Research project Children and youths exposed to 'stigma-related trauma': Narration, agency and support needs

The project analyses by use of narrative methods what and how children and young people tell about their experiences of traumatic but also stigmatizing childhood conditions, where shame and negative social responses are assumed to hinder psychological processing and access to support. One longitudinal study in the project analyses childhood narratives about the experience of growing up with alcoholic parents. The children were interviewed at three occasions from their participation in a Children are people too-program in the beginning of the 1990’s. The study aims to make visible how children construct meaning and identity in relation to their parent’s substance abuse problem, their coping strategies in everyday life, and their needs for social and professional support. In another study in the project, children and young people who have lost a parent to suicide and who have participated in a grief support camp arranged by BRIS (Children’s rights in society) have been interviewed about their experiences, with the aim to identify what support needs are expressed in grief and to investigate how the program matches these needs.