Every family who enters a hospital is on a personal journey. The awareness of that particular journey allows us to make more intentional and purposeful choices about how health and medical professionals want to be spiritually involved with each child and family. Spiritual care for sick children raises an important concern for health and medical professionals. The purpose of this article is to introduce the role of children’s spirituality in administering intentional spiritual care for the hearts, minds, and spirits of sick children and their families in health care settings. Characteristics and principles of intentional spiritual care are discussed along with a variety of activities and interventions healthcare professionals can use effectively when taking care of the spiritual needs of young patients in hospitals. By conducting an ethnographic research study and collecting data as a participant-observer, the author documented activities with hospitalised children and how medical personnel nurtured and supported their spiritual domain.
In August 2023, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child released General Comment 26, Children and the environment with a special focus on climate change, which declared that environmental degradation, including the climate crisis, is a form of structural violence against children; that States are obliged to ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in order to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights; and that children should be provided with ‘justice pathways’, including facilities to initiate proceedings themselves to hold governments responsible for threatening their well-being. General Comment 26 provides detailed instruction to States on how to avoid structural violence against children in the context of climate change, but neither it nor the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to which it relates contains any binding mechanism for enforcement.
Michael F. C. Bourdillon, Jenny Driscoll, William Myers et al.
Violence Against Children (VAC) refers to all forms of abuse or maltreatment of people under the age of 18 years. The Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS), led by national governments with technical assistance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of the Together for Girls partnership, have documented the magnitude and prevalence of physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children in more than 20 low- and middle-income countries, with a view to informing national prevention and response programs. Despite the precedent for understanding the extent of VAC from the perspectives of adolescents and pre-adolescent children, interest in systematic documentation of similar experiences of children in humanitarian settings is just emerging, following the development of guidance for the implementation of VACS in such contexts. This report presents key findings from the second VACS conducted exclusively in a humanitarian context—specifically, in refugee settings in Ethiopia. The survey is referred to as the Ethiopia Humanitarian VAC Survey (HVACS).
Yohannes Dibaba Wado, Yadeta Dessie, Francis Obare Onyango et al.
This article aims to examine the role of parents in fostering social concern among elementary school children based on literature review from various relevant journals. Social care is a vital character value that should be instilled from an early age, and the family as the first environment plays a key role in shaping children's character. The research method used is a literature review with a descriptive qualitative approach. The findings show that parents play a strategic role in fostering children's caring attitudes through exemplary behavior, communication, habituation of social values, and active involvement in children's social activities. This article also includes a reflection instrument for parents to support implementation at home.
Domestic Violence against Children and Adolescents (DVCA) is considered a social and public health problem, which occurs in the private space of the family. Mothers are among those who most violate their children because they are the main ones responsible for their care. This review analyzed the articles published in the last 12 years that dealt with maternal violence. It was found that most of the studies were qualitative, written in Portuguese, carried out in Brazil, and in the area of psychology. The high production by Brazilian authors shows that this phenomenon has become visible in the country. Physical violence and neglect were the most highlighted and the mothers participating in the studies were mostly from lower socioeconomic classes. There is a gap regarding the inclusion of mothers with other socioeconomic characteristics and from other countries. The content of the articles provided a wealth of information about the life histories and personalities of these women, but only a minority explored the relational vicissitudes of the mother-child dyads, which could result in more comprehensive and effective intervention proposals in the context of DVCA.
Children born to women with substance use disorders are at high risk for early foster care placement, which is associated with long-term adverse outcomes for children and places additional pressure on state budgets. Poor outcomes for drug-dependent mothers and their children may be further exacerbated by a lack of coordination between the health care and human services sectors. Project Nurture is an innovative model in Portland, Oregon, that integrates maternity care, substance use treatment, and social service coordination for Medicaid beneficiaries. This study assessed the impact of Project Nurture on a range of patient and child welfare outcomes. Among the "treatment" population of opioid-dependent women enrolled in Medicaid, Project Nurture was associated with reductions in child maltreatment, placement of children in foster care, and increases in both prenatal visits and maternal lengths-of-stay in the hospital, compared to opioid-dependent women enrolled in Medicaid in Oregon counties not served by the project. These results suggest that models based in a clinical setting that engage the human services sector may improve overall outcomes, even though the difficulty in sharing savings across sectors presents challenges to sustainability.
Kenneth John McConnell, Menolly R. Kaufman, Jenny I. Grunditz et al.
Every year in Indonesia there are various cases of sexual violence against children whose quantity is increasing every year. Protection of children from all threats of crime that can threaten their survival is contained in the constitution of the State of Indonesia as a country that upholds law and human rights. When children experience incidents of sexual violence, their future will be threatened due to psychological, mental and social trauma factors. Therefore, in this paper, the author wants to examine how to handle cases of sexual violence in Indonesia from a legal and victimological perspective by identifying the problem, namely how is legal protection for children as victims in cases of sexual violence and how is the perspective of victimology in this case the study of victims in acts of violence. crime or crime.
From Uganda to Jamaica to the USA, violence against children at schools is widespread.1Hillis S Mercy J Amobi A Kress H Global prevalence of past-year violence against children: a systematic review and minimum estimates.Pediatrics. 2016; 137e20154079Crossref PubMed Scopus (353) Google Scholar, 2Devries K Knight L Petzold M et al.Who perpetrates violence against children? A systematic analysis of age and sex specific data.BMJ Paediatr Open. 2018; 2e000180Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar Teachers are often the perpetrator of this violence,3Gershoff ET School corporal punishment in global perspective: prevalence, outcomes, and efforts at intervention.Psychol Health Med. 2017; 22: 224-239Crossref PubMed Scopus (57) Google Scholar using corporal punishment and sexual and emotional violence against their students. Surprisingly, national prevalence data on teacher violence against children are still not routinely collected in most countries, but surveys show that 90% of primary school students in some areas of Uganda,4Devries KM Child JC Allen E Walakira E Parkes J Naker D School violence, mental health and educational performance in Uganda.Pediatrics. 2014; 133: e129-e137Crossref PubMed Scopus (64) Google Scholar more than 90% in Jamaica,5Baker-Henningham H Meeks-Gardner J Chang S Walker S Experiences of violence and deficits in academic achievement among urban primary school children in Jamaica.Child Abuse Negl. 2009; 33: 296-306Crossref PubMed Scopus (38) Google Scholar and 7% of students in Mississippi, USA6Gershoff ET Font SA Corporal punishment in US public schools: prevalence, disparities in use, and status in state and federal policy.Soc Policy Rep. 2016; 30: 1Crossref PubMed Google Scholar have experienced physical violence from teachers.3Gershoff ET School corporal punishment in global perspective: prevalence, outcomes, and efforts at intervention.Psychol Health Med. 2017; 22: 224-239Crossref PubMed Scopus (57) Google Scholar Despite this high prevalence, and the range of known negative health and social impacts of exposure to violence in childhood,7Norman RE Byambaa M De R Butchart A Scott J Vos T The long-term health consequences of child physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect: a systematic review and meta-analysis.PLoS Med. 2012; 9e1001349Crossref PubMed Scopus (1540) Google Scholar there are few interventions available to address violence from teachers towards students that have been robustly evaluated. In The Lancet Global Health, Helen Baker-Henningham and colleagues8Baker-Henningham H Bowers M Francis T Vera-Hernández M Walker SP The Irie Classroom Toolbox, a universal violence-prevention teacher-training programme, in Jamaican preschools: a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled trial.Lancet Glob Health. 2021; 9: e456-e468Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar have published results from their cluster randomised controlled trial of the Irie Classroom Toolbox intervention to reduce violence from teachers towards children in pre-primary schools (aged 3–6 years) in Kingston, Jamaica. The Irie Classroom Toolbox was adapted from the Incredible Years intervention in the USA and refined over a decade.9Baker-Henningham H Walker S Powell C Meeks Gardner J A pilot study of the Incredible Years Teacher Training programme and a curriculum unit on social and emotional skills in community pre-schools in Jamaica.Child Care Health Dev. 2009; 35: 624-631Crossref PubMed Scopus (61) Google Scholar The intervention is explicitly teacher-focused and aims to help “teachers to gain skills, motivation, and opportunity to use positive discipline techniques”.8Baker-Henningham H Bowers M Francis T Vera-Hernández M Walker SP The Irie Classroom Toolbox, a universal violence-prevention teacher-training programme, in Jamaican preschools: a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled trial.Lancet Glob Health. 2021; 9: e456-e468Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar Teachers are supported via an initial 5-day workshop, and monthly hour-long, in-classroom, follow-up sessions over 8 months. Baker-Henningham and colleagues'8Baker-Henningham H Bowers M Francis T Vera-Hernández M Walker SP The Irie Classroom Toolbox, a universal violence-prevention teacher-training programme, in Jamaican preschools: a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled trial.Lancet Glob Health. 2021; 9: e456-e468Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar well documented and careful process of adaptation resulted in an intervention that significantly reduced teachers' use of violence. At 12 months post-intervention, 44 (42%) of 105 teachers in the intervention group but only 27 (32%) of 85 teachers in the control group used no physical violence against their pre-primary pupils over the previous 2 days. The Irie Classroom Toolbox is highly relevant for resource-poor environments, as it does not require teachers to have pre-existing expertise. It is also simple to implement and is therefore likely to be adaptable to diverse settings. These results are particularly interesting because the intervention is implemented in pre-primary schools, and it is likely that preventing experiences of violence against children at this early age will have knock-on positive effects for children's health and positive development. This one intervention might pay long-term dividends across multiple sectors. Although these findings are encouraging, the work of preventing violence from teachers towards students is still at an early stage. Further research is needed in at least four broad areas. First, we need to develop a deeper understanding of why teacher violence continues to be widespread in different countries and learning environments, so that we can successfully challenge this behaviour. Second, we need much more research to develop and systematically test different intervention models to address teacher violence, which also account for children's varying experiences of violence as they navigate through pre-primary and primary schools, secondary schools, and tertiary education. Third, we need research on the geographical, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts that might be contributing to normalising teachers' use of violence, so that we can understand the systems that underpin both continued use and cessation of violence. Fourth, we need investments to adapt the few proven intervention models into scalable programmes that can be widely implemented. Finally, we should also invest in refining research methods so that we can collect data to monitor school violence in a safe way. Baker-Henningham and colleagues' study8Baker-Henningham H Bowers M Francis T Vera-Hernández M Walker SP The Irie Classroom Toolbox, a universal violence-prevention teacher-training programme, in Jamaican preschools: a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled trial.Lancet Glob Health. 2021; 9: e456-e468Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar successfully used observations to document teacher behaviours. Such observations might provide more objective measures about some forms of violence and are crucial for documenting the experiences of younger children who cannot self-report their experiences. However, direct observations are likely to influence teacher behaviour, and in trials of anti-violence interventions, will introduce bias in the same direction as any intervention effect. Conversely, self-reports might lead to underestimates of prevalence, especially for more hidden or stigmatised forms of violence. Careful thinking about how to measure the effects of interventions is required. Care must also be taken to ensure that children who experience abuse, and teachers who use severe forms of violence, are referred to existing structures for further support. This can be especially challenging in settings where referral systems are weak and under-resourced. Despite these considerable challenges, schools afford us a great opportunity for interventions that have implications for children well beyond their cognitive development. Schools are governed by public policy, and routinely gather large numbers of children in the presence of adults with a duty of care. Therein lies an opportunity for influencing attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours, and therefore cost-effective prevention of violence against children. KMD reports grants from the UK Medical Research Council, an anonymous donor, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Center for Global Development, and regularly receives grant funding to study prevention and response to violence in childhood from government and private donors. DN regularly receives grants from private foundations and other funding agencies for developing interventions and undertaking research on preventing violence against children. The Irie Classroom Toolbox, a universal violence-prevention teacher-training programme, in Jamaican preschools: a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled trialIn Jamaican preschools, the Irie Classroom Toolbox effectively reduced violence against children by teachers. The Toolbox was designed for use with undertrained teachers working in low-resource settings and should be effective with early childhood practitioners in other LMICs. Additional research is needed to further develop the Toolbox to reduce class-wide child aggression. Full-Text PDF Open Access
Decety et al. posited that family religiosity has a negative effect on children’s altruism. However, a constructive reading of developmental psychologists suggests that religious nurture can enhance young children’s moral development. Bloom and Harris offered evidence that infants and toddlers exhibit moral sensibilities and preschoolers engage the world through charitable epistemologies primed toward consensus and care. Engel provided insight into the role of curiosity in exploring difference in the world. Taken together, their findings suggest new ways that religious nurture might promote prosocial behaviors congruent with religious and social tolerance.
