Montserrat Fargas-Malet- PhD
- Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast
Montserrat Fargas-Malet
- PhD
- Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast
Currently working on a project with children & young people on their views & experiences of dis/respect. Many interests.
About
38
Publications
29,541
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
957
Citations
Introduction
I have been conducting social science research in Queen's University Belfast since 2005. With a team of colleagues, I am currently working in a project, which works directly with children and young people to understand and theorise respect and disrespect. However, over the years, I have worked in a range of other areas, including adoption, foster and kinship care, leaving care, trauma informed approaches, small rural schools, and the social impact of conflict.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (38)
Research focused on relationships and contact with birth family for children and young people who were separated from them as infants has rarely acknowledged the emotional and dynamic nature of such interactions. Curiosity has been dominant in adoption research. However, in our longitudinal study of young people who entered care at a young age, a r...
Small rural schools in many countries have historically been viewed as less desirable than their larger urban counterparts, being treated less favourably in the policy arena and facing a risk of closure or amalgamation. Within Europe, they have been the focus of a range of research studies and have been defined in different ways, based mostly on th...
Previous studies suggest that small rural schools experience a range of challenges relating to their size, financial difficulties and geographical isolation, as well as potential opportunities relating to their position within their communities. In Northern Ireland, these schools are situated within the comparatively rare context of a religiously d...
As neo-liberal, economic and political fields increasingly contam-inate the field of education, so a (re) contextualised understanding of the manifold and shifting social space small rural primary school principals occupy is of central importance to understanding prac-tice. An understanding especially germane to a post-conflict divided and segregat...
Small rural schools have often been characterised as being at the heart of their communities. However, there is no clarity on what that means nor on the perceived meaning of 'community' within this context. The findings of the Small School Rural Community Study focused on the relationship between small rural schools and the communities they serve w...
Across Europe, the surge and prevalence of neoliberal and metro-centric education policies have resulted in the threat of closure surfacing as a major challenge facing many small rural schools (Fargas-Malet and Bagley, 2022a). In exploring the implications of this phenomenon, the chapter draws on key aspects of findings from a three-year mixed-meth...
Analysis of public attitude and experience data - NI Lift and Times
This qualitative meta-synthesis collects and analyses the multiple and many-faceted understandings, experiences, practices, and school to community or individual relationships described in qualitative research on rural education and schooling in three European national contexts (Sweden, Northern Ireland, and Spain). Our aim was to generate and pres...
Conflict legacy; transgenerational legacies; divided space; violence and paramilitarism; transgenerational trauma; social and economic legacies
This project aimed to explore the potential of formal youth mentoring as an effective, scalable approach to interrupting intergenerational transmission of disadvantage by enabling social and economic inclusion for young people leaving alternative care in South Africa. We sought the perspectives of those involved in one such formal mentoring program...
Background: Assessments under mental health law, to determine whether compulsory admission is necessary, tend to be complex, multidisciplinary and inter-agency processes. This article presents the results of a regional audit of assessments under the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986.
Aims: The aims of the audit were to examine routine pra...
Care planning for children who enter care can be influenced by a range of factors. In Northern Ireland, there are differences in the proportions of children in different types of placements across the five Health and Social Care Trusts (equivalent to local authorities in England and Wales). The aim of the study was to identify the reasons for these...
Placement stability is sought for children who enter care and need a place to call home. This is deemed to be necessary for the formation and continuation of secure and loving relationships with parents and carers. However, the term placement stability does not capture the quality of the placement or the subjective experience of the young person. I...
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (Goodman, 1997) is a brief behav-ioural screening questionnaire for three-to sixteen-year-olds. It is commonly used in clinical practice and research, particularly in the UK, and is completed by parents, carers and teachers. The measure was utilised in a cross-sectional phase of a longitudinal stud...
Largely as a result of early adverse experiences, children and young people in care are more likely to suffer from mental health difficulties than their peers. Despite these difficulties, they tend to find it hard to seek help and engage with professional services to address their needs. In Northern Ireland, the Mind Your Health study collected dat...
In 2014, an article written by Dr Frank Ainsworth and Patricia Hansen was published in Children Australia entitled ‘Family foster care: Can it survive the evidence?’ The basic premise of the article was that evidence indicates family foster care either doesn't change the likelihood of positive outcomes for children, or makes it more difficult for p...
This paper presents findings from the third phase of a longitudinal study, entitled Care Pathways and Outcomes, which has been tracking the placements and measuring outcomes for a population of children (n = 374) who were under the age of five and in care in Northern Ireland on the 31st March 2000. It explores how a sub-sample of these children at...
Compared to children in other placements, there is much less known about the characteristics and needs of children in the UK who are returned to their birth parents with a care order still in place. That is in spite of evidence to suggest they face more difficulties than young people in other placements. Based on a 2009 census of looked after child...
Intergenerational transmission of trauma describes the impact that traumatic events experienced by one generation have for the subsequent generation. In Northern Ireland, violent conflict raged between 1969 and 1998, when a peace process begun. This study explored to what extent (if any) parents’ experiences of the conflict influenced how children...
This report reviews the physical and mental health of a large sample of Looked After children and young people in Northern Ireland in 2013/14. It makes a series of recommendations on how the system can be improved to ensure that difficulties are detected as early as possible, and that resources are applied to address these.
This report describes a cross-sectional study, funded by the Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency (PHA), focusing on children who live / have lived with their birth parents subject to a Care Order in Northern Ireland; and reports on its findings. The study explored the processes, background information, and perceived reason...
In societies emerging from conflict/war, sustained occurrence of violence appears to be a common feature. In Northern Ireland, while incidents of violent deaths and injuries specifically related to the political conflict have decreased dramatically since 1998, regular riots and paramilitary activity confirm continuing division and conflict. The stu...
This is one of a series of articles reporting on the largescale Northern Ireland care pathways and outcomes study (McSherry et al, 2008). The study has been examining a population of young children (n = 374) who were in care under five years of age in Northern Ireland and followed up across a four-year period (2000-2004). It has mapped these young...
In the past few decades, a growing body of literature examining children’s perspectives on their own lives has developed within a variety of disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology and geography. This article provides a brief up-to-date examination of methodological and ethical issues that researchers may need to consider when desi...
While a wide range of literature exists on the experiences of children in foster care or adoption, much less is known about children who return home from care to their birth parents. This paper focuses on the perspectives of a small sample of birth parents of young children who returned home from care. It draws on findings from the Northern Ireland...
While there is some debate about what should be considered submissible evidence, there is no doubt that evidence-based practice has become accepted as a benchmark for service delivery in almost all areas of social work. This is not yet the case in the voluntary sector. Yet, social workers and service users rely heavily on voluntary sector services....
The study of long-term effects of political violence generally concentrates on effects of a single event or period of violence on individuals or groups of individuals and commonly relies on recollections from those who experienced violence a long time after the event. Against the backdrop of Northern Ireland's Troubles, in this article we use narra...
• Summary: In this article we explore the extent of services offered by voluntary community groups in Northern Ireland 10 years after the ceasefires.
• Findings: People who have been exposed to community violence and related traumatic life-events often require help in coping with the effects of these experiences. While many people rely on family an...
Much has been said about the specific psychological, physical, social, and cultural consequences of years of violent conflict and war, however little is known about the effects of post-ceasefire violence. In this paper, we take the individual case as unit of analysis and consider how two women cope with post-ceasefire violence in Northern Ireland....
Politically motivated violence has been a hallmark of life in Northern Ireland for the past 37 years. Despite the ceasefires in 1994 to 1995, violent incidents remain a relatively common occurrence. A range of community-based services developed to help people cope. In this article, the psychological health of people who use these services is assess...
The idea for the PAVE (People Affected by ViolencE) project was born over
20 years ago, when I conducted the first study of violently bereaved widows
in Northern Ireland in the mid-1980s. These women had lost their husbands in
horrendous circumstances as a direct result of the Troubles. While the study showed
the magnitude and longevity of the suff...
Trauma, bereavement, and loss are universal human experiences. Much has been written about the process that the bereaved go through following the loss of a loved one. Recent events such as 9/11,earthquakes in Turkey, genocides in Rwanda, community conflict in Northern Ireland, and the Asian Tsunami Disaster have drawn unprecedented public attention...
Bereavement responses and outcomes depend on multiple factors, such as circumstances of the death, the relationship with the deceased, individual characteristics, social context, and cultural factors. Responses to natural death differ from those following traumatic death. Death of a child or spouse is most difficult, while age mitigates coping. Soc...
