1) Arts-Based Approaches,
2) Participatory Approaches, and
3) Socioecological Approaches.
Through this Tri-Pillared Approach (Denov, Mitchell, Rabiau, Forthcoming), the research group bridges together a team of researchers, practitioners and students, while actively involving a group of war-affected youth as part of the research team, in order to impact research, policy, and practice.
Arts-based Axis
Arts-based research approaches
use the artistic process and artistic expression as a primary way of understanding and examining various experiences, including experiences of war and migration. Arts-based research methodologies can use a number of different mediums, including: photography, videography, cellphilm, music, drama, or visual arts.
Arts-based research help promote participant activism, engagement and empowerment.
Arts-based research methodologies are an especially helpful tool with war-affected children and youth offering an accessible, nonverbal alternative to traditional research approaches.
Participatory Axis
Participatory approaches
reflect on the conventional notions of power and who is considered ‘expert,' by providing opportunities to meaningfully engage war-affected children and youth to articulate their perspectives, concerns, and needs, and actively contribute to scholarly discussions.
The Participatory Axis is guided by the understanding that children and youth who have been affected by war and migration possess knowledge and perceptions of their social environment that is both valid and unique.
The aim of this approach is to position affected young people's perspectives and voices at the centre of the research process.
Socioecological Axis
Socioecological approaches
consider various systems at multiple levels surrounding the individual child, including family, community, and society.
This approach highlights the impact of complex relationships, interactions, resources, networks and sociocultural contexts on children's wellbeing and development.
The socioecological model serves as a roadmap for developing interventions that target all layers of children's socioecological system, and identifying protective factors that reduce vulnerability to 'shocks,' such as war and migration, and risk factors that increase vulnerabilities to ecological shocks.
