2nd Global Conference on Children and Youth

This study focuses on “child discipline practices,” an interdisciplinary topic in nature. Child discipline practice is one of the crucial aspects of any education system. This is also related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): Quality Education (SDG:4) and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institution (SDG:16). The child is surrounded by various factors from home and school, which influences the child to obtain certain attitude, and knowledge. There is a need for a wholesome understanding to explain the long-term outcomes and behaviours changes in a child as a result of adults. Therefore, this presentation aims to explain the causal model created and adopted to study the “experiences and opinions of youths (university students), parents, and teachers towards the use of disciplinary practices at schools and home”. Preliminary findings will be discussed from the samples taken from India and Germany. This research, which aims to look at the international perspectives and practices, will give insights into the various approaches and alternatives for behavioural management of students. An international perspective in this study would enhance this study's wide range of use.

Background and Objectives: Throwball is a non-contact game where the ball has grip around. Due to the grip, everytime someone holds the ball, it gives acupressure to the palm. Our palm has acupressure points connected to each organs in the body. Therefore, playing throwball activates the entire nervous system and strengthens both internal and external organs. As per throwball rule, when the ball is held on right side of the body, it has to be thrown back from right hand alone and if held on left side, to be thrown back from left hand alone. Handling the ball from both sides of the body would help activating both sides of the brain. Purpose of this study is to understand the impact of throwball for improving health, body fat reduction and muscle bulk improvement through statistical methods. Methods: Pilot study was conducted with 18 students from Aruna Chethana Special school, both genders aged between 17-32, average of 21.39± 3.51 years. Throwball session was conducted on alternate days for 22 days, 10 sessions. Students daily routines were kept intact except for replacing 1 hour schedule with Throwball. Actofit Smart Scale used for measuring the body composition. Microsoft Excel and PowerBI were used for data collection and statistical analysis. Results: Study reflected signficant improvement in body fat reduction and muscle bulk improvement. It reflected higher control over nervous system. Students could balance and throw the ball to target position, reflection of improved eye-hand-brain co-ordination. Study also revealed improved collaboration skills and mental happiness.

Young people globally are being directly and disproportionately affected by systemic issues that include inadequate access to decent work; education systems that are far from fit for purpose; the failure of governments to represent youth voices or needs; and the exposure of young women and girls to multiple forms of discrimination and gender-based violence. Looking at youth-focused participatory research from across the Global Challenges Research Fund, this paper reflects on the value of innovative, creative arts-based research approaches for engaging young people and promoting youth voices in ways that go beyond tokenism, enabling positive change where current youth-focused policies and interventions often fail.

Ethnic minority children living in poor urban communities are disproportionately exposed to violence. However, there is little known about their perceptions to violence and day-to-day experience of violence exposure. Using a focus group interview with 27 ethnic minority children living in poor disadvantaged urban communities in Chicago, this study explores their perceptions to violence, victimized experiences, and perceived underlying risk factors of violence that are associated with their socio-cultural-community context. The findings of this study reveal that most minority children were frequently and severely exposed to multiple forms of violence (e.g., shootings, murders, fist fights, bullying) every day in schools and neighborhoods. As a consequence, they were scared to go outside, worried of being victimized, and expressed anxiety about prevalent violence in their community. In addition, most children perceived violence as a part of everyday normal life and depicted violent acts as an acceptable coping strategy to protect themselves from aggressive peers and dangerous neighborhoods. In other words, they need to be ‘tough’ to protect themselves and seem to promote the cultural norm that "if someone hits you, you hit them back." Regarding multifaceted social determinants of violence, they identified various individual traits, dysfunctional family situations, peer/gang pressure and violent ridden community environments. Children’s sophisticated recognition of the multifaceted risk factors of violence demonstrates their credibility and potential contributions to design a violence prevention program and suggests child-centered, age-appropriate, community-based violence reduction services in poor urban communities.

Children grow up in institutions are at increased risks of negative outcomes emcompassing emotional, behaviroral and social realms. In response to adverse impacts of institutional care, foster care is a type of family-based alternative care that is promoting in Viet Nam. Does it work? And what are the influencing factors to foster care placement? This paper draws on the results of a literature review and evaluation of Foster Care Pilot Model in Vietnam. The aim of the paper is to identify key enabling and constraining factors in placing children from residential care to local loving families. A child rights-based approach guided the study with focus on how children rights to family environment are protected. Child welfare and national legislations are analyzed to understand system readiness towards foster care. The pathway to family environment was supported with the development of a Foster Care Model which provided intensive trainings and strategic consultations to government on foster care. However, complexities arise in efforts toward foster care placement including limited awareness on the benefits of family-based care, dilemma in child placement decision and shortage of frontline workforce. The findings indicate the importance of having a strong interagency coordination and supportive services toward foster families. Implications for evidence-based research, practice and policy in foster care were discussed to improve the quality of child placement.

One of the earliest studies on teaching anxiety confirmed that “teaching is one of the top five most stressful careers in the world” (Kyriacou, 1987: 147). The teaching profession is also considered to be amongst those occupations most affected by burnout syndrome in Germany, meaning that 33% of all educational practitioners are seriously affected by stress-related health problems (vbw, 2014: 57). Poschkamp (2009: 2) states that 86% of teachers in Germany who left their occupation due to illness suffered from burn-out syndrome. Since anxiety has a strong impact on the teaching performance, an investigation of potential sources of teacher anxiety becomes more momentous. Most of the existing studies were mainly conducted in later stages of teacher education or profession, namely with senior students, trainee teachers, or practitioners. However, it is crucial to scrutinize perceived anxiety factors of first-year students to give them an opportunity to reflect on their professional decision which has a great impact on future professional satisfaction. Therefore, this project aims to identify the potential sources of teaching anxiety of EFL students at German universities and their anxiety management strategies by studying different factors like linguistic proficiency, the pandemic, and professional growth. Outcomes of such studies as predictors of anxiety would provide a deeper understanding to develop some initial precautions for preventing a potential burn-out syndrome in the future, e.g., consulting, internship opportunities. Therefore, it presents pedagogical implications for various stakeholders in education, e.g., administrators of higher education institutions, teacher trainers, field practicum mentors.

Puducherry continuously contributes to India’s high suicide rate. As of 2021, Puducherry stood in the top four state suicidal death rates nationwide. However, preventive efforts are challenged by socioeconomic and geographical constraints. India’s GDP shows that only 10% of the total population can afford mental health care. Additionally, up to 40% of patients must travel more than 6 miles to visit the nearest mental health service providers. To bridge these access and affordability gaps, Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL) launched a youth-led Mobile Mental Health Clinic (MMHC) in November 2020. MMHC sensitizes and intervenes with youth at risk of suicide through doorstep outreach strategies in rural Puducherry. This study adopted a mixed method in an indigenous approach to evaluate the outcome of the MMHC in Puducherry. It aims to understand the mental health knowledge, attitude, and practices among the MMHC stakeholders and communities. Quantitative data was collected through a culturally-sensitive structured interview schedule. Qualitative data was obtained through semi-structured guides for life story interviews and focused group discussions with stakeholders. The findings show that the youth-led community-based interventions in rural Puducherry have significant outcomes in increased mental health literacy and access. The results validate that MMHC has a high scope to address access and affordability gaps in mental health services in India, if it’s free and offered within their communities. It is crucial to engage local youth and integrate MMHC with the National Mental Health Programme in India to address resource and service gaps.

This essay presents a cognitive survey having as its main objective the observation and sociological interpretation of the complex relationship between law and culture involving the Best Interest of the Child principle and, transversally, the main children representation. The approach adopted is reconstructive and take into consideration the various reflections produced through time by relevant sociologist and social scientists. Investigating and understanding how the child is commonly represented on a social level constitutes the base for an informed interpretation of the child's best interests, especially considering the bond that connects it with the field of law. Legal representations, in fact, lay on the social composition in which they are formed, remaining influenced by it as well as influencing it. With reference to the social image of the minor, today's legal culture reviews various elements considering them in the light of theories and/or paradigms that have influenced psychological, sociological, and even legal thinking in various ways. Therefore, in this analysis it is important to analyse two key concepts, which are the minor age and the critical concept of "citizen child". They cross within the traditional diatribe on the autonomy of the child and the principle of protection, representing the issue’s core on the children’s recognition as holders of rights. Sociological reflections on childhood clarify the meaning that the rights in charge of protecting this category should be for everyone and, in this sense, constitute the fil rouge that connect the best interests of the child concept with other relevant reasoning, also concerning the role’s responsibilities of all subjects who take care of the identification and application of this principle.