Working with Children in Conflict: A Skills-building Workshop

Summary: The workshop is designed for
individuals working on projects
dealing with children living in conflict
zones, to increase their capacity to
implement
child rights based programming, with
a focus on psychosocial issues. Half of
the participants will be from CIDA
and half will be from the NGO
community.
“Working with Children in Conflict: A Skills-building Workshop”,
organized by the Children and Armed Conflict Working Group of
the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC-CAC)
and the Gender Equality and Child Protection Division of CIDA’s
Policy Branch, with funding provided by CIDA.

The two and a half day Workshop will take place in Ottawa on
January 10th and 11th, with Saturday morning January 12th,
2002 reserved for a meeting of the 20 NGO participants. The
Workshop will be held at the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC), 14th floor, 250 Albert St., Ottawa, Ontario. This
space has been generously donated by IDRC.

The workshop is designed for individuals working on projects
dealing with children living in conflict zones, to increase their
capacity to implement child rights based programming, with a
focus on psychosocial issues. Half of the participants will be from
CIDA and half will be from the NGO community. The workshop
leaders are Jo Boyden, of the Refugee Studies Centre at the
University of Oxford, U.K. and Mike Wessells, of the Christian
Children’s Fund and Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, U.S.A.
(See bios below) They will create a learning environment that is
interactive and participatory, with some problem solving activities.

Space is limited and pre-registration is essential. Registration will
be on a first-come, first-served basis, starting with one
representative per organization, allowing additional participants
from larger organizations, if space permits. The workshop is free
and lunch and health breaks will be provided, but there are no
travel funds available. An agenda will be provided to participants
before the workshop.

If you wish accommodation in a centrally located hotel, we
recommend the Howard Johnson Hotel (formerly the Hotel
Roxborough) located at 123 Metcalfe Street at the corner of
Laurier Ave. West. Contact them at (613) 237-9300 or at
reservations@hotelroxborough.com. A single room with hot
breakfast is $79, plus tax.

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Working With Children in Conflict: A Skills-Building Workshop
January 10, 11 and 12, 2002
Ottawa, Canada

REGISTRATION FORM

Please fill in the following registration form and send it to the
workshop
coordinator, Robin Wentzell at the following e-mail address:
wenfal@magma.ca

Name:

Position Title:

Organization:

Mailing Address:

Telephone:

Fax:

Email:

I will be able to attend the Saturday a.m. NGO session:

________(Yes) or ________(No)

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Working with Children in Conflict: A Skills-Building Workshop
January 10, 11, and 12, 2002
Ottawa, Canada

BRIEF BIOS OF THE PRESENTERS

JO BOYDEN

Jo Boyden was trained as a social anthropologist and worked for
20 years as a consultant to a variety of national and international
agencies, undertaking applied research, advocacy, policy and
programme development, and monitoring and evaluation in the
field of child protection. At present she is a researcher at the
Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, where she runs a
programme on war-affected and displaced children.

Her publications and written works on the topic of children in
conflict include:

Boyden, J. and Gillian Mann “Resilience, Vulnerability and Coping in
Children Affected by Extreme Adversity”,
http://www.childreninadversity.org/DocumentCentre.html#Backgr
oundDocuments

Boyden J. (2000) Conducting Research with War-affected and
Displaced Children: Ethics and Methods, Cultural Survival
Quarterly, June edition.

Boyden, J. (2000) Children and Social Healing, DESTIN working
paper, London School of Economics and Political Science, May.

Boyden, J and Gibbs, S. (1997) “Children of War: responses to
psycho-social distress in Cambodia”, The United Nations Research
Institute for Social Development, Geneva.

“Children’s Experience of Conflict Related Emergencies: Some
Implications for Relief Policy and Practice”, Disasters, vol. 18, No.
3 1994

MIKE WESSELLS

Michael Wessells received his Ph.D. in psychology in 1974 from the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is Professor of
Psychology at Randolph-Macon College, where he teaches
courses on dynamics of conflict, youth violence, psychological
dimensions of peace and international security. He is Associate
Editor of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology and
recently edited an issue on the U. N. Study Impact of Armed
Conflict on Children, for which he was a consultant. Author of
three books and over fifty articles and chapters, he currently
conducts research on the psychology of humanitarian assistance,
post-conflict reconstruction, and the reintegration of former child
soldiers.

For Christian Children’s Fund, an international non-governmental
agency, he serves as Senior Technical Advisor. In Albania,
Angola, Colombia, East Timor, Kosova, Senegal, Sierra Leone,
South Africa, Uganda, Guatemala and Honduras, he collaborates
with programs for assisting war-affected children and families.
His community-based work emphasizes the value of blending
traditional and Western modes of healing and of integrating
psychosocial assistance into holistic approaches. In partnership
with national teams, he assists in planning, program
development, evaluation, and integration of work on healing with
work on nonviolent conflict resolution and education for peace.

He has served as co-Chair of the Ethnopolitical Warfare Initiative
of the American Psychological Association and the Canadian
Psychological Association and as President of Psychologists for
Social Responsibility. He was a founder and President of the
Division of Peace Psychology of the American Psychological
Association. He has served as Chair of the Committee for the
Psychological Study of Peace of the International Union of
Psychological Science, under whose auspices he recently helped
organize two workshops in South Africa on "Youth, Political
Violence, and Conflict Resolution in Southern Africa." He is a
member of the Mellon Foundation Core Group on Psychosocial
Programs for Refugees and the Global Research Network on
Children and Armed Conflict. He served as part of a Presidentially-
initiated delegation to Kosova to assess psychosocial needs and
advise on work toward reconciliation. He works extensively with
governmental and intergovernmental agencies on issues of war-
affected children and the emotional and social integration.
Association: CPCC-CAC and the Gender Equality and Child Protection Division of CIDA Policy Branch

Countries

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