• Attachment - The importance of a positive significant relationship between child and carer within the first few years of life.

 

• Attunement - The result of a 10 year research project by the Wave Trust, indicating that the lack of a significant relationship between a child and carer in the first two years of life causes an emotional trigger for violence to develop.

 

• Brain Development - the impact of oppression/oppressing on physical brain growth. • Reparenting/Empowerment - do vulnerable children need a re-parenting experience or empowering? Perhaps both?

 

• Person-centred – do people have an innate sense of purpose or is it a taught/learned quality? • Psychodynamic - early childhood being the source of all adult difficulties.

 

• Cognitive Behavioural - changing thinking will change behaviour. How can these be applied to the self and taken forward in new directions?

 

• Gender Continuum – Turning the conventional hierarchical model on its side in order to facilitate learning - The impact of oppression, Patriarchy.

 

• Cultural Identity Theory – Racism, acknowledging the impact of oppression & oppressing on individuals and groups and working actively to transform these. This process is crucial in facilitating the development of identity as opposed to the more superficial ‘image’.

 

• Gang Culture – What would influence a young person to become either a Child Soldier or a Peer Activist?

 

• Language – labelling, connected to identity, ‘Children/Youths’.

 

• Education/Learning Styles – Building learning capacity through appropriate curriculum and personalised learning. The use of concepts such as ‘multiple intelligences’.

 

• Community Education - Capacity building for voluntary/community groups and individuals. e.g. Peer Activists, Roma Assistant Teachers.

 

• Partnership/Networking – The transition from collaboration to Integration.

 

• Individualism / Collectivism – Depending on the cultural background of the client, this concept could have a critical effect on the value of any interventions offered. Are we striving for independence or inter-dependence?

 

• Iceberg of Professional Practice – Most of the reflection on professional practice that occurs centres on the visible or ‘waterline’ aspects, as opposed to the hidden, ‘below the waterline’ impacts of oppression, which would be more useful in facilitating professional and personal development.

 

• Zero Sum / Non-Zero Sum – Qualities such as ‘love’ and ‘care’ are not finite resources; if focused on a particular client, it does not mean that there is necessarily less for another.