Homelessness, COVID-19, and discourses of contagion.

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in Canada, public health and medical authorities quickly identified emergency shelters and people experiencing homelessness as particularly at risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 (Knight et al., 2021). Drawing on interviews with 28 service providers in organizations that primarily serve people experiencing homelessness in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and a media scan, we explored how people who worked in and accessed these organizations negotiated discourses of contagion and infection throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper is informed by Goffman's (1963) theory of stigma, complemented by Crawford's (1994) idea of the Self and unhealthy Other. We argue that people experiencing homelessness, the spaces that they occupy, and the people they engage with, have been discursively marked as dangerous vectors of infection who present a risk to the health of the whole population, rather than as vulnerable to the health consequences and social disruption of COVID-19. Consequently, people experiencing homelessness have experienced further stigmatization throughout the pandemic as they have been separated from their communities, friends, and families, left without support or shelter, internalized blame for the spread of COVID-19, and faced dehumanization, grief, and trauma resulting from uneven COVID-19 interventions. We highlight these findings to support the application of trauma- and violence-informed care in service settings to prevent the further traumatization of people experiencing homelessness in services intended to support them.

Protocol for a study on vicarious resilience in service providers for victims and survivors of violence.

Few national studies examine victim service providers (VSPs), the important work that they do, and the resources and strategies contributing to their wellness at work. The proposed study aims to investigate the vicarious resilience of those working within the Canadian victim services sector. Participants will be asked about the ways in which they have changed and experienced resilience through exposure to supporting their clients, in addition to the challenges and barriers that still exist. A mixed-methods study incorporating an online survey, virtual focus groups, and semi-structured in-depth interviews will explore job satisfaction, compassion fatigue, turnover intention, instances of workplace microaggressions, vicarious resilience, coping strategies and self-care of VSP participants. The results will contribute to the literature on themes related to the wellness of VSPs. Dissemination of results will provide a Canadian perspective on organizational wellness, including challenges encountered as a result of COVID-19, working conditions that require further advocacy, and emerging perspectives on protective factors.

Violence and posttraumatic change (PTC).

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which Canadian victims and survivors of violent crime describe and make sense of their posttraumatic experience(s). METHOD: This qualitative study drew on open-ended responses from a mixed methods online survey with Canadian victims and survivors of violent crime (N = 435). Participants in the online survey identified as women (n = 335), men (n = 95), or two-spirit, nonbinary, or gender queer (n = 5); and had experienced partner violence (35%, n = 154), sexual violence (32%, n = 141), homicide or other violent death of a family member (22%, n = 96); or other types of violence (10%, n = 44). Additionally, in-depth narrative interviews were completed with a subsample of survey participants (n = 71). FINDINGS: Analyses resulted in multiple themes organized into three broad categories: (a) negative posttraumatic changes, (b) positive posttraumatic changes, and (c) resistance to the language of posttraumatic growth. CONCLUSION: Results suggest the importance of approaching the posttraumatic experience with a focus on perceptions of change rather than growth. The concept of "posttraumatic change" is more responsive to the dynamic process of change that victims and survivors of violence experience, which is often difficult to frame with language focused exclusively on stress or growth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).