SickKids Community and Mental Health Series

Qualitative methods are increasingly useful as psychiatry shifts from a focus on symptom reduction to enabling people to live satisfying and meaningful lives. It becomes important to achieve a deeper understanding of the ways in which mental illness interferes with everyday life and the ways in which people can learn to manage and minimize illness in order to pursue their lives as fully as possible. Although qualitative methods in psychiatry have seen a dramatic upsurge, relatively few published studies use such methods specifically to explore the lives, socio-culturally and experientially, of those with first-episode psychosis. This book highlights qualitative research in early psychosis. The first half of the book centres on the individual lived experience of psychosis—from the perspective of the individual, the family, and the practitioner. The second half moves from the micro level to the macro, focusing on broader system issues, including medical trainees’ encounters with first-episode psychosis in the emergency room and the implementation of first-episode clinics in the UK and Australia. This text is timely, as the proliferation of early-psychosis clinics worldwide demands that we inquire into the subjective experience of those impacted by psychosis and the social contexts within which it occurs and is lived out. Hearing Voices is the first in a series of titles from The Community Health Systems Resource Group at The Hospital for Sick Children. This series will educate researchers, policy-makers, students, practitioners, and interested stakeholders on such topics as early intervention in psychosis, aggressive-behaviour problems, eating-related disorders, and marginalized youth in educational contexts.

This book presents a collection of writings by expert researchers from Canada, the United States, and Australia who are committed to finding common cause and common ground in the prevention of eating disorders and obesity. The ten chapters in this book seek to create a new public health approach to the prevention of weight-related disorders, one that counters the confusion and frustration from public policies, messages, and programs that recipients of prevention efforts often experience. The first section looks at prevention from a public health perspective, and the second section highlights theories from risk and resilience research that can inform the prevention of weight-related disorders. The contributions are varied in their theories and models, but woven throughout is the theme of collaboration in changing public institutions and social systems that promotes universal prevention and fosters mental health and resilience. Unique methods of linking systems and fostering partnerships across sectors and disciplines are highlighted, and readers are exposed to innovative ideas of how to move the field of prevention science forward to reduce the onset of negative body image, unhealthy weight management, eating disorders, and disordered eating. Preventing Eating-Related and Weight-Related Disorders is the second in a series of titles from The Community Health Systems Resource Group at The Hospital for Sick Children. This series will educate researchers, policy-makers, students, practitioners, and interested stakeholders on such topics as early intervention in psychosis, aggressive behaviour problems, eating-related disorders, and marginalized youth in educational contexts.

Understanding and Addressing Girls’ Aggressive Behaviour Problems reflects a major shift in understanding children’s aggressive-behaviour problems. Researchers used to study what went wrong with a troubled child and needed to be fixed; we now aim to understand what is going wrong in children’s relationships that might create, exacerbate, and maintain aggressive-behaviour problems in childhood and adolescence. In this volume, leading researchers in the aggression field examine how problems develop for boys and girls in relationships and how we can help children to develop healthy relationships. Individual chapters explore biological and social contexts, including physical health and relationship problems that might underlie the development of aggressive behaviour problems. The impact of relationships on girls’ development is illustrated to be particularly important for Aboriginal girls. Contributors discuss prevention and intervention strategies that help aggressive children build the requisite skills and relationship capacities and also shift dynamics within critical social contexts, such as the family, peer group, classroom, and school. The support of healthy development not only of children but of their parents and other important adults in their lives, including teachers has been shown to be effective in reducing the burden of suffering associated with aggression among children and adolescents—for youth themselves as well as their families, peers, schools, communities, and society.

Youth, Education, and Marginality: Local and Global Expressions is a close examination of the lives of marginalized young people in schools. Essays by scholars and educators provide international insights grounded in educational and community practice and policy. They cover the range and intersections of marginalization: poverty, Aboriginal cultures, immigrants and newcomers, gay/lesbian youth, rural—urban divides, mental health, and so forth. Presenting challenges faced by marginalized youth alongside initiatives for mitigating their impact, the contributors critique existing systems and engage in a dialogue about where to go from here. Youth poetry, prose, and visual art complement the essays.