Community Participation and Child Rights: An Ethical and Scientific Analysis

该项目与社区服务提供者和儿童倡导者进行为期一年的积极接触，以制定一个进程，评估儿童权利新概念和新生物医学技术对评估儿童压力的道德影响。 学术目标是记录一个过程，其他科学团体可以用来与社区和公共团体就有争议的科学干预措施进行合作。 社会目标是加强学术界和民间社会在制定涉及科学和技术的公共政策和做法方面进行合作的社区基础。 该项目通过与一个儿童服务/宣传组织的工作人员和家长举行一系列会议来进行，这些会议将：（a）通过书面材料和讨论，围绕指导其服务的设计和评价以及指导调查人员的学术和研究活动的道德问题和框架，交流信息和观点; B）讨论和辩论儿童权利方法的潜在风险和益处及其与皮质醇测量作为评估儿童压力的战略的关系，以及c）讨论和辩论使用这种技术来发现发育压力的早期迹象，以监测社会服务的有效性，并评估机构护理环境的适当性。 该项目将对八个月对话期间涉及这些问题的书面材料和讨论进行存档。 目标是试图就有关概念框架、研究方法、服务设计和评价的伦理问题达成共识，以评估这一特殊情况下以及更普遍情况下处境不利儿童的压力。 研究小组，实验心理学家，伦理学家和医生将合作学术出版物，为服务机构，倡导团体和学者之间的信息交流提供指导方针，他们共同致力于改善弱势儿童的福祉。

This project undertakes a one-year active engagement with community-based service providers and child advocates to structure a process by which to evaluate the ethical implications of new concepts of child rights and new biomedical technologies for evaluating stress in children. The academic goal is to document a process that other scientific groups can use to work with communities and public groups on controversial scientific interventions. The societal goal is to enhance the community basis for the collaboration of academia and civil society in generating public policy and practice involving science and technology. The project proceeds by a series of meetings with staff and parents of a child service/advocacy organization that will: a) exchange information and points of view, through both written materials and discussions, around the ethical concerns and frameworks that guide the design and evaluation of their services and those guiding the scholarship and research activities of the investigators; b) discuss and debate potential risks and benefits of the child rights approach and its relationship to cortisol measurements as a strategy to assess stress in children, and c) discuss and debate use of this technique to detect early signs of developmental stress, to monitor the effectiveness of social services, and to evaluate the appropriateness of institutional care settings. The project will archive written material and document discussion covering these issues over the eight months of dialogue. The goal is to attempt to develop a consensus on ethical issues relating to conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, service design and evaluation to assess stress in disadvantaged children in this particular situation as well as more universally. The research team, an experimental psychologist, an ethicist, and a physician will collaborate on scholarly publications to provide guidelines for the exchange of information between service agencies, advocacy groups and academics who share a commitment to improving the well-being of disadvantaged children.