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A Child Standpoint on Issues of Safety in Public Places in Diverse Urban Localities in Eastern Australia

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Handbook of Children’s Risk, Vulnerability and Quality of Life

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

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Abstract

The Children, Communities and Social Capital in Australia research project used rights-based, participatory methods to understand from a child-standpoint what makes strong and supportive communities. The research, carried out in six communities in eastern Australia, involved over one hundred children aged between seven and twelve years. A key finding, explored in this chapter, is that children place great value on feeling safe within their communities, and yet the majority of children who participated in this research described feeling unsafe and vulnerable. Notably, the level of safety and risk described by children varied with socio-economic profiles across the six communities in which the research was conducted.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This research was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant LP0991064, and undertaken in partnership with NAPCAN and the Benevolent Society.

  2. 2.

    The research with children was undertaken by Sharon Bessell, Tahira Jabeen, Hannah McInness and Yu Wei Neo.

  3. 3.

    More details of our methodology and methods are available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283276853_Putting_the_Pieces_in_Place_Children_Communities_and_Social_Capital_in_Australia

  4. 4.

    Our partners in this research were the Benevolent Society and NAPCAN. The Benevolent Society is a not-for-profit, non-religious organisation, which provides services and support to people with disability, children, families, older Australians, and carers. NAPCAN. More information is at https://www.benevolent.org.au. NAPCAN is Australia’s National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect; it aims to prevent child abuse and neglect and to create safer communities for children. More information is at https://www.napcan.org.au/

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Sharon Bessell

  2. School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

    Jan Mason

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  1. Sharon Bessell
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Correspondence to Jan Mason .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Educational Processes & Social Context (Labo-PECS), Université d’Oran 2, Oran, Algeria

    Habib Tiliouine

  2. UNICOM, School of Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Denise Benatuil

  3. School of Graduate Studies / Institute of Policy Studies, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

    Maggie K. W. Lau

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Bessell, S., Mason, J. (2022). A Child Standpoint on Issues of Safety in Public Places in Diverse Urban Localities in Eastern Australia. In: Tiliouine, H., Benatuil, D., Lau, M.K.W. (eds) Handbook of Children’s Risk, Vulnerability and Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01783-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01783-4_9

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