Risk, Resilience and Relationships

1
Risk, Resilience and Relationships

• Leigh Dunkerton
• Professor Janet Walker
• Professor Hazel Kemshall

2
Risk/ Resilience Relationships

• Key findings on
• School exclusion (Sheffield)
• Groups and networks (DMU)
• Children and young people with a parent in prison
  (Newcastle)

3
Key Questions

• 1.    What conceptions of risk do you use in
  your work? Do these need to be refined?
  2.    How can young people be helped to navigate
  risk and foster resilience when faced with
  'risky' events such as school exclusion, parental
  imprisonment upheavals in the   family life,
  child poverty etc?
• 3.    How do you operationalise the concept
  of Respect in your work currently and how would
  you like to see the Respect Agenda implemented
  for children and young people at risk of criminal
  or anti-social behaviour?

4
Risk
Objective
Mediation of risk
Entirely socially constructed
Constructionist
Realist
situational
social context
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Truancy school exclusion constitute substantial
risk factors for delinquency

• The thousands of children not in school on most
  school days have become a significant cause of
  crime. Many of todays non-attenders are in
  danger of becoming tomorrows criminals and
  unemployed. (Social Exclusion Unit, 19981)

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Problems

• Direction of causality
• Social construction of exclusion figures
• Develop a critical understanding childrens
  experiences of school

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An unfair process that could be situational

• R In your own words, can you tell me how you
  were excluded from school?
• Luke Because I was walking round with these
  kids, not in my lesson. We had a theatre where
  we could watch movies and that. We went in there
  and some kids started booting off the door and
  the teacher caught us. Them lot ran off, I
  didnt run because I knew that it werent me so
  thats why they excluded me - wrong place at the
  wrong time.

8
School exclusion as a process

• I had been excluded but it was mainly because
  of me background and me record. Most people have
  records a centimetre thick and mine would be a
  foot thick or something like that, it would be
  huge. (Mathew)

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A predictive factor or protective mechanism?

• John It might sound weird but I think
  expelled was a very bad thing but also a good
  thing. Because getting expelled made me realise.
  Like now, I aint how I used to be.
• R So one thing is, you actually feel youre
  a better person because of your exclusion.
• John Yeah, Ive stopped smoking, I dress
  normal, I speak normal, do you know what I mean,
  I aint how I used to be, Im polite. If someone
  shows me respect theyll get it back,

10
Relationships and support

• Because of the pressures of the curriculum
  theyve got to deliver certain subjects as
  certain times so there isnt time for a child who
  might come in distressed or want to talk about
  something, not necessarily a bad thing, something
  exciting has happened in their life and that sort
  of talking time and that relationship teachers
  are constantly saying its being eroded
  (education professional)

11
Social Capital (De Montfort) Closed Vs open
groups

• Two types of networks
• Tightly bonded
• Diverse

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Quality of school experience

• Correlation between
• YOTs/YIPs - tightly bonded networks
• Schools/colleges diverse networks
• School does not lead to open/ diverse grp
  membership for YOTs/YIPs

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Risk Navigation

• YOTs/YIPs limited perception of self
• Tightly bonded ?risk stagnation
• More diverse ?risk navigation

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Key Messages

• Events such as school exclusion or parental
  imprisonment may constitute risks in themselves
  but the situations leading up to them or
  following them may contribute greater risks - we
  need to understand processes, events and outcomes
  
• The context within which risk manifests itself
  may be more important than the nature of the risk
  itself (school experiences)
• Outlook in life is important - a fatalistic,
  hopeless outlook results in reduced capacity to
  negotiate risk
• Respect should be reciprocal and should not be
  confused with control

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Key Questions

• 1.    What conceptions of risk do you use in
  your work? Do these need to be refined?
  2.    How can young people be helped to navigate
  risk and foster resilience when faced with
  'risky' events such as school exclusion, parental
  imprisonment upheavals in the   family life,
  child poverty etc?
• 3.    How do you operationalise the concept
  of Respect in your work currently and how would
  you like to see the Respect Agenda implemented
  for children and young people at risk of criminal
  or anti-social behaviour?