Educational Psychologists frequently advocate for a systemic approach to supporting children and young people (CYP) in schools, viewing the adults around the child as fundamental to understanding their experience, advocating their needs and bringing about positive change for the child (Mackay, Lauchlan, Lindsay, Monsen, Frederickson, Gameson, & Rees, 2016). In recognition of this, my research listens to the stories told by three Primary School Professionals (SPs), who support children with an experience of domestic abuse (DA).
This was an exploratory, qualitative study, within a sensitive field which is under researched (Swanston, Bowyer & Vetere, 2014). Stories were co-created through individual conversations with Primary SPs based in schools in the north of England. I adopted a storied approach to both the creation and analysis of conversations (Phillips & Bunda, 2018). Stories were analysed using an adapted version of Brown and Gilligan’s Listening Guide (1993) - a ‘Voice Centred Relational Method’. I adopted a social constructionist framework, which recognises that knowledge creation is a collaborative endeavour. With this in mind, my research design, foregrounds the importance of a social justice and a feminist paradigm in shaping my research journey throughout.
The ‘sociology of childhood’ literature (James and Prout, 1990; 1997; 2015) has contributed toward a re-positioning of children’s response to an experience of DA, as one characterised by ‘agency’ (Overlien & Hyden, 2009). Agentic capacity can be recognised as range of behaviours which signify resistance, protection, strategic thinking and planning, amongst others. Stories told by SPs afforded differing levels of agentic capacity to children, in relation to their experience with DA. This finding has implications for how Educational Psychologists support schools.
Key Words: domestic abuse, qualitative, feminist, social justice, reflexivity, agentic, relational
