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Linking the Science of Early Childhood with Conflict and Peace

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN EARLY CHILDHOOD AND PEACE

Pia Rebello Britto cited concrete figures on the cost of conflict and violence globally ($14.3 trillion in 2014), while noting the incalculable cost to children and their families (UNICEF, 2014). Rebello Britto spoke of the potential in human capital—particularly young children, girls, women, and youth as agents of change toward strong, just, and harmonious societies. Crediting early childhood development as a potentially transformative solution and accelerator of peace, Rebello Britto grounded her remarks in the science of brain development and the revolutionary shift that is occurring in what is known about brain development.

As Rebello Britto highlighted the unprecedented rate at which a child’s brain develops, particularly influenced by experience and context, she outlined key findings in the developmental and early learning literature (see Box 3-1).

She credits the underlying evidence that supports these connections between early childhood and peace as one significant reason the UN’s agenda for sustainable development has recognized the importance of early childhood and therefore included this period of human development in the 2030 goals.

UNICEF and its partners’ efforts in the Early Childhood Peace Consortium represent innovative efforts to bring a new solution to the world and particularly in Jordan, a country that Rebello Britto claimed has highlighted the opportunity of early childhood while also recognizing the importance of youth in accelerating change away from conflict and

toward sustaining peace, thus championing these two critical windows of life. Rebello Britto urged the audience that while there is so much at stake, the scientific evidence and moral argument toward transformative solutions that are grounded in the science of early childhood have the potential to bring lasting and sustainable peace to the world.

THE RESILIENCY OF CHILDREN DURING TIMES OF CONFLICT

Ann Masten, Regents Professor of Child Development at the University of Minnesota in the United States, opened her remarks by leading workshop participants through historical highlights from the research on resilience in children. Masten began with World War II, which she argued had a profound and devastating effect on children around the globe. Yet, these events motivated the creation of UNICEF and a particular focus on children in adverse contexts by clinicians, researchers, and practitioners.

Masten stated that the effects of experiencing conflict on children can be lifelong and intergenerational, and the role of resilience research has been to focus on understanding how children survive, recover, and even thrive after they move away from adverse situations. While responses differ based on age of exposure and gender, Masten indicated that the chronic adversity typical of conflict situations is characterized by the accumulation of trauma, and children typically respond through a gradual functional decline. Resilience occurs when there is action taken to

restore the conditions for positive human development and recovery (see Box 3-2).

Discussing the relationship between the risk and recovery environment, Masten stated that resilience occurs when action is taken to restore the conditions for positive human development and recovery. She argued that the recovery environment, encompassing the physical, social, spiritual, and cultural domains, is critical to supporting not only children during times of conflict, but also families and communities. Furthermore, Masten suggested that age and gender affect how sensitive a child is to adverse experiences, and thus how that child will respond to adversity, represented as pathways affected by different patterns of exposure (see Figure 3-1).

Chronic adversity, more typical of conflict situations, differs in that there is not a single traumatic experience but the accumulation of multiple traumatic experiences that results in the gradual decline in functioning children (see Figure 3-2). Resilience occurs when action is taken to restore conditions for positive human development and recovery.

Masten suggested that a series of protective factors can be mobilized in instances where children have been exposed to chronic adversity. According to Masten, effective methods for building resilience include hope and belief that life has meaning, quality of care, family functionality, and a supportive community environment for families to adequately care for their children, given that the most important protective systems for young children are embedded in the family. The resilience of a child depends a great deal on the resilience of other systems that support the child. Cultural practices and traditions can also help children recover after experiencing adversity from conflict, which include reintegrating and reuniting children with their community, inclusive of forgiveness.

Masten stated that while there is not enough intervention research on what works best for children in different kinds of conflict situations, there is a growing body of work focusing on understanding the connections among the resilience exhibited between the individual child and his

or her family, community, and society as systems. She credited these new areas of research with better alignment among these systems that intersect around the child. Investments in children’s development, including the tools and supports they need to develop into healthy and thriving individuals, also promote the resilience of future societies. While Masten recognized a significant amount of emerging research on children living in conflict, she also offered three actionable guidelines for improved practices:

1. Define the role of first responders, including those beyond emergency personnel such as educators and parents.
2. Restore a sense of normalcy for children and for families.
3. Promote an environment for healthy development, but do so recognizing behavioral barriers, including discrimination, inequality, and recruitment into violence.

To conclude, Masten referred to a recurring area of interest to the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally, which is the importance of investing in young children so they can thrive throughout their life course. She stated that the resilience literature suggests that children having access to the tools and supportive context that they need to develop into healthy and thriving individuals will also promote resilience. Masten indicated that investments in a child’s capacity for adapting in the future are also investments in the resilience of societies.

CHILDREN, VIOLENCE, AND WAR

Larry Aber, the Willner Family Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at New York University in the United States, communicated key messages from his research on children in war, which he argued drew parallels to contemporary research informing action. He took workshop participants through his findings to illustrate the complexity of violence and outcomes for individuals and populations. Aber explained that violence can exist at five levels:

1. country
2. region
3. community
4. family
5. intimate relationships

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that certain forms of violence potentiate other forms of violence across the five levels.

Aber and colleagues developed the War-Related Trauma Questionnaire that contains 45 instances of violence and other traumatic war-related events to which children could be susceptible. Administering the questionnaire to children in Lebanon during the 1980s amid a civil war revealed four predominant patterns that represented children’s experiences in conflict: (1) children were directly affected by conflict, (2) children experienced loss as a result of the conflict, (3) children’s passive involvement in (witnessing) in conflict (Macksoud and Aber, 1996), and (4) children being extricated from conflict (see Figure 3-3).

The four patterns revealed associations between children’s level of exposure to war-related trauma and their development outcomes. For instance, the more direct a child’s level of violence exposure, the higher number of PTSD symptoms the child exhibited. Aber pointed out what he deemed the more interesting and unexpected findings: the more children were separated from their parents, the more prosocial they became. Similarly with loss, the more experiences of displacement a child was susceptible to, the less children deliberately plan in their daily lives. To Aber and his colleagues, this suggests that children were developing adaptive responses to their experience of war across mental health and psychosocial domains.

Aber articulated that violence necessitates an understanding across the continuum of what an individual experiences. He also stated that there is a need to target interventions to the spectrum of reactions. Echoing Masten, Aber called for buttressing children against adversity by improving the contextual environment in which they live. He called for interventions that support the return to normalcy for children. Aber suggested that safe places begin at the family level where parenting occurs, and they extend into communities for women, children, and other populations vulnerable to the effects of conflict. These safe spaces become one of the core elements to restoring a path toward normalcy as society evolves into a postconflict state. Aber also explored how additional social protection measures—particularly across economic and food security domains—all contribute to restoring family and community routines.

Aber emphasized that developing peaceful societies first necessitates recognizing the complexity of violence in children’s lives, and second, engaging this complexity in intervention strategies. To do so he suggested developing short-term targeted mental health and parenting interventions that can be delivered by lay community health workers by taking the common elements of both types of interventions and cross-culturally adapting them to specific contexts. Doing so shifts the task of interventions being provided by highly educated professionals, which may be in short supply particularly in a conflict or postconflict setting, to interventions being provided by lay or community health workers who have adequate training and supervision. This approach, taken in coordination with reimagined relationships between NGOs, government service providers, and the research community, will better align research with service provision, which Aber maintained would have direct and practical implications on the ground.

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