Climbing out of crime: An outdoor activity framework for rehabilitating insecure family attachments.

摆脱犯罪：恢复不安全的家庭依恋的户外活动框架。

• 批准号: ES/Y007573/1
• 负责人: Marley Willegers
• 金额: $ 11.74万
• 依托单位: Bangor University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FY007573%2F1
• 关键词: Climbing; out; crime; outdoor; activity

My PhD research explored how risk-taking in an outdoor activity setting can help people manage challenging emotions. Firstly, our research highlighted that participating in socially accepted forms of risk-taking activities, such as rock climbing, can improve participants' sense of emotional control in daily life for up to 6 weeks (Willegers et al., 2023). Secondly, we expanded Bowlby's Theory of Social Attachment (1969) and found that people who feel emotionally unsupported participate in sporting activities to address the associated emotion difficulty. The originality of our work lies in bringing together positive risk-taking and social attachment as a pathway for rehabilitating untrusting and unsupportive family relationships away from antisocial risk-taking. 80% of prolific adult offenders began committing crimes as children. The estimated cost of late intervention to the UK economy is approximately £17 billion per year (Fraser & Atkins, 2022). Fifty years of research shows that troubled parent-child relationships can push young people towards harmful risk-taking activities as a means of coping, such as self-harm, violence, and substance abuse (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). Our research aims to provide struggling families in Britain with the necessary social and self-regulatory skills to become productive members of society, interrupting a downward spiral and reducing public costs.The aim of the current fellowship is to develop pathways to help young people change their risk-taking course from negative (for the self and for society) to positive, by allowing them to take risks in a supportive and developmental environment. Adventure activities provide an ideal environment for nurturing a co-dependence between parent and child (i.e., secure attachment), by promoting supportive behaviour in response to risk. Managing these risks will improve parents' and children's self-esteem by learning how to control their emotions and seek social support in ways that are not accessible elsewhere in their lives (Barlow et al., 2013). Importantly, these benefits can transfer to daily life, improving family's ability to support each other's emotional needs as a result of engaging in adventure activities (Willegers et al., 2023; Woodman et al., 2020). Taking climbing as an example, the rope connecting both parent and child acts as a physical example of an attachment. This (rope) attachment, from the child's perspective, represents a clear dependence on the caregiver/parent to help manage fear and to ensure safety. The parent provides physical security and emotional reassurance to the child by applying tension to the rope and oral reassurance. In doing so, the nature of the climbing environment exercises a clear co-dependence in which the child places trust in the parent who simultaneously fulfills the child's attachment needs for security. Transferring these experiences to other domains in the parent-child dyad results in the parent feeling able to fulfil the child's needs for security, and the child trusting the parent in times of distress. The dissemination of my PhD findings and innovative responses to costly societal problems has been welcomed by Conwy Council, Family Centres, Outdoor Industry, Youth Justice System, Youth services, and Education Services. As such, all our partners have offered their services in support in disseminating my research and writing completing grant proposals for the aforementioned research (see letters of support in attachments). Our partners and I aim to demonstrate that, nurtured properly, risk can be used to steer struggling families away from antisocial risk-taking and towards supportive relationships. In other words, we aim to develop our understanding into powerful and feasible interventions that have real economic and societal benefits by improving struggling parent-child relationships in the UK and globally. This ESRC doctoral fellowship is a fundamental steppingstone for bringing this potential to

我的博士研究探讨了户外活动中的冒险行为如何帮助人们管理具有挑战性的情绪。首先，我们的研究强调，参加社会认可的冒险活动，如攀岩，可以提高参与者在日常生活中的情绪控制感，持续时间长达6周（Willegers et al., 2023）。其次，我们扩展了Bowlby的社会依恋理论（1969），发现情感上不被支持的人参与体育活动是为了解决相关的情感困难。我们工作的独创性在于将积极的冒险和社会依恋结合起来，作为恢复不信任和不支持的家庭关系的途径，使其远离反社会的冒险。80%的成年罪犯从小就开始犯罪。后期干预对英国经济的估计成本约为每年170亿英镑（弗雷泽和阿特金斯，2022年）。50年的研究表明，陷入困境的亲子关系可能会促使年轻人采取有害的冒险活动作为应对手段，如自残、暴力和药物滥用（Boccio & Beaver, 2019）。我们的研究旨在为英国挣扎中的家庭提供必要的社会和自我调节技能，使其成为社会的生产性成员，从而中断恶性循环，降低公共成本。当前奖学金的目的是发展途径，通过允许年轻人在一个支持性和发展性的环境中冒险，帮助他们将冒险行为从消极（对自己和对社会）转变为积极。冒险活动通过促进对风险的支持行为，为培养父母和孩子之间的相互依赖（即安全依恋）提供了理想的环境。管理这些风险将通过学习如何控制自己的情绪和以在生活中其他地方无法获得的方式寻求社会支持来提高父母和孩子的自尊（Barlow et al., 2013）。重要的是，这些好处可以转移到日常生活中，通过参与冒险活动，提高家庭支持彼此情感需求的能力（Willegers等人，2023；Woodman等人，2020）。以攀爬为例，连接父母和孩子的绳子作为依恋的物理例子。从孩子的角度来看，这种（绳子）依恋代表了对照顾者/父母帮助控制恐惧和确保安全的明显依赖。父母通过拉紧绳子和口头安慰，为孩子提供身体上的安全和情感上的保证。在这样做的过程中，攀爬环境的本质锻炼了一种明确的共同依赖，在这种环境中，孩子信任父母，父母同时满足了孩子对安全的依恋需求。将这些经历转移到亲子关系的其他领域，会使父母感到能够满足孩子对安全的需求，而孩子在痛苦时也会信任父母。我的博士研究成果和对代价高昂的社会问题的创新回应得到了康威理事会、家庭中心、户外产业、青年司法系统、青年服务和教育服务的欢迎。因此，我们所有的合作伙伴都提供了他们的服务，支持我的研究传播，并为上述研究撰写完整的资助提案（见附件中的支持信）。我们的合作伙伴和我的目标是证明，如果培养得当，风险可以用来引导挣扎中的家庭远离反社会的冒险行为，转向支持的关系。换句话说，我们的目标是通过改善英国和全球挣扎的亲子关系，将我们的理解发展成强大而可行的干预措施，具有真正的经济和社会效益。这个ESRC博士奖学金是一个基本的垫脚石，以实现这一潜力