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Community lives of adolescents across multiple special needs: Discrimination, community belonging, trusted people, leisure activities, and friends
Author(s) -
Lloyd Jennifer E. V.,
Baumbusch Jennifer L.,
Zou Danjie
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.22498
Subject(s) - belongingness , psychology , special needs , population , exploratory research , social psychology , medicine , sociology , psychiatry , environmental health , anthropology
We sought to gain insights into the community lives, experiences, and activities of adolescents across multiple categories of special needs. Specifically, we: explored the particular aspects of their lives adolescents felt elicited discrimination; determined whether adolescents feel a sense of community belongingness, as well as the categories of people whom adolescents approach when help is needed; and detailed the leisure activities respondents undertake and with which frequency, in addition to the quantity of friendships they have. We performed assorted descriptive analyses of the McCreary Centre Society's 2013 British Columbia Adolescent Health Survey (BCAHS) database. We found tremendous variation in the survey responses of adolescents, both within and between special needs categories, highlighting the importance of such exploratory analyses. This paper provides inductive population‐based evidence to inform theories about the community lives of adolescents with special needs, as well as to guide programs and policies targeting such youth.