poverty, hunger, and social exclusion all underlie children's involvement in armed conflict. Drawing from empirical studies in eleven conflict-ridden countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Colombia, Uganda, Palestine, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and South Sudan, Children Affected by Armed Conflict crosses cultures and contexts to capture a range of perspectives on the realities of armed conflict and its aftermath for children. Children Affected by Armed Conflict upends traditional views by emphasizing the experience of girls as well as boys, the unique social and contextual backgrounds of war-affected children, and the resilience and agency such children often display. Including children who are victims of, participants in, and witnesses to armed conflict in their analyses, the contributors to this volume highlight innovative methodologies that directly involve war-affected children in the research process. This validates the perspectives of children and ensures more effective outcomes in postwar reintegration and recovery. Deficits-based models do not account for the realities many war-affected children face. The alternative approaches presented in this edited collection—which acknowledge the realities of both trauma and resilience—aim to generate more effective policies and intervention strategies in the face of a growing global public health crisis.

The Social Ecology of Resilience
The Social Ecology of Resilience

Author: Michael Ungar

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-10-08

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1461405866

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More than two decades after Michael Rutter (1987) published his summary of protective processes associated with resilience, researchers continue to report definitional ambiguity in how to define and operationalize positive development under adversity. The problem has been partially the result of a dominant view of resilience as something individuals have, rather than as a process that families, schools,communities and governments facilitate. Because resilience is related to the presence of social risk factors, there is a need for an ecological interpretation of the construct that acknowledges the importance of people’s interactions with their environments. The Social Ecology of Resilience provides evidence for this ecological understanding of resilience in ways that help to resolve both definition and measurement problems.

The Child and the World
The Child and the World

Author: Jana Tabak

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 0820356395

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However unthinkable child-soldiers may be within a generalized conception of childhood, they are not imaginary figures; rather, they are a constant in almost every armed conflict around the world. The participation of children in wars may question the idea of childhood as a "once-upon-a-time story with a happy and predictable ending," disrupting the (natural) idea of a protected and innocent childhood and also eliciting fear, uncertainty, revulsion, horror, and sorrow. Using the perspectives of both childhood studies and critical approaches to international relations, Jana Tabak explores the constructions of child-soldiers as "children at risk" and, at the same time, risky children. More specifically, The Child and the World aims both to problematize the boundaries that articulate child-soldiers as necessarily deviant and pathological in relation to "normal" children and to show how these specific limits participate in the (re)production and promotion of a particular version of the international political order. In this sense, the focus of this work is not on investigating child-soldiers' lives and experiences per se but on their presumed threatening feature as they depart from the protected territory of childhood, disquieting everyday international life.

Promoting Psychological Resilience in the U.S. Military
Promoting Psychological Resilience in the U.S. Military

Author: Lisa S. Meredith

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2011-06

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0833058169

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As U.S. service members deploy for extended periods on a repeated basis, their ability to cope with the stress of deployment may be challenged. Many programs are available to encourage and support psychological resilience among service members and families. However, little is known about these programs' effectiveness. This report reviews resilience literature and programs to identify evidence-informed factors for promoting resilience.