The following examples highlight recent or ongoing work
Partnering with community to understand the long-term impact of childhood sexual abuse.
Dr. Gina Dimitropoulos, University of Calgary
This Seed funding for Building and Strengthening Academic-Community Collaborative Partnerships to Investigate the Longitudinal Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Online Child Abuse Imagery: Informing Policy and Practice was used for the first phase of a study. This phase facilitated community consultation with various stakeholders and community partners to investigate the effects of child sexual abuse and the subsequent re-victimization associated with online sexual abuse imagery. The purpose of this consultation was to engage the community in forming research questions that are meaningful for them.
Highlights
The research team has actively engaged various community partners from child welfare, law enforcement, crown attorneys, Alberta Health Services, and Child Advocacy Centres to identify potential research questions, an appropriate research design to address these potential questions, and how to mitigate risk associated with participation in a study for young people who have experienced abuse on or offline. A shared interest emerged to explore the longitudinal biological, psychological, and familial impacts of child maltreatment.
Next Steps
The research team is using the results of the seed grant to guide future research and inform policy and practice. The team is moving forward with the
longitudinal study. Further, a number of additional research projects have emerged as a result of this Seed funding. The team is developing a qualitative study on children’s experiences of court proceedings in collaboration with the crown attorney at the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre. They are also in discussion about designing a study to examine the longitudinal impact of child pornography on young people, and how pornography shapes sexuality and relationships among children and youth.
