Call for papers - young people affected by sexual violence as change makers

The committee welcome submissions for presentations by scholars and practitioners that relate to participatory practice with young people affected by sexual violence.

The children's rights and participation agenda has expanded over the 25 years since the introduction of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This expansion has created more spaces for children and youth to be heard. Young people are frequently asked about their views for the purposes of developing stronger policy, practice and research.

Despite the expansion of spaces for children and youth to be heard in decision-making, young people affected by sexual violence are often excluded from, rather than empowered to take part in, these processes.

This inter-institutional, inter-disciplinary one day colloquium on the 28th September 2015 at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor in England will explore and reflect on the potential benefits, risks and opportunities of involving young people affected by sexual violence in policy, practice and research. The day will bring together early career researchers and academics from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, together with those who have experience of supporting young people affected by sexual violence to discuss lessons-learned on safe and ethical participatory practice with young people affected by sexual violence.

The colloquium will address the following questions:

What are the benefits of, and opportunities for, young people affected by sexual violence engaging in participatory prevention activities?
What are the ethical challenges that this work poses? This will include issues such as safety, risk of re-traumatisation, anonymity versus acknowledgement, stigma and identity.
What are the possible legal implications of this work?

The committee welcome submissions for presentations by scholars and practitioners that relate to participatory practice with young people affected by sexual violence. We are particularly interested in papers that identify challenges and learning with respect to safe and ethical participatory engagement. The committee is interested in papers that can share learning from various disciplinary standpoints.

The committee welcomes proposals for either a:

20 minute plenary presentation exploring

The potential benefits of arts-based and creative interventions to engage with young people
Issues surrounding stigma and identity of young people affected by sexual violence
The potential risks and opportunities of engaging young people affected by sexual violence through social media
The legal context and legal considerations when engaging with young people affected by sexual violence in projects and research
PechaKucha 20 x 20 style visual presentation (20 slides, 20seconds each – 6minutes 40 seconds in total) that explore one or two examples of ethical challenges experienced from engaging young people affected by sexual violence in participatory work. This may include examples of situations where young people have been pressurised to take part, challenges with group work and confidentiality, issues surrounding who has ownership or editorial control of resources developed by young people with the support of organisations, challenges of working with young people and the media, legal challenges around 'contaminating evidence', examples where young people have been re-traumatised or re-victimised, and issues with the risk assessment processes.

Poster presentations that explore the above themes and challenges.

To submit a proposal to present at this conference, please send the following information to participationforprevention@cumberlandlodge.ac.uk before 19th June 2015: your name, affiliation and email address, an abstract of your proposed presentation (max. 250 words) and the type of presentation you would like to share (e.g. poster, PechaKucha etc).

The committee will inform you by 10th July 2015 whether your proposal has been accepted. Read more about the event here www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk