I have been catching up with these discussions and would like to say how impressed I am with the collective response produced. I find it diffficult to know how to respond to these often individualising and pathologising projects 'about' young people and I really like the way you have all tackled this. it is really heartening to see how much thought and conviction has gone into this.
I hope that any developments will be posted to the list as I really hope your ideas are taken up.
Best of luck
Caroline
________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of David Fryer
Sent: Fri 09/03/2007 11:21
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Potential BBC3 programme
Dear Rachael,
Thanks for producing the collective composite message. I think that is a really good way to proceed. I think a message from named people is better in this case than a message from 'the list' (partly because we don't know all list members would agree with the points and partly because if he wanted to take this forward Daniel would have to liaise with individuals). I am happy to have my name on it.
I think there is a balance to be struck between a shortish accessible message which might interest Daniel enough to follow up and a longer more convoluted message which becomes less accessible and may go into the bucket. I think you have it just about right but fear carrying more load may make it buckle.
I certainly would not, personally, highlight the UNICEF report any more than you have because I think that though the UNICEF report is rhetorically useful in many ways (to persuade some of the scale of injustice), I think the key point you/we want to get across in this message / re this programme issue is that children and young people need to be in the driving seat of vehicles which are to promote their interests, that a key issue is how to depower problematic adults etc. and that we need a new critical frame of reference relating to research and action (or as we would prefer to put it 'praxis') in relation to children and young people.
Young people did not seem in the driving seat of the UNICEF work and, as I understand it, it will have increased the power of all sorts of adults but whether its impact (if any) on children and young people will be progressive or not yet to be seen. It will likely lead to yet more policies we might prolemetise re. children and young people's interests and, in particular, interventions which blame parents and children for socially caused problems. Methodologically, the UNICEF research seemed to me to be based on positivist survey methods using a bit of a hotch potch of standardised measures based on all sorts of cross cultural and other assumptions we might well be challenging if we did not agree with the outcome message.
One typo (missing word) I spotted is in "children and young people in the UK experience some of the lowest levels of wellbeing richer countries"
Thanks
David
________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of Rachael Fox {PG}
Sent: Thu 08/03/2007 23:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Potential BBC3 programme
Hi All,
So, I have edited, added and finalised the piece for Daniel Rawling. I have put everyone's names at the bottom who indicated they would like me to - I have guessed in some cases people's titles, and in other cases i don't have any information for people - if I have got anything wrong please let me know!
There is a slight urgency to my post - I am actually going on holiday for just over a week tomorrow, so I think I will need to send it no later than 11am tomorrow morning, otherwise it will be too late. In which case if there is anything wrong with it I really hope you will let me know, and i really hope it is ok when I send it!
So, clocks ticking til tomorrow!!
Rachael
Dear Daniel,
We are a group of people who subscribe to the UK Community Psychology Listserve, a discussion list. One of our members, Anne Cooke, recently posted a request from yourself, asking for some ideas on a programme you are researching relating to young people. We had some interesting ideas on the listserve, and Anne suggested we send them directly to you. The following descriptions of our experiences working with young people and innovative ideas we had for your programme are collated from responses by the people listed. If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything please don't hesitate to contact us.
We were very excited by the opportunity you are creating to explore the problems young people are experiencing in the UK. It is likely this issue will remain a live one well beyond the publication of the recent UNICEF report. Many of us on this list have been involved in raising debate, engaging in preventive work and lobby policy making at a local and national level in relation to problems young people face in their lives in ways that are meaningful for young people.
As community psychologists, when we work with young people on the issues that are pertinent to them and the problems they face, we attempt to explore social issues rather than individual issues. We tend to see the stereotypical beliefs about young people's 'behaviours' (ie youth of today are useless, stick an ASBO on them) as masking much deeper problems in society, and the 'behaviours' themselves as symptomatic reactions (ie violence and aggression), reactions to much more complicated and very disempowering situations the young people find themselves in. As you point out in your proposal, there are issues with gender, socio-economic status, race and background that young people face: young people from particular communities, backgrounds, race and gender are far more likely for example to be excluded by their school for behaviour the school sees as unacceptable: identical behaviour from young people of other backgrounds does not get punished in the same way (we can provide you with references for this if you wish to pursue this body of research further).
However, in addition to these societal issues which are pervading, individualising and blaming, there is the added stigma young people face, and that is our perception of youth itself. Compounding all these societal causes are our societal beliefs of young people, and the way they are treated as a consequence. Firstly we tend to think young people are incapable: of making reasoned decisions, of taking control of their lives, or of participating in their community (if they choose to). Secondly we tend to believe they are vulnerable. At developing stages in our lives we are indeed physically weaker, but that argument pretty much gets inadequate when working with six foot sixteen year olds! We still believe however young people need protecting, in particular from harm from adults. We tackle this however by taking control, as adults ourselves, by making decisions, by believing we can protect by knowing what's best. In this way we remove self control from young people - we don't let them make their own decisions, eg they sometimes don't really get a reasoned choice over whether they take part in research. Given recent findings published by UNICEF arguing that children and young people in the UK experience some of the lowest levels of wellbeing richer countries, we certainly don't seem to be acting in their best interests.
So, we as adults control young people's lives. If they accept this we get nice 'well behaved' young people who grow into passive, uncritical, rule following adults - they learned how to work in the system - hence the difficulty we sometimes have in getting university students to think critically! If they don't accept the unconditional respect we require from them, the arbitrary rules, the control exerted over them and the lack of power, they rebel. We don't give them much room for this, and we certainly don't enable them to be assertive. So these young people appear angry, frustrated and aggressive, and ultimately, we exclude them from areas of society like schooling and label them deviant. Those 'modern behaviours' mentioned are interesting - in many ways they are modern responses to this lack of formal power. Young people are acutely aware of this in modern society - they understand very well that they are being controlled. They are also developing skills that make them more capable than us: they understand modern technology better, they have much healthier opinions about the environment and community psychological research done in schools for example show young people to be very good at explaining the core problems in their schools, that were very difficult for schools or teachers to see.
As psychologists and users of psychological services, members of our list would like to see these issues explored in a programme and would support you in doing so. What would be really great to see, instead of the show confirming to the young people that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, and that they need to learn new skills, is a show that allows the young people to explore the social conditions that have affected them.
So an idea to incorporate into a programme might be a group of young people (who might perhaps have been labelled in one way or another) going on a physical journey to meet policy makers and others who may have had a hand in promoting the processes which have contributed to current circumstances. Similar perhaps to Michael Moore's "Roger and Me".
To turn the tables even further, what about a programme made by children giving information about the modern behavioural problems of teachers, educational psychologists, parents (and other adults of different genders, race, socioeconomic backgrounds, featuring a relatively wide range of ages and characters), in particular the many ways that these adults fail to respect children's rights, classify children in terms of various sorts of psychological deficits, assault them with corporal punishment etc., and especially focusing on the worrying issue that has emerged in the last 5-10 years: the increasing tendency of adults with power to exclude young relatively powerless people from places where they could learn and develop. The idea would be that these adult contributors would be taken by children on a physical journey of some sort, during which they will have the opportunity to confront and begin to deal with their particular behavioural issues, and also discover more about themselves and to develop new skills etc.
As you can see, when we look at adults in the same way we view children and young people, the results are quite surprising. But the way adults interact with young people does have considerable effects. Some really insightful research has been done with young people on their race or ethnic background for example, and how that has affected their experiences at school, and in turn their beliefs of themselves. What have these things made them feel? How have they reacted? One step further would be to see if there are things that can be changed, not just within the young people, but in their schools and communities. During the debates surrounding gang violence and the recent shootings in London, few if any young people living in the communities were approached to even ask them about the issues. Why did no one attempt to hold talks with the young people, open dialogue try to resolve the issue directly? The method that is popular at the moment is more control, greater punishment, and more labelling of young people - while violence should not be condoned, we do seem to be making it much worse, rather than better - anger, frustration, lack of power and the aggression that goes with it seem to be somewhat 'modern' issues: anger management classes and other skill building exercises cannot have a great affect on such wide cultural issues.
Rachael Fox
Community Psychology Researcher
University of Stirling
Anne Cooke
Chartered Clinical Psychologist
Year 3 Director, Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology
Salomons: Canterbury Christ Church University
Carl Harris
Clinical Psychologist
Birmingham Children's Hospital
David Fryer
Reader in Psychology
University of Stirling
Gareth Foote
Annie Mitchell
Clinical Director
School of Applied Psychosocial Studies
University of Plymouth
Dr Jacqui Akhurst
Senior Lecturer: Psychology
York St John University
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___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask]
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To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website:
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For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask]
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