Content Flowchart

Using the flowchart method, i have been able to categorise my content further. This way i know the subheadings i am covering under a Solution, and whether there are examples, or scenarios, or activities following these sub categories.

Initially i was looking at these 5 Solutions:

– Your Body Belongs To You

– Secrets

– Threats and Bribes

– Telling

– Never your fault

But once i started to dissect my content i realised – the three broad solutions are the first three points – these have a lot more content under them and need to be addressed more tactfully. As opposed to the last two, which are fairly more simple to communicate.

So given the time at hand, i am thinking of attempting the first three for my DIP. I think it’s better to find out from the faculty about their views on this-  but instinctively, i think i’ll do more justice to the project this way.

Here is the flowchart for the first Solution –  Body Belongs To You.

Feedback from Deepta

I was fortunate enough to meet with Deepta Sateesh in Chennai yesterday. She had to give me some feedback on whether i could share the results of the very extensive (and still continuing) survey on CSA that i am conducting. I should be able ot share the results very soon.

As she was on my pre dip panel, she was well aware with my interest in this field and i gave her an idea of where i am currently with regard to deadlines and progress and content.

She was very kind to share her thoughts on my project and also provided me with “service design tools”to deal with organising my content and thoughts. She was of the opinion these tools help in moving faster and provide a backbone and some sort of structure.

While there are plenty of service design tools, not all are applicable. I am going to create a separate category called “Service Design Tools” – so you can find the ones ive used.

Apart form this – she has agreed to put me onto a counsellor from the American International School in Chennai. I look forward to that meeting.
Another very important feedback she gave me was – to validate at every point the reasons for making the decisions i am making. This will help me support my enquiry during internals. And also personally, it will be a good way to gauge the cause and effect of my choices.

Bribes in Parenting and Abuse – the difference.

While i agree with Sonalee  to a large extent that i have to address the issue of CSA and preventive solutions within the framework of parenting techniques in India..i also disagree.

This is why: 

Parents bribe for better behaviour during times of duress. They provide the child with a gift or a sweet for better behaviour as pointed out by the parent.

In the case of abuse, the perpetrator “grooms” the child with gifts to do something involving private parts, touching, viewing pornographic material etc. In such a case, by telling the child that if someone tries to gift you things where you have to “do” something that makes you “uncomfortable” or you have to “do” something that involves “yours” or “someone elses” “private parts” – then then you shouldn’t be accepting those gifts, and you should tell someone and not keep that a secret.

I feel like the two situations are completely different, and the specifics of the latter distinguish the two types of bribing well enough for even the child to recognise. So while both are “bribes” – by spelling it out for the child-  it becomes easy for the child to recognise the situation if and when it does happen.

Difference between Bribes and Rewards

Apparently there is a line of difference between Bribing and Rewarding.

Bribing happens during a “pressure situation” – where the child suddenly throws a tantrum and the need to calm them down is mandatory – the parent is looking to change their behaviour immediately. And that’s when the parent offers them something to change that behaviour. Its a power play of sorts and the child definitely has the upper hand. The child also learns that “such behaviour” in “such circumstances” let’s them have their way. Unfortunately, this is common practice in India.

On the other hand, there are rewards. Rewarding is somewhat similar to the workplace scenario we come from. We work for a month, complete tasks and at the end we get a deserving salary. It boosts our confidence and we are ready for a gruelling next month.

“James Lehman recommends that parents come up with a list of rewards with their child ahead of time”. This way, the child will know what is at stake at the end, and may even control their behaviour.

Read the entire article here: http://www.empoweringparents.com/Bribing-Kids-Vs-Rewarding-Kids-Whats-The-Difference.php#ixzz2cL0S3anK

Child Protection – who is responsible?

I came across this blogpost by Zarathustra – Trained as a nurse, currently working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).  This post was about a misunderstanding between many tweeple and this reporter – @mwilliamsthomas. The issue was his tweet, that said –

The story about the 12yr girl being raped in London in early hours of Sunday morning is horrific. But what was she doing out at that time?

Mark William Thomas

> wasn’t questioning why the girl was out at that time,
> nor was he justifying the act having happened at that time because she was out
BUT
>  he was throwing light on the fact that – this girl was someone’s responsibility. And for some reason, they slipped up that night. Whether it was the parents, the social services or the police – she was 12, and someone should have been looking out for her.

the twitter war went on further and there was a point made by some person

that neglect and sexual assault are separate issues.

Are they?

DISCLAIMER: I am ruthlessly copy pasting from this post, because this make a lot of sense in my project. This is NOT my content, it belongs to – http://notsobigsociety.wordpress.com

So, when there’s a concern that a child may or may not be adequately cared for, who’s business is it? The police? Social services?

The answer to that question is very clear both in law and in policy. Child protection is everybody’s business. Schools, hospitals, police,  churches, Scouts and Guides, military cadet forces….everybody who works with children has a responsibility to look out for signs of abuse or neglect, to ask questions and, if necessary, to make a child protection referral to social services.

And yes, I know all that “everybody’s business” rhetoric may sound like a Big Brother, nosey-parker Panopticon state. But the brutal truth is that if we don’t all look out for vulnerable children, then there’s other, far nastier people who will.

So, to summarise:

• Parents and carers have a responsibility to protect their children.

• Everybody who works with children has a responsibility to be vigilant for abuse or neglect, and to report it where necessary.

• Twelve year old girls have a responsibility to…well, they don’t have a responsibility to anyone. They’re twelve. Adults have a responsibility to them.

–——–

As i am collecting data from my survey to parents, irrespective of the answers – i am naturally being drawn to adults/parents/care givers as my audience for designing material for protection against CSA.  

Survey, Preparation

There are number of ways and means of data collection. Such as, focus groups, interviews and surveys to name a few. For the purpose of my diploma project, i am choosing the survey.

Why a survey over a personal interview?

Initially i had planned on a personal interview, documenting it with a camera for added benefit.
My jury panelist, Ms. Manjari Singh was of the opinion that such a personal interview would be too “intrusive” and may even be “intimidating”. I suppose i hadn’t thought of that. People do get very nervous in front of cameras and when dealing with a delicate topic of CSA, they may refrain from answering openly and they may be put in an uncomfortable position.

How is a survey different from a questionnaire?

I had been interchanging the two words and using them both recklessly while speaking to various people. I finally decided to google it and find out the difference. So this article  put it in better words.

– Surveys are research methods of data collection. 

– Questionnaires and Interviews are tools. 

– Questionnaires are part of the survey process

– Surveys require  selecting populations for inclusion, pre-testing the questionnaire, determining  delivery methods, ensuring validity, and analyzing results.

Therefore, i am conducting a survey.

PHASE I

My first draft of questions were these – Questions for parents

Manjari was kind enough to have a look at them and asked me to relook, rephrase and most importantly make a mind map of what i was trying to gain from the questionnaire.

I decided to visually represent the aims to be clear of what i was trying to achieve, and this would help me ask better questions –

The second draft of questions were these – Questions V.2

In the second version you will notice i added –

> a question on annual income –  as my target audience is Upper Middle class and upper class – this question will help me sort out the responses that support my enquiry.

What i didn’t know – That economic classifications of income keep changing and that i needed to find the the most current and oft used classification. Thanks to Ms. Manjari Singh – who provided me an excerpt from Ms. Jyothsana Belliappas research paper Economic Indicators of Middle Class Position. 

On Manjari’s suggestion i went through reports of the  NCAER (national council of applied economic research) and studied other surveys conducted and finally went ahead with the adapted version of NCAER’s 2005 classification of income.

> anonymity – people who take this survey will definitely be more open, if we don’t ask for their names. their names will not serve any purpose.

So after plenty back and forths and somewhat finalising on the content of the questionnaire – i sent it out to some parents for feedback on whether they understand, or if any words need changing and altering.

One pointed out that the fact that there were too many descriptive questions, it could tire out the survey taker.  – so i re looked at my questions again, and made a final edit – removed questions that i felt were only adding to length, and probably would not help me that much in my final analysis.

Another asked me to add the question about gender – to understand how many parents think that CSA happens mostly to girls and that the actual truth is that boys are more susceptible to being abused. 

PHASE II

What would be the carrier of my survey? – There are plenty of survey providers online, they let you create surveys, add templates and even offer to analyse them for you. At first i thought of Survey Monkey – as i have used this often and it is very user friendly.  However, the free version only let me ask 10 questions. I didn’t want to feel limited. This exercise would give me great insight, and i needed something better.

GOOGLE FORMS TO THE RESCUE! – not only is it easy to use, the answers automatically get stored in spread sheet formats and also generate basic analyses. So it was decided that this would be the carrier of the questionnaire.

PHASE III

Determining the reach of the survey – While a lot of people swear by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter – there is SO MUCH happening on these sites that people often do not take notice of serious matter. The chance of overlooking a survey on such sites is very high because “survey taking” is mundane, boring and a waste of time. I needed to find something else that would work, so i made a list of people/places that i could get responses from.

> Mommy Bloggers – Believe it or not, it’s another world of bloggers! The super mommy’s in India are heavily into blogging and many of them have supported CSA (they have these CSA Awarness Month Logos) – Which ever blogs had those – i was confident they would fill it up. I even (politely asked) if they would post it on their blogs, and some of them did! Like this one .  If you notice there is a long preamble in the post, this is because i needed to explain exactly what i am doing here. Parents need to understand and trust what they are filling up, where is it going and how is it going to help out – i had to be a lot more vocal and even give them ideas as to what my deliverables could be. I took the liberty to do so, anything that would give me more responses, and better understanding.

> Facebook, Twitter, Emails – This is the done thing i suppose. Sent out plenty personal emails, copy and pasted over and over.

> Parent groups, NGO’s, Counsellors, –  Groups of people and NGO’s with similar causes are always ready to help, especially when it is for a better cause.

Phase IV – Since the questionnaire is still open, phase IV will be the final analysis. 

FINAL QUESTIONNAIRE – https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19p2-aUrzE16XOO-Drgllhj60kco0Xwr-AqUE5scPNU4/viewform

 

Ctrl + Z

pic source 

The first feedback session kind of threw me off.  There were many positives, but there was also a lot of re-thinking to do.

“…but what good is a design process or any process if its not challenging” said a friend.

My earlier design brief was –  to generate and design “age-appropriate” and attractive content for urban children on personal safety and the importance of understanding and articulating feelings.

My feedback focussed on why is important to design for children and parents? (the plan was to make storybooks along with a guide for parents)

> parents make decisions for children

> designing for two different age groups in three months is a tough ask, and requires a lot of research.

> even if the child is attracted to the content, the parent needs to okay it, to buy it/read it

> parents who are unaware/uninformed may not pick up such content for their child

So what is the point i am trying to drive? 

If parents are the decision makers and scenario changers i need to find out what is their opinion on the matter. What do they think about child sexual abuse, how much do they know about preventive measures, have they been teaching it to their children etc.

How is this information going to change anything?

> It may change who i am addressing and what is it that i am designing. 

> it will help me narrow down on what the real problem is. 

In order to understand the psyche of the parents i need to construct a questionnaire. More about this – here.

Even before my first meeting i had chalked out the next stage and these were what i had planned on focussing on. 

– to meet with a psychologist/ psychiatrist who deals with child sexual abuse therapy
– a survey for parents 

– to understand via a workshop for children what is their current knowledge on personal safety

I had been planning a small workshop for children using my theatre background and visual skills to understand how much children know about safety and protection also to gain an insight into how they understand and articulate feelings. I was most excited about doing this, however – on approaching some schools and children’s organisations – i was asked about my background in such training.

– since i have no training about how to talk about safety, it would have been a sensitive space to enter. if i was posed with questions by the children, that i cannot answer appropriately, it could be damaging.

– since the focus of my project has now taken a new turn – that is, i am trying to understand the psyche and existing knowledge of parents- carrying out the workshop would serve no purpose until i am sure that i am designing for children.  right now, i am still trying to understand or frame the problem and my solution to this problem.

Let’s get on with this.