Youth Family Caregivers and the Geography of Childhood

这个项目调查了18岁以下青年照顾者的童年地理。在美国，每天有140多万名青年照顾者为患有慢性病、残疾或其他需要帮助、监督或支持的健康问题的家庭成员提供支持。青少年照顾者经常承担做饭和打扫卫生等责任。他们还可以支持日常生活的基本活动，如协助行动、穿衣、喂食和服药。像成人照顾者一样，青年照顾者会遇到各种各样的社会、文化和地理或空间影响，这些影响因他们向所爱的人提供的护理的类型和强度而不同。然而，与成人照顾者不同的是，美国的年轻人往往不会因为他们提供的护理而得到认可。此外，很少有公共项目为他们的不同需求提供支持。随着美国人口老龄化和付费护理人员短缺，家庭照顾者面临的压力越来越大，年轻人可能会在为家庭成员提供支持、安慰和帮助方面发挥更大的作用。这项研究的结果将广泛传播给研究人员、社会服务提供者和教育专业人员，并对青年照顾者的健康和福祉产生影响。此外，调查员和一名研究生将直接与青年照顾者合作，支持创建参与式数字照看项目，为与数字设计和生产、技术使用和科学交流相关的STEM教育创造机会。该项目将有助于了解青年照料如何影响儿童的地理位置。该项目将集中于三个关键目标：1)了解青年照顾者认可度和身份之间的关系；2)探索青年照看如何影响儿童对时间、空间、规模和地点的感知；3)确定如何更好地将青年照看纳入美国未来的家庭照看研究和政策。青少年照顾者将参加口述历史和一项“关怀地图”练习，以分析照看身份和童年地理位置之间的关系。对项目文件的分析以及与青年照顾者的参与性数字项目将提供有关承认和照顾者身份的更多信息。这项研究将在接受关爱青年项目支持的年轻人中进行，该项目是一个非营利性组织，与学区合作，为佛罗里达州棕榈滩县的青年照顾者提供服务。尽管这项工作仅限于美国的一个地理区域，但这些发现与理解这一在很大程度上隐蔽的人群的家庭护理经历有关。这项研究开发的理论和方法将为儿童地理研究提供新的见解和方法。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines the childhood geographies of youth caregivers under the age of 18 years old. Every day in the United States, more than 1.4 million youth caregivers support family members who have a chronic illness, disability, or other health issue that requires help, supervision or support. Youth caregivers often assume responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning. They may also support basic activities of daily living such as assisting in mobility, dressing, feeding, and administering medication. Like adult caregivers, youth caregivers encounter a diversity of social, cultural, and geographic or spatial impacts which vary according to the type and intensity of care they provide to a loved one. However, unlike adult caregivers, youth in the United States tend not to be recognized for the care that they provide. Furthermore, there are few public programs that provide support for their distinct needs. As pressure upon family caregivers intensifies in the U.S. with the aging of the population and projected shortages of paid care workers, young people are likely to play a larger role in providing support, comfort, and assistance to family members. Results from this research will be widely disseminated to researchers, social service providers and educational professionals, with implications for youth caregiver health and wellbeing. Additionally, the investigator and a graduate student will work directly with youth caregivers to support the creation of a participatory digital caregiving project, creating opportunities for STEM education related to digital design and production, technology use, and science communication. This project will contribute to understanding how youth caregiving impacts childhood geographies. The project will focus on three key objectives: 1) to understand the relationship between youth caregiver recognition and identity; 2) to explore how youth caregiving impacts childhood perceptions of time, space, scale, and place; and, 3) to identify ways to better incorporate youth caregiving into future research and policies of family caregiving in the United States. Youth caregivers will participate in oral histories and a "care mapping" exercise to analyze the relationship between caregiving identity and childhood geographies. Analysis of project documents, and participatory digital projects with youth caregivers will provide additional information about recognition and caregiver identity. The research will take place with young people who receive support from the Caregiving Youth Project, a nonprofit organization that works with school districts to provide services to youth caregivers in Palm Beach County, Florida. Though the work is limited to one geographic area in the United States, the findings are relevant to understanding the experiences of family caregiving by this largely hidden population. The theories and methodologies developed in this research will provide new insights and approaches to research on childhood geographies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.