Suchergebnisse

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has perpetuated the challenges faced by care leavers and increased the need for support. Online participatory research was conducted to explore care leavers' support experiences during the pandemic. A research team of twenty-five care leavers aged sixteen to twenty-five years and support workers from six local authorities across England identified priorities and developed an online questionnaire that was completed by ninety-four care leavers aged seventeen to twenty-six years. The research team also participated in focus groups, reflected on findings and agreed recommendations. The findings focused on four overarching themes: finances and practical issues, mental health, social connection, and support from services. The recommendations suggest that corporate parent services should provide information, offer equal opportunity to access support, facilitate connection for care leavers, and proactively reach out and ensure someone is always there for them. So that support is responsive to their needs, the continued participation of care leavers in decisions that affect them is paramount, along with commitment by the government and corporate parent services to listen and take action. By using a participatory approach that involved care leavers in the research process, this research promotes their voices and strengthens the evidence for enhancing care leaver support during the pandemic and beyond.

The COVID-19 pandemic has perpetuated the challenges faced by care leavers and increased the need for support. Online participatory research was conducted to explore care leavers' support experiences during the pandemic. A research team of twenty-five care leavers aged sixteen to twenty-five years and support workers from six local authorities across England identified priorities and developed an online questionnaire that was completed by ninety-four care leavers aged seventeen to twenty-six years. The research team also participated in focus groups, reflected on findings and agreed recommendations. The findings focused on four overarching themes: finances and practical issues, mental health, social connection, and support from services. The recommendations suggest that corporate parent services should provide information, offer equal opportunity to access support, facilitate connection for care leavers, and proactively reach out and ensure someone is always there for them. So that support is responsive to their needs, the continued participation of care leavers in decisions that affect them is paramount, along with commitment by the government and corporate parent services to listen and take action. By using a participatory approach that involved care leavers in the research process, this research promotes their voices and strengthens the evidence for enhancing care leaver support during the pandemic and beyond.

Community mobilisation is a promising new strategy for preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in low-income settings. However, little is known about the contextual factors (e.g. socio-economic, cultural, historical and political conditions) that enable the effective mobilisation of communities for IPV prevention. This paper draws from theoretical work of Campbell and Cornish (2010) on the relationship between context and community action in addressing HIV/AIDS to propose a framework for situating community mobilisation for IPV prevention in its surrounding symbolic, material and relational contexts. The framework is refined using empirical data from a case study of a gender-based violence (GBV) prevention intervention in Rwanda, including interviews with members of government-mandated GBV Committees and focus group discussions with members of two village communities (n=35). A thematic analysis identifies various contextual factors needed to support community mobilisation for IPV prevention, including: broad symbolic understandings of what constitutes IPV; capacity to economically support women who choose to leave violent relationships; mechanisms for addressing the silence that often surrounds IPV; support from policy and government authorities; and opportunities to effectively challenge inequitable policy and legal frameworks. This framework is useful for policy-makers and programme planners interested in IPV prevention in and by communities.