Pathways to Reconciliation: Investigating the impact of ES.PE.RE (Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation) on psychological and social well being

该项目调查ES.PE.RE对哥伦比亚冲突受害者的心理和社会福祉的影响，ES.PE.RE是宽容与和解学校的第三部门方案。更具体地说，它研究这些宽恕与和解学校是否以及如何改善心理健康、社会资本和积极的生活轨迹，所有这些都是稳定几乎没有受到武装冲突打击的社区的核心。宽恕与和解在饱受内战蹂躏的国家的重建中发挥着核心作用。尽管很难实现，但它们是帮助处于脆弱境地的人走出令人衰弱的境地的关键社会和心理过程。抑郁、情绪失控、愤怒情绪和复仇情绪是暴力创伤事件和正义经验受到冒犯的常见结果。总而言之，它们导致了恢复正常生计的强大障碍。最近关于创伤性事件后果的研究表明，政治暴力造成的精神健康下降会导致社会资本的损失和重新参与社区和生产性生活的能力下降。个人遭受的痛苦与社会对涉案者的负面陈述和刻板印象交织在一起，损害了生活轨迹和更广泛的社会凝聚力。这反过来阻碍了个人、社会和经济发展，其影响远远超出受冲突影响最严重的地区。在这个项目中，我们试图评估参加ES.PE.Re(宽恕与和解学校)是否会导致心理和社会福祉的可衡量的持续改善，其定义是在心理健康、社会资本和选择令人满意的生活轨迹方面的改善。我们对人类发展和福祉采取临床社会文化方法，将个人、社区和社会层面的分析结合起来。我们的目标是调查暴力的有害后果以及如何对这些后果作出积极反应。我们将在哥伦比亚政府优先考虑的五个城市开展工作，因为冲突期间发生了严重的暴力事件。每个社区位于该国的不同地区，所有社区都在为和解而苦苦挣扎。在这些市镇中的每一个都将举办两所宽恕与和解学校，每个学校有25名不同年龄段的学员，年龄分别为16-25岁和25岁以上。参与者将在四个不同的时间点接受心理健康、社会资本和人生轨迹选择的量化测量：在SFRS之前和之后，分别进行三个月和九个月的跟踪调查。还将对宽恕与和解进行衡量，以确定宽恕与和解的意愿、干预的结果及其对心理和社会福祉的调解作用。定性访谈协议将探索自我、社区、社会对参与冲突的人的态度以及潜在的未来的第一人称视角和叙述。到目前为止，ES.PE.RE讲习班已经在哥伦比亚广泛举办；然而，我们仍然需要更多地了解干预的结果，以及这些结果如何随着时间的推移而持续下去。系统证据对于支持这些倡议和制定政策，为受武装冲突影响的个人和社区创造积极的未来具有决定性作用。该项目通过将证据系统化，产生知识交流和影响，并为心理健康、社会资本和人类发展领域的循证政策制定提供信息，为这些目标作出贡献。

This project investigates the impact of ES.PE.RE, a third-sector programme of schools for forgiveness and reconciliation, on the psychological and social wellbeing of victims of the Colombian conflict. More specifically, it studies if and how these Schools for Forgiveness and Reconciliation improve mental health, social capital, and positive life tracks, all of which central to stabilising communities hardly hit by armed conflict.Forgiveness and reconciliation have a central role in the reconstruction of civil-war-torn countries. Although difficult to realise, they are key social and psychological processes for aiding people who have been placed in a vulnerable situation move past their debilitating circumstances. Depression, loss of emotional control, feelings of rage and vengeance are frequent outcomes of violent traumatic events and experiences of justice having been offended. In combination, they result in powerful barriers to return to a functional livelihood. Recent research on the consequences of traumatic events shows that diminished mental health as an outcome of political violence translates into a loss of social capital and decreased capacity to re-join communal and productive living. Individual suffering intersects with societal negative representations and stereotypical social attitudes towards those involved, compromising both life trajectories and wider social cohesion. This in turn obstructs individual, social and economic development, with ramifications that go well beyond the locales most affected by conflict. In this project, we seek to assess if participation in ES.PE.Re (Schools for Forgiveness and Reconciliation) results in measurable sustained improvements in psychological and social well being, defined as improvements in the areas of mental health, social capital and choosing a fulfilling life-track. We adopt a clinical socio-cultural approach to human development and wellbeing that combines the individual, community and societal levels of analysis. We aim to investigate both the detrimental consequences of violence and how to forge positive responses to these consequences. We will work in five municipalities prioritised by the Colombian government for the high levels of violence experienced during the conflict. Each community is located in a different region of the country and all have been struggling with reconciliation. In each one of these municipalities, two Schools for Forgiveness and Reconciliation will take place, each comprising twenty-five participants of different age groups, 16-25 years old and 25+ years old. Quantitative measures of mental health, social capital and life-track choices will be administered to participants at four different points: before and after the SFRs, with three and nine-months follow-ups. A measure of forgiveness and reconciliation will also be administered in order to chart willingness to forgive and reconcile as both, outcome of the intervention and their mediating role on psychological and social well being. A qualitative interviewing protocol will explore first-person perspectives and narratives of self, community, social attitudes towards people involved in the conflict and potential futures. So far, ES.PE.RE workshops have been widely conducted in Colombia; however, we still need to know more about the outcomes of the intervention and how these are sustained over time. Systematic evidence is decisive for supporting these initiatives and developing policy that fosters positive futures for the individuals and communities affected by the armed conflict. This project contributes to these aims by systematising evidence, generating knowledge exchange and impact, and informing evidence-based policy making in the domains of mental health, social capital and human development.