Advancing the democratic participatory experiences of young people: the participatory budgets

The research is devoted to the modern enhancement of budget allocation effciency at the municipal level. Internationally, it is referred to as participatory budgeting. The subject of the research is the world and Russian experience of participatory budgeting and the effectiveness of such initiatives. The research objective is to determine the correlation between the international experience of public participation in the budget allocation and the program of initiative budgeting in the Russian Federation; based on this, to develop recommendations for improving the effciency of budget expenditures. The theoretical basis and the relationship between the concepts of “participatory budgeting” used to denote public participation abroad, and the “proactive budgeting” adopted in Russia have been considered. More than 30 international studies of participatory budgeting over the past 15 years have been analyzed. The aspects and effectiveness of the approaches have been highlighted. The best international and Russian experiences of participatory (initiative) budgeting, their characteristics and commitment to results have been identifed. As a result, the authors have presented a basic scheme to organize the participatory budgeting process, highlighting the stages, activities and criteria for the effectiveness of programs implemented within this approach. The initiative budgeting perspectives in Russia have been shown on the example of Yekaterinburg. Some recommendations have been given to enhance the implementation effciency. Among them are: infrastructural differences between the territories, expanding fnancial independence of municipalities in terms of initiative budgeting, building a system of representatives of local communities. It has been concluded that the initiative budgeting in the Russian Federation differs notably in its form from the international initiatives. The main difference is the requirement to the population and business to co-fnance projects. Some measures have been proposed to move gradually from the Russian participatory budgeting to the international standards, including: developing a methodology for project effciency evaluation, providing tax incentives, extensive use of information technology, and introducing the annual schedule of meetings and polls.

For the first time, in 1989, in Porto Alegre (Brazil), the participatory budget is shown as a ground-breaking experience facing Latin America and the world. Since then, different cities have adopted and copied singular behaviors around this experience. In the case of Colombia, the Constitution of 1991 -when decentralization is born- boosted this experience, promoting local governments decision making in a reached way to prioritize public resources use and defining investment projects. In this respect, Colombian state has tried to advance on the participatory budget’s implementation allowing civil society to participate in public management process through formulating projects and monitoring its implementation. In Ibague, for its part, the origin of participatory budget seems to go back to 2001 when a local development project promoted the creation of ‘planning communal councils’ to formulate development plans by communes. Afterwards, with the ‘Acuerdo 018’, 17th August of 2011, the ‘developmental participatory budget and planning municipality system of Ibague’ is created, however, the formal and operational participatory budget is born between 2012 and 2015 (Beltrán, 2015) as a pilot project. This work is looking into the participatory budget’s implementation process as an element of planning municipality system in Ibague during the period 2012-2019, identifying possible bottlenecks preventing its efficiency and efficacy by case analysis in two territories, urban and rural - commune 6 and village 10, respectively-. Why both of them? Because they have a lot of experiences to show related to participatory budget. It is important to find the causes explaining why the participatory budget’s implementation goes through obstacles that restrict its effectiveness. To understanding this, institutional and legal documents will be reviewed. Besides this, the factors related to restrictions on participatory budget’s implementation process will be identified. Methodologically, it will be carried out structured and semi-structured interviews as a way to get approached to involved people experiences and, finally, building an action plan to helping improve the participatory budget operation, implementation and continuity.

This thesis mounts an in-depth exploration of young, white, Scottish people's views and experiences of falling in love with people of the opposite sex in the context of 'serious' romantic relationships formed in their late adolescence. It is located within the sociology of emotion and engages with debates about how emotional experience is shaped and influenced by social interaction, structures, cultural discourses and resources. The principal questions considered are: What array of social-cultural influences are pertinent to understanding these young people's experiences of love and 'serious' relationships? How and in what ways are these influences perceived to be inflecting or constitutive of these young people's experiences? In what ways do these young people's experiences exceed the account made possible through the sociology of emotion and, what possibilities and opportunities are there for elaborating this account? The study draws principally on data generated through interviews with young people studying for Highers in the sixth year of a secondary school. A grounded approach was used in analysis of these data. Findings include the development of taxonomies of 'serious' relationships which describe their constitutive elements, address the issue of why they are especially pertinent to young people in late adolescence and how this relates to their negotiation of specific social settings, interactions and developmental events. Gender, family and transition emerge as particular salient socio-cultural influences within these young people's accounts of their 'serious' relationships and the nature of each of these is explored in depth. I argue that the theoretical framework provided by the sociology of emotion has good explicative power in terms of identifying the array of social factors which are likely to be influencing emotional experiences but there is scope both for further research and to employ additional theoretical resources, especially psycho-dynamically inflected thinking, in order to explain emotional experience at the level of individual.

This paper takes a practitioner’s perspective of the transfer and development of participatory budgeting (PB) processes from their Latin American roots in the late 1980s to becoming a part of the local regeneration and empowerment policies championed by New Labour in the UK, typified by the launch in 2008 of a National PB Strategy. It describes some of the reasons for this transfer of ideas, and the models of PB being experimented with in England by an increasing number of local authorities. The author sees PB as an innovative mechanism for increasing citizen participation in local democratic decision making and one effective in strengthening civil society at the local level. It is argued that PB can stimulate innovative investment in local community groups and organisations, and contribute to a better distribution of public investments while also building up social capital and community learning. The paper describes a number of situations where PB has been piloted in deprived communities in England. Towards the end, it focuses on how some young people have been able to learn about democratic decision making through PB. The author argues that they develop greater confidence about taking part in democratic processes and gain budgeting and literacy skills that can contribute to their becoming more active and engaged citizens in later life. It is proposed that processes like participatory budgeting will continue to grow and evolve in the UK and elsewhere, and some requirements are listed that need to be met to avoid PB processes becoming tokenistic, marginal in their effect, or manipulated by vested interests.

The stories behind stories: Reflections on the role of voice in research with unaccompanied refugee youth

Depression is common and increasing in young people, who seem especially vulnerable, both in the probability of developing depression, and in the resulting negative consequences across the lifespan. Unfortunately, available treatments rarely lead to full remission and even in cases of remission relapse rates are high. Different explanatory models have been proposed, and research indicates a multifaceted etiology. The descriptive DSM-5 has low diagnostic validity in this age-group, especially for depressive disorders, and limited attention has been given to young people's own experiences of becoming depressed. Hence, there is a risk of missing clinical information that is important for the therapeutic alliance and treatment. This study aimed to explore young people's experiences of becoming depressed. A qualitative study was performed. Six participants with clinical depression, currently in treatment at child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics in northern Sweden were recruited. Interviews followed a semi-structured manual, and data was analyzed with inductive qualitative content analysis. Participants described different reasons for their depression, and from their stories four categories were identified: "Being subjected to violence", "Suffering separation and loss", "Feeling abandoned", and "Feeling burdened and vulnerable". These categories were interpreted in the theme: "Dealing with an overwhelming life situation". The participants presented mainly stressful external and relational events preceding their depression. A combination of overwhelming stressors, lack of support and lack of time for recovery was described. This points to the importance of validating the narratives of young patients with depression and to offer trauma-informed treatment approaches in mental health care.

Background: Group programmes are a common component of treatment in inpatient child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) units. There is evidence for specific group interventions, however, comparison across a multidisciplinary group programme is under-explored. Aims: This research examines young people's experiences of, and satisfaction with, a multidisciplinary group programme on an acute inpatient CAMHS unit. Methods: Weekly surveys were distributed to young people, and 37 responses were gathered across four months in 2018. Rates of attendance, enjoyment and perceived helpfulness of groups were calculated. Content analysis was used to explore key themes in qualitative responses. Results: Young people rated a creative activities and games group (54.05%) and the art therapy group (48.95%) as the two most enjoyable groups. Art therapy was reported to be the most helpful group overall (45.65%). Young people also expressed their dislike for verbal psychotherapy groups (43.24%), finding these confronting relative to other modalities in the programme. Conclusions: Art therapy and arts-based groups received the highest positive feedback relative to predominantly verbal psychotherapy groups. A multidisciplinary group programme which integrates art therapy and other creative modalities has the potential to enhance engagement in acute inpatient settings which may result in improved mental health outcomes for young people. Implications for future research and practice: Future research should aim to foreground young people's perspectives and experiences of therapeutic programmes, and provide opportunities for clinicians to redevelop programmes responsively to service user feedback. Survey findings support advocacy for consistent art therapy roles and services within inpatient CAMHS units.

A rejuvenated approach to urban development and inequality: Young people's perceptions and experiences in Rio de Janeiro

Reports indicate a decrease in youth mental health in Sweden but at the same time research suggests that what is interpreted as mental ill‐health could be considered everyday challenges by young people themselves. The distribution of mental health and illness among young people is uneven based on inequities related to factors such as race, gender and socioeconomic status. Sweden in particular is a country with large socioeconomic inequities in youth mental health and in school results, compared to other European countries. The aim of this study was to explore young people's experiences of the role of race, gender and socioeconomic status in relation to everyday challenges. Sixty‐five young people aged 13–15 years old were recruited by student health services and participated in focus group discussions at schools in the southernmost part of Sweden. Data were analysed by secondary analysis with deductive qualitative content analysis using Ecosocial theory of disease distribution as theoretical framework. The analysis resulted in one main theme; Navigating inequities to gain and keep social status, with three underlying themes; Guided by social norms, Negative impact in everyday life and Importance of family influence. Participants were aware and critical of norms and expectations related to race, gender and socioeconomic status. Experiences of prejudice and unfairness was both own lived experiences by the participants as well as observed through friends and classmates. Young people spontaneously identify everyday challenges related to race, gender and socioeconomic status, even when not asked directly about these issues. Conforming to sexist, racist and classist, expectations is a way to lose and gain status in a school setting. Many of the inequities discussed related to socioeconomic status and the direct consequences of having or not having money. Young people's everyday experience of inequities is important to consider in youth mental health promotion aiming to tackle health inequities. Further research is needed on those experiences and how this affects mental health.

Experience of significant bereavement is reported by the majority of young people in contemporary western societies, but it receives little attention from mainstream services or academics, and this marginality is paralleled in young people's everyday bereavement experiences. Existing academic and professional work concerned with children and young people's experiences of bereavement largely centres on cognitive understandings of death, and individual intra-psychic processes and responses in the context of relevant ‘developmental tasks’. And yet some writers suggest that the key feature of young people's experiences of bereavement is their relative powerlessness, rather than any particularities of cognition or affective responses. At the same time, the meanings that young people themselves attribute to their experiences may be crucial to any explanations of ‘risk’ for negative ‘outcomes’ that may be associated with bereavement. Furthermore, as exemplified by new case studies discussed in the paper, it is clear that young people are active agents in their family and peer group contexts. This article offers a discussion of bereavement in the context of ‘youth’ as a relational and institutionalised social status, and explores some theoretical issues potentially raised by the themes of death and bereavement in the context of youth studies generally.

The issue of young people's experiences of sexual exploitation and sexual violence has received increasing political and media attention within recent years. However, whilst many studies have identified this to be an emerging issue of concern, the collation of prevalence data on the extent of these issues is still very much in its infancy. In this article we report on the findings of a large-scale project on the sexual exploitation of young people, undertaken in Northern Ireland from 2009 to 2011. The article primarily explores young people's self-reported experiences of sexual violence and exploitation, collated from their responses to a module of questions placed in the 2010 Young Life and Times Survey. The quantitative dataset from the survey covers both prevalence of sexually exploitative experiences and young people's reports about the type of individuals perpetrating these incidents. This dataset is illustrated and contextualised with reference to the qualitative findings from interviews with young people and professionals conducted as part of the wider sexual exploitation study. The article concludes with a consideration of the implications of the findings, with particular reference to the need for further preventative work in this field.

This study aims to assess young people's overall experience of political conflict, as well as the extent of these experiences in relation to gender, religious affiliation and residential location (high or low conflict). Second, this study assesses the impact that young people's ideological commitment and experiences of the conflict have on their self‐esteem and mental health. A sample of 96 Protestant and Catholic young people (mean age 15.2), drawn from four schools in two areas of Northern Ireland, completed self‐report measures of self‐esteem, mental health, ideological commitment and experience of conflict. The areas differed substantially in the amount of violence they had experienced. The results indicated that young people's experience of violence varied in relation to the town in which they lived. Boys’ experience of violence appeared to be related to their religious affiliation. Experience of conflict and ideological commitment, two attributes that were positively related, interacted to predict both mental health and self‐esteem. The importance of ideological commitment to our understanding of the impact of political conflict on young people is discussed.

This article derives from a project called Experience and Music Teaching (EMT) and concerns English and Swedish young people's experience of music. The perspective is that of the young people themselves, and the aim is to elucidate their musical experience, together with their view of music, from the point of view of social background, environment, identity and cultural norms. The three essential questions are these: How do they assign a value to music? What does music mean to them? Where does their experience of music occur? The investigation is based on interviews and conversations with six English and six Swedish 15-year-olds. It emerges that music in their lives is part of a broader context, occurring in different environments and playing an important role in various types of activity. Firstly, the young people draw attention to the importance of music to the individual, having to do with how the individual assigns a value it. Secondly, they draw attention to the function of music, to the part it plays in their lives. Thirdly, they draw attention to their musical environment, to (as it were) the spaces in which music appears. Thus the value of music, the role of music and the spaces for music emerge as essential categories when it comes to elucidating young people's musical experience.

Nitrous oxide (N2O) use for intoxication among young people has increased in many parts of the Western world, including Denmark. The literature, however, primarily focusses on harms related to N2O use, and not on other aspects, for example modes of administration or effects such as different forms of pleasure or fun. Therefore, despite this increase, we still know very little about how and why young people use nitrous oxide for intoxication, including their experiences of N2O intoxication. Based on 45 qualitative interviews with young Danes age 18-25 years, who all were former or present N2O users, we explore their experiences of N2O intoxication. We do this by analyzing in-depth descriptions of where, how and with whom they use N2O. When analyzing these descriptions in relation to different modes of administration, intensity of use, combination with other substances (e.g. alcohol, cannabis), and use in different settings, we argue that N2O intoxication is experienced differently by the young participants. Some of the participants also searched for particular intoxication experiences with N2O. We unfold the participants' various descriptions of intoxication by differentiating between moderate and intensive use. Overall, our study shows that these differences in N2O use for intoxication are not equally risky or harmful. In general, young people's own perspectives and experiences with (illegal) drug use is increasingly emphasized as important to include when developing preventive interventions. Our analysis of the young participants' differing experiences with N2O for intoxication can inform future prevention initiatives in relation to harms of N2O intoxication.

The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise qualitative evidence on young people's conceptualisation, utilisation and experiences of the therapeutic alliance in individual psychotherapy or counselling and its role in bringing about change. The thematic synthesis method was used to synthesise data. The methodological quality of included studies was assessed using the CASP checklist for qualitative research. Four superordinate analytical themes were generated: (1) valuable therapist qualities, (2) conditions for the development and maintenance of the therapeutic alliance, (3) therapeutic processes and (4) barriers to the development of the therapeutic alliance. Findings indicate that young people appreciated the uniqueness of the therapeutic relationship that provided a sense of safety, choice and autonomy. Flexibility and accessibility were noted as important elements of therapeutic alliance building as they elicited a sense of agency. Young people emphasised the non-linear nature of therapy and prioritised process variables such as improvement in self-understanding, self-efficacy and self-worth. The current systematic review is a comprehensive overview of qualitative studies of experiences of therapy from young people's perspectives. Important practical implications derived from this review as the role of autonomy in the change process and the formation and maintenance of the therapeutic relationship were outlined as important elements in youth therapy.