Annie Pullen Sansfaçon

The Experience of Parents Who Support Their Children's Gender Variance

This article details the findings of a qualitative action research project with parents of gender-variant children in Montreal, Canada. Through a unique methodology, the project aimed at understanding the issues and challenges facing parents in the process of supporting their children, as well as offering them support and an empowering platform for effecting change around them. The article explores how parents understand their childrens experiences, the various challenges they themselves cope with in supporting their children, and the solutions they believe would improve their lives and the lives of their offspring. Recommendations for practice conclude this article.

Social work and macro-economic neoliberalism: beyond the social justice rhetoric

Macro-economic policy shapes and structures social welfare policy, services, and their implementation. As a result, the commoditisation of social welfare services and the use of markets as well as private sector management philosophies and tools have colonised and fashioned the design, provision and implementation of social welfare policy and structures. The impact has been far reaching, from limiting social welfare responses of elected democratic government to shaping the profession in a range of intended and unintended directions. Written from a UK perspective, this paper proposes a discussion of the impact of macro-economic neoliberal policies in the field of social welfare and explores the implications for social work practice. The paper also promotes a debate within the profession regarding the importance of macro-economic analysis and possible responses, as well as suggesting a way forward within European and, more broadly, international practice contexts.

Working With Parents of Gender-Variant Children: Using Social Action as an Emancipatory Research Framework

This article examines and reflects on the methodology used in a research project that involved group work activities with parents of gender-variant children. Gender variance in children remains a topic people talk little about. Discussions about people who express themselves differently from the social norms attached to their birth sex, to a large extent, remain rarely discussed. They challenge a society organized largely on the basis of a binary understanding of identity, one that belongs to either male or female. This article discusses the concept of oppression as being central to the experiences of gender-variant children and young people and their parents, and it proposes social action research as a compatible and appropriate research framework for exploring their experiences. We describe the research process, identify its achievements, and explore issues that had to be confronted. We suggest that traditional research structures may benefit from being revisited in order to allow emancipatory research to more fully achieve its potential for both research and social action.

Digging beneath the surface: Results from stage one of a qualitative analysis of factors influencing the well-being of trans youth in Quebec

ABSTRACT Background: The literature on trans youth has been dominated by etiological studies interested in trans experience as a medical phenomenon. An emerging body of literature has begun to document that trans youth are a diverse, vulnerable, yet resilient population, and to investigate the role of various sites of support such as the family, peer groups, institutions, and community spaces in contributing to or impeding trans youths well-being. Method: This article presents the results of Stage One of interviews (n = 24) conducted for a Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) qualitative research project based in Quebec. It studies the factors that enhance trans youths well-being as well as the factors of oppression that negatively affect it. This paper offers a brief overview of the anti-oppressive methodology used for this project, emphasizing how CBPAR was combined with Grounded Theory (GT) methods to encourage the direct involvement of communities and the translation of knowledge into action. Results: We present preliminary categories emerging through the ongoing axial coding process. These categories address trans youths experiences in and perceptions of various “sites”: 1) healthcare services both for gender-related and general care, 2) other institutional spaces, 3) the family and other social circles, and 4) community spaces. Conclusion: While much of this studys results support existing evidence on trans youths experiences, they also provide a more nuanced portrayal of the complex ways in which recognition, as well as non-, mis-, or mal-recognition, influence trans youths well-being at different sites. We also argue that recognition itself must be considered through the lens of intersectionality.

One method, two worlds: An exploration of groupwork across two North American contexts

Looking at practices in different locations is benefi cial since it helps challenge assumptions that we may take for granted. Groupwork, as a method of social work, is specifi cally interesting to explore in the light of different contexts since, like social work, it may or may not translate well across cultures. This paper draws from data collected in the context of a research project that aimed to describe the current state of social work with groups in Quebec and to explore trends within social work with groups elsewhere in the world. Specifi cally, it focuses on the exploration of practices in Quebec and discusses them in relationship to those found in the USA, as a counterpoint. Our fi ndings highlight some differences and similarities between Quebec and the USA with regard to groupwork, which leads us to discuss a range of factors that may impact on groupwork in the different contexts. Of these, the differences of organisational context and organisation of services have emerged as particularly noteworthy, which echoes fi ndings in general social work literature with regard to the importance of local contexts on the defi nition of practice itself.

Working with a Diversity of Languages: Francophone and Anglophone Coparticipants in Groups of Parents of Transgender Children

It is well known that the parents of children who are transgender often struggle to find resources to meet their needs. When we obtained funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to conduct research to better understand experience of parents of children who are transgender in Montreal, we were far from knowing that this project would lead to the development of a long-lasting group that still meets on a monthly basis today, where diversity of experience, and of language, have become hallmarks of the group Both of us were working on the project. One had a role of consultant and the other, the role of lead researcher for the pilot project. The lead researcher on this project being a parent of an child who is affirmed transgender, we were closely attuned to the high level of discrimination and oppression experienced by those families. On that basis, we decided to develop the project using a methodology that would be empowering for its participants and, thus, to set up a community-based Participatory Action Research Project, that would draw on self-directed groupwork, an approach developed by Audrey Mullender and Dave Ward during the early 1990s, that is known to promote empowerment, at structural and personal levels for participants.

Identity development among social workers, from training to practice: results from a three-year qualitative longitudinal study

Abstract During their training, social work students embark on a process of professional identity (PI) development which will continue to evolve even after graduation. While the literature has begun to point out factors that may facilitate PI development, research that documents the various processes and narratives of identity development is scarce, including in social work. Because PI is known to be influenced by many aspects pertaining to personal, educational and occupational contexts, and because those contexts can be varied, it becomes important to explore PI development from initial training to professional practice and map which aspects may be influencing the experience, and how they do so. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative methodology, we explore the experience of six young social workers and map the development of their professional identities over the course of nearly three years. Meetings during their final year of undergraduate studies, and again after 6 and 18 months of employment, reveal some of the aspects that emerged as fundamental facilitators of or impediments to a strong PI. This article concludes by suggesting ways to foster a stronger sense of PI among social workers going forward.

One method, two worlds

Looking at practices in different locations is beneficial since it helps challenge assumptions that we may take for granted. Groupwork, as a method of social work, is specifically interesting to explore in the light of different contexts since, like social work, it may or may not translate well across cultures. This paper draws from data collected in the context of a research project that aimed to describe the current state of social work with groups in Quebec and to explore trends within social work with groups elsewhere in the world. Specifically, it focuses on the exploration of practices in Quebec and discusses them in relationship to those found in the USA, as a counterpoint. Our findings highlight some differences and similarities between Quebec and the USA with regard to groupwork, which leads us to discuss a range of factors that may impact on groupwork in the different contexts. Of these, the differences of organisational context and organisation of services have emerged as particularly noteworthy, which echoes findings in general social work literature with regard to the importance of local contexts on the definition of practice itself.