Healing the emotional wounds of children who have engaged in work illegally: A multi-country feasibility study of a co-produced arts-based program

治愈非法打工儿童的情感创伤：联合制作的艺术项目的多国可行性研究

• 批准号: ES/X012131/1
• 负责人: Jennifer Lau
• 金额: $ 93.35万
• 依托单位: Queen Mary University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX012131%2F1
• 关键词: Healing; emotional; wounds; children; who

Child labour affects up to one in 4 children from low and medium income countries (LMICs) and deprives young people of their education, future opportunities and prosperity, and undermines progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Eradicating child labour is an urgent priority for governments, non-governmental organisations and inter governmental organisations. In some Asian LMICs, there are also parallel efforts to "rescue and reintegrate" child labourers. These programmes remove young people from illegal employment and provide shelter, food and legal and medical assistance, and help them to re-integrate with their families and in education. The emotional wounds that follow chronic exposure victimisation that often arises during illegal work can affect young peoples' adjustment. Helping these vulnerable young people manage symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress and build emotional resilience is integral to these young peoples' re-adjustment, while also reducing risks for the onset of common mental and physical non-communicable diseases that add to the healthcare burden of LMICs. Arts interventions offer numerous health benefits. In young people, arts-based programmes show consistent, moderate-sized effects at reducing emotional symptoms including among samples who have experienced trauma. Consistent with these data, staff working in shelters emphasise daily use of creative techniques to lift mood, improve self-esteem and encourage optimism. Young people who have engaged with illegal work also highlight that they find the use of arts in their healing attractive, particularly if they also enable them to share experiences and connect with peers. Perhaps because arts programmes speak to individuals' talents and interests, are less formal and stigmatising, they may be more acceptable to these vulnerable young people. Arts-based interventions are also versatile in where they are delivered (schools and other community settings) and, with training, can by delivered by non-expert practitioners.Yet, because of their longstanding marginalised role in society and their relative lack of exposure to formal education settings, arts-based programmes developed for young people who have experienced trauma in high-income countries may require tailoring to increase their accessibility.Here, we propose to adapt, deliver and formatively evaluate an arts-based group intervention to children and young people who have a history of illegal work. We will also aim to communicate the findings. We will conduct our research in Bangladesh, India and Nepal because of efforts by governments and non-governmental organisations to rescue and re-integrate child labourers and a commitment to reduce numbers employed illegally. We also have long-standing partnerships with shelters that can help pioneer this research. We propose 4 work-packages (WP).WP1 involves online and in-person workshops, where we will co-adapt, with UK-based art therapists and creative practitioners from these countries, a manualised protocol for an arts-based group intervention to children with a history of engaging with illegal work. In WP2, we will pilot test this programme and refine the manual and protocol based on feedback of these young people and shelter staff.In WP3, we will deliver the intervention in shelters in these three countries in 3 randomised controlled trials that aim primarily to assess feasibility (uptake, retention) and acceptability (tolerability, safety) and secondarily, the range of effect sizes associated with emotional symptom reduction and well-being increases.In WP4,we will communicate our data to key stakeholders and use these to generate discussions on broader implementation routes and barriers. Findings will be summarised through academic and non-academic routes to maximise impact. Coproduction with lived experience researchers and capacity-building among research teams will occur across WPs

童工影响着中低收入国家（LMIC）多达四分之一的儿童，剥夺了年轻人的教育、未来机会和繁荣，并破坏了可持续发展目标的进展。消除童工是各国政府、非政府组织和政府间组织的当务之急。在一些亚洲中低收入国家，也有并行的“拯救和重返社会”童工努力。这些计划使年轻人摆脱非法就业，并提供住所、食物、法律和医疗援助，帮助他们重新融入家庭并接受教育。非法工作期间经常出现的长期暴露受害所造成的情感创伤可能会影响年轻人的适应能力。帮助这些脆弱的年轻人管理焦虑、抑郁和创伤后应激障碍的症状并建立情绪恢复能力是这些年轻人重新适应的重要组成部分，同时还可以降低常见精神和身体非传染性疾病的发病风险，这些疾病会增加中低收入国家的医疗保健负担。艺术干预提供许多健康益处。在年轻人中，以艺术为基础的项目在减少情绪症状方面表现出持续的、中等程度的效果，包括经历过创伤的样本。与这些数据一致的是，在收容所工作的工作人员强调每天使用创造性技术来振奋情绪、提高自尊和鼓励乐观。从事非法工作的年轻人还强调，他们发现艺术在治疗中的应用很有吸引力，特别是如果它们还能让他们分享经验并与同龄人建立联系。也许是因为艺术项目体现了个人的才能和兴趣，不那么正式和污名化，它们可能更容易被这些弱势年轻人所接受。基于艺术的干预措施在实施地点（学校和其他社区环境）也具有多种用途，并且经过培训，也可以由非专业从业者实施。然而，由于它们在社会中长期处于边缘地位，而且相对缺乏接触艺术的机会在正规教育环境中，为在高收入国家经历过创伤的年轻人制定的基于艺术的项目可能需要进行调整，以增加其可及性。在这里，我们建议调整、提供和形成性评估针对儿童和青少年的基于艺术的团体干预有违法犯罪历史的人 工作。我们还将致力于传达调查结果。我们将在孟加拉国、印度和尼泊尔开展研究，因为各国政府和非政府组织为营救童工和重新融入社会所做的努力以及减少非法雇用人数的承诺。我们还与庇护所建立了长期合作伙伴关系，可以帮助开拓这项研究。我们提出了 4 个工作包 (WP)。WP1 涉及在线和面对面研讨会，我们将与英国的艺术治疗师和来自这些国家的创意从业者共同调整一个基于艺术的团体干预的手动协议，以有从事非法工作历史的儿童。在 WP2 中，我们将试点测试该计划，并根据这些年轻人和避难所工作人员的反馈完善手册和协议。在 WP3 中，我们将通过 3 项随机对照试验在这三个国家的避难所中提供干预措施，主要目的是评估可行性（吸收、保留）和可接受性（耐受性、安全性），其次是与情绪症状减少和幸福感增加相关的效应大小范围。在 WP4 中，我们将向关键利益相关者传达我们的数据，并利用这些数据来引发关于以下方面的讨论：更广泛的实施路线和障碍。研究结果将通过学术和非学术途径进行总结，以最大限度地发挥影响。与生活经验研究人员的共同生产以及研究团队之间的能力建设将在工作计划中进行