Rosemary C. Reilly

Emergent Issues when Researching Trauma: A Confessional Tale.

This article examines the impact of conducting narrative research focusing on trauma and healing. It is told through three voices: the study participants who experienced the trauma, the researcher who shared her personal experiences conducting this research, and an academic colleague who acted as a reflective echo making sense of and normalizing the researchers experience. Issues explored in the article include: harmonic resonance between the story of the participant and the life experiences of the researcher, emotional reflexivity, complex researcher roles and identities, acts of reciprocity that redress the balance of power in the research relationship, the need for compassion for the participants, and self-care for the researcher when researching trauma. The authors conclude that when researching trauma, the researcher is a member of a scholarly community and a human community, and that maintaining the stance as a member of the human community is an essential element of conducting trauma research.

HELP OR HARM?: Symbolic violence, secondary trauma and the impact of press coverage on a community

This paper describes the impact of extensive journalistic coverage on a small community in Quebec that experienced the murder of a teenage girl by a local man. Press coverage of the case was intense, as journalists converged on the small rural town to cover the story and the subsequent arrest of the suspect and his parents. In presenting the voices of both local residents and a journalist, this paper illuminates the secondary trauma and symbolic violence that can result from some forms of news coverage of a traumatic event. Five key themes regarding the impact of the media on community residents arose from the data: alienation from the community, anger at the medias public construction of the community, intrusion on community life, intrusion on the private processes of grief, and triggering renewed feelings of loss and grief. Implications for journalists are discussed, including being aware of the dynamics of symbolic violence and secondary trauma and incorporating positionality, empathy, and reflective practice into their reporting praxis.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: The challenges of reporting about trauma and the value of reflective practice for journalists

Journalists are caretakers of the public interest. But when a community experiences a devastating trauma, lines of responsibility are less clear-cut. Are journalists responsible to the news consumer or the community experiencing the trauma? Which notion of public interest assumes precedence? How does journalistic responsibility translate into action when residents experience pain, but editors clamor for on-the-spot coverage? Creating spaces for reflective practice can assist journalists in considering principled ways of covering trauma. This paper examines the reactions and reflections of seven journalists who responded to research exploring the impact of media coverage on a rural community where a high-profile murder had occurred. These journalists, using reflective practice, pondered the challenges of covering trauma, the evolution of journalistic responsibility and the implications for journalism educators teaching students who will inevitably cover traumas when they are working in the field.

Family volunteering: Making a difference together

Abstract This paper discusses the implementation and evaluation of a family volunteering program. This initiative uses a broad definition of family working together to enrich the lives of others, strengthen family ties, and improve the quality of community life. Two families participated by volunteering together at a seniors’ centre. Summative evaluation of the pilot, and interviews conducted one year later, suggests that the participants experienced beneficial effects. Their experiences were described as enjoyable, meaningful, and integrative; as well, it inspired motivation to incorporate volunteering into the lives of others. This pilot confirms family volunteering successfully combines community service and leisure into a gratifying and worthwhile activity for participants of all ages, extending the customary boundaries of the concept of family recreation.

Learning in third spaces: community art studio as storefront university classroom.

Third spaces are in-between places where teacher–student scripts intersect, creating the potential for authentic interaction and a shift in what counts as knowledge. This paper describes a unique community–university initiative: a third space storefront classroom for postsecondary students in professional education programs, which also functions as a community art studio for the surrounding neighborhood. This approach to professional education requires an innovative combination of theory, methods, and materials as enacted by the professionals involved and performed by the students. This storefront classroom utilizes collaborative and inclusive instructional practices that promote human and community development. It facilitates the use of innovative instructional strategies including art making and participatory dialogue to create a liminal learning space that reconfigures professional education. In researching the effectiveness of this storefront classroom, we share the voices of students who have participated in this third space as part of their coursework to underscore these principles and practices.

Immigrant Children Promoting Environmental Care: Enhancing Learning, Agency and Integration through Culturally-Responsive Environmental Education.

This paper examines the potential of culturally-responsive environmental education to engage immigrant early adolescents. Our study suggests that environmental involvement can become a means and an end for children to bridge their school and home in agential ways. Drawing from a multi-phase study involving focus groups with children, parents, and teachers from three culturally-diverse schools in Montreal, as well as a green action research project, we examine children’s role as environmental educators and ambassadors. The role of environmental ambassador allowed children to take on positions that departed from conventional parent-child social scripts, and enhanced the communication between school-student-home, between generations, and spoke to their sense of place. We contend that culturally-responsive environmental education offers a unique space for enacting democracy, knowledge creation and integration, but this opportunity is often squandered. Bi-directional, responsive, and consistent home-school-community-place relations need to be actively supported.

“We Knew Her . . .” Murder in a Small Town: A Hybrid Work in Three Voices

This hybrid work blends three voices: a mother and daughter who were deeply impacted by the murder of the daughter’s best friend; my methodological notes from a research study examining the influence of violent trauma on communities; and my emotional memory gathered as I listened and relistened to the digital interview. Drawing on the forms of creative nonfiction and poetic transcription, this piece attempts to communicate the depth of grief, loss, and disconnection that the murder of this young girl created for individuals and the community and the challenge of conducting trauma research.

Mentoring Undergraduate University Women Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence

This inquiry describes the role of mentoring for undergraduate women survivors of trauma. It employed a comparative case approach. Interviews elicited stories from participants reflecting the role mentors have played in their life course and educational experiences. Four major themes emerged: Fantasy mentors, mentor as mirror, mentor as nurturer and supporter, and mentor as the embodiment of a profession. Issues of womens identity were particularly salient to these themes. Deviant cases provided an opportunity to reexamine the limits of the data and exhibited themes of self-reliance or seeing mentoring as controlling. Implications for mentoring women in higher education are discussed.

Using found poetry to illuminate the existential and posttraumatic growth of women with breast cancer engaging in art therapy

ABSTRACT Arts-based research (ABR) is an expanding methodological genre, which adapts the tenets of the creative arts to make social science research accessible, evocative, and engaging. It crosses the boundaries of both art and science, but has made few inroads within the discipline of psychology. This article describes a pilot project examining how art-making shaped the trajectories of women diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. Using ABR as a way of distilling the findings, we demonstrate how experiences of existential and posttraumatic growth can be understood more intensely and profoundly through found poetry. Found poems (excerpts from interviews reframed as poetry) offer a richer, more meaningful, and potent evocation of themes than traditional coding categories. Poetry permits the voice of the participant to be more clearly heard and allows the reader to access deeper insights and understandings of the complexities of growth through adversity.

The Impact of Childhood Abuse on University Women’s Career Choice

A study is discussed that describes a link between childhood abuse and career choice for 12 university women. Purposive sampling was used, and the study employed a cross-case comparative approach with an emphasis on feminist principles. An interactive, collaborative interview was developed, prompting stories that reflected career choice processes. A general framework for processing the naturalistically obtained data was constant across the cases and was subjected to criteria to insure trustworthiness. Three basic themes emerged: (1) for women who were still enduring a cycle of pain and fear as a result of long-term child abuse, safety was a dominant concern; (2) women who had managed to transform their experiences approached career choice as a “mission” in order to right the wrongs of their past; and (3) negative cases that did not fit the general trend provided an opportunity to reexamine the data and the theme of distance. These results have important implications for vocational counseling and academic advising.