Small Grant Awardees 2022 Spotlight

The Peace Psychologist (PP) had a chance to speak with each of the awardees about their exciting work and discuss their motivations and hopes for what lies ahead. Some responses have been edited for conciseness.

Young Ukrainians’ Experiences and Perspectives of the Russia-Ukraine War

Iuliia Pavlova, Lviv State University of Physical Culture, Ukraine

PP: How did you come to be interested in young Ukrainians’ experiences of the Russia-Ukraine war?

Iuliia: One-fourth of the population of Ukraine are young people. Restrictions on communication, a sharp change in lifestyle, the format of education and employment, involvement in social activities, discomfort for children and young families, and many other changes have shown the vulnerability of young people due to the impact of the pandemic. During the coronavirus epidemic and the continuation of quarantine restrictions, on February 24, 2022, the Russian-Ukrainian war began on the territory of Ukraine. Due to Russia’s aggression, young Ukrainians became direct witnesses of the destruction of civil infrastructure and mass killings of civilians in the occupied territories. This further aggravated the existing difficulties, and it is almost impossible to estimate the scale of problems with mental health today.

At the same time, despite the difficult circumstances, Ukrainian youth remained that part of the population that is particularly active, determines the country’s future, and makes decisions that affect not only their own well-being but also the situation of families and communities. They are active participants in regular military formations, voluntary formations of the territorial defense forces, voluntary territorial associations, and the volunteer movement. Therefore, studying the experiences of young people and the challenges they face will allow us to predict the need for certain targeted services better, and will contribute to the socialization and realization of the potential of young people both in the war and in the post-war period.

PP: How do you view this project in relation to your broader trajectory as a peace scholar and advocate?

Iuliia: Peace is a fundamental component of a high level of well-being of a person, community, and every nation; it is a crucial part of self-realization and prosperity. This project moves beyond past peace research that are focused primarily on negative peace or the absence of conflict, violence, and war to build on a recently growing movement on studying the conditions necessary to generate peace. It is also worth emphasizing that this project adopts a multidisciplinary approach that will best describe young people’s war experience and allow a better understanding of resilience and peacebuilding among the insufficiently researched Ukrainian population.

PP: What kind of impact do you hope this research will have in the future?

Iuliia: The project will develop a platform for discussion and exchange initiatives for joint peacebuilding efforts. It empowers and works on young people’s strengths, creates a supportive network of supporters of sustainable peace, develops attentive listening, readiness, and sensitivity, and creates an environment to encourage creative and collective initiatives for sustainable peace in Ukraine. The project allows us to obtain results for informing politicians and practitioners to achieve positive changes, including in the youth policy of Ukraine.

I hope that the obtained results will provide new conceptual and methodological contributions to the psychology of conflict and peace, contribute to the development of peace psychology as an integrative discipline for conflict resolution, and allow researchers of peace psychology and interested parties to understand better the main mechanisms of mitigating the adverse consequences of war.

PP:  How will the Small Grant Award assist you in this project?

Iulia: To date, the Small Grant Award has already contributed to the unification of the efforts of scientists who form the project team and represent university communities and regions of Ukraine that have suffered to a very different extent from war. The award adds confidence in the importance of such scientific research, and is an additional promotion of the work of our team. As part of receiving the grant, a supervisory committee was formed, cooperation with which will also positively affect the project outcome. An equally important issue is the financial support of the project, which became possible thanks to the grant. It is crucial in the context of the suspension of funding for scientific research in Ukraine due to the war.

Iuliia Palova, Ph.D. is a Professor of Lviv State University of Physical Culture (Ukraine). She is a member of the Scientific Council for the defence of dissertations, expert in National Research Foundation of Ukraine, member of the scientific and methodical commission of the higher education sector of the Scientific and Methodological Council of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. She was honoured in 2021 with the Gratitude from the Prime Minister of Ukraine for significant contribution to the development of education and science in Ukraine; and in 2018 was honoured with Registered Scholarship of Supreme Council of Ukraine for the most talented Young Scientists. Her research interests regard well-being, quality of life and physical activity, pro-health attitudes, mental health in a threat of experiencing military conflict.

2022 Brave Behind the Bullet Initiative

Denzell Brown, Howard University, Washington D.C., USA

PP: How did you come to be interested in working with Black mothers who have lost a child to gun violence?

Denzell: The idea of this project emerged from my own experience of being a native Washingtonian who witnessed a disproportionate amount of Black youth lose their lives to gun violence. While observing this reality, I also noticed that there was a gap in services as it pertains to particularly Black mothers who lost a child to gun violence not receiving therapeutic services. Resources are often poured into prevention efforts and restoration projects focused on young Black men. While this is important, there is also a large population of Black mothers who lose children to gun violence without having any access to therapeutic, legal, and social justice advocacy-based support.

PP: How do you view this project in relation to your broader trajectory as a peace scholar and advocate?

Denzell: The 2022 Brave Behind the Bullet Initiative will contribute to my broader trajectory as a peace scholar through providing me with the opportunity to leverage my privilege as Black male to advocate for communities of Black women and mothers that have been silenced, negated, and disregarded throughout the epidemic of gun violence.

PP: What kind of impact do you hope this research will have in the future?

Denzell: The 2022 Brave Behind the Bullet Initiative will aim to contribute to peace in the nation’s capital by using multiple community healing interventions and treatment modalities. This project intends to provide Black mothers who lost a child to gun violence with ongoing opportunities to receive comprehensive therapeutic services and uplift their voices to council members. Secondly, this project will also seek to challenge institutions of power to look more critically at resource distribution projects, laws, and community interventions geared towards serving marginalized populations. The long term impact of this project will be focused on building a petitioned portfolio of political members’ signatures that will be used to change community restorations gun violence laws in Washington, DC.

PP: How will the Small Grant Award assist you in this project?

Denzell: The Small grants award will assist the 2022 Brave Behind the Bullet Initiative by giving this organization the opportunity to provide a population of 5 to 10 Black mothers who lost children to gun violence with free weekly virtual therapy sessions, monthly trauma-informed yoga classes, and annual opportunities to speak to council members and participate in community restorative justice engagement forums.

Denzell Brown (he/him/his) is a Washington DC native and alumni of Georgetown University. Currently, I am a counseling Ph.D. doctoral student at Howard University conducting research focusing on post-traumatic growth outcomes, restorative oriented coping mechanisms, and grief resolution methods that Black parents use to heal after losing a child to gun violence.

 Conceptualization of Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Tijana Karić, University of Marburg, Germany

PP: How did you come to be interested in reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Tijana: When I first visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, I got to know the different ideas ordinary people have on intergroup relations and the situation in the country. From the very first conversations, it was clear that they have different approaches to reconciliation and peace. That is when I became interested in their construals, but in construals of reconciliation in general as well, as they have also been poorly defined in the literature.

PP: How do you view this project in relation to your broader trajectory as a peace scholar and advocate?

Tijana: With this project, I aim to do several things. First, contribute theoretically to the peace and reconciliation literature. Second, identify how people in Bosnia and Herzegovina conceptualize reconciliation and whether their conceptualizations differ with regard to different factors. Third, this study could help inform policymaking recommendations.

PP: What kind of impact do you hope this research will have in the future?

Tijana: I hope this research will kickstart a new direction in reconciliation research, as we as peace scholars still need to define what reconciliation is to be able to measure it, but also to propose interventions. Only once we know what it is, we can know what it takes for it to be achieved, and when we can say it is achieved. Of course, it would first need to stand the test of meaningfulness, primarily from the societal, but also from the research perspective.

PP: How will the Small Grant Award assist you in this project? 

Tijana: The Small Grant Award will enable collecting data in the field, following the Q methodology. Hopefully, the results of the study will provide insights into different conceptualizations of reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, along with the previous set of studies on the issue, could be a starting point for a new model of reconciliation.

Tijana Karić, Ph.D. is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research in Belgrade, Serbia, and a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Philipps University in Marburg, Germany. She holds a PhD in Social and Political Psychology from the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Her primary research interests are focused on intergroup reconciliation, peacebuilding, victimhood, and social identities. As the main case study, Tijana studies the post-conflict context of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She currently serves as the Chair of the Early Career Committee of the International Society of Political Psychology, as well as a member of the Diversity Committee within the same organization.

The Beneficial Effects of the 7Cs Model of Positive Youth Development on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Young People in Post-War Kosovo

Arian Musliu, Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany & University of Prishtina, Kosovo

PP: How did you come to be interested in PTSD among young people in post-war Kosovo?

Arian: Kosovo is a post-war country that was independent only since 2008. Even these days, Kosovo is still facing many difficulties regarding the educational and psychological support systems with up to 25% of the population experiencing post-traumatic symptoms. In this direction, our idea is to develop evidence-based intervention programs that can tackle these symptoms.

PP: How do you view this project in relation to your broader trajectory as a peace scholar and advocate?

Arian: The way we perceive peace up to date is the absence of war. Yet, peace means much more. To us, living in peace means also having high well-being in general. With this project, we supposedly move one step further and develop a ground base for programs that can be beneficial for post-war counties in terms of general well-being.

PP: What kind of impact do you hope this research will have in the future?

Arian: We believe that this research will open new windows for academicians and also policy-makers to develop programs based on strong empirical evidence. In addition, we believe that the Kosovo case may be the best case to test such programs in the near future. As such, other counties, especially the ones that are in war or post-war countries, can benefit from the findings of this study and also from the programs that can potentially be developed once the ground base is defined.

PP: How will the Small Grant Award assist you in this project?

Arian: As a scholar working and living in a developing country, such support is very helpful to push forward the ideas to explore new potential effects of Positive Youth Programs on PTSD symptoms. With the assistance of the Division 48th of the APA, countries from Western Balkan can also contribute to the topic of peace, conflict, and violence.

 Arian Musliu is a Ph.D. Cand. in the Learning Sciences at Ludwig Maximilian University. He earned a Master’s degree in the same department in 2020. Mr. Musliu is currently a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Education at the University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”. For several years, he worked as a research assistant and tutor assistant in German and Kosovar universities. To date, he counts several publications and more than 30 conference contributions.

Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Sexual Violence Prevention Program for Indian College Aged Women

Aashna Banerjee, Ball State University, Indiana, USA

PP: Could you tell us a bit about your proposed sexual violence prevention program for Indian college-aged women?

Aashna: A global study concluded India was the most dangerous country in the sexual violence victimization amongst women category. We are adapting evidence-based programs from countries in the Global North for college-aged women in India. If we are successful in our efforts (and I fervently hope that we are!) program participants will experience up to 66% reduced risk of sexual violence victimization.

PP: How do you view this project in relation to your broader trajectory as a peace scholar and advocate?

Aashna: This project is critical to my role as a peace scholar and advocate because I am attempting to reduce direct violence experienced by Indian women. Additionally, the program we are creating will empower participants to counter and challenge cultural violence they experience daily.

PP: What kind of impact do you hope this research will have in the future?

Aashna: I hope this program will lead to a significant reduction in sexual violence victimization amongst college women in India. If we are successful in meeting our goals, I want to adapt the program to community settings and offer them at multiple locations across India.

PP: How will the Small Grant Award assist you in this project?

 Aashna: The Small Grant Award will allow me to travel to India to implement and evaluate the program, alongside my community stakeholders and program participants. I am immensely grateful for receiving this grant.

Aashna Banerjee is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology at Ball State University. Identifying as an intersectional feminist, she has volunteered with numerous community-based organizations in India over the years to help improve the well-being of women and other marginalized groups. Her research interests lie at the intersection of gender, peace psychology, and internationally marginalized populations.

Creating Low-Cost Peace Psychology Resources for Counseling Students

Whitney Skippings, Temple University, Pennsylvania, USA

PP: How did you come to be interested in creating low-resource peace psychology resources for counseling students?

 Whitney: I wanted to create something for students in programs that did not already have any content that was related to peace psychology. While it will focus on things of relevance to counseling psychology students, there will be something for everyone! Hopefully, the podcast and the associated materials will be something that students can reference in the future.

PP: How do you view this project in relation to your broader trajectory as a peace scholar and advocate?

 Whitney: My hope is that this project will help me emphasize the ways in which counselors for diverse populations can interact with peace scholarship and advocacy. I also thought this would be a great opportunity to meet people who are more experienced in the field and pick their brains on where they think peace psychology will be in the future.

PP: What kind of impact do you hope this research will have in the future?

 Whitney: I hope that project will encourage counselors and therapists to think about how they can incorporate peace psychology into their work! It will also give people a forum for peace psychologists to show off their work in a forum that was made for them to thrive!

PP: How will the Small Grant Award assist you in this project?

 Whitney: The Small Grant Award is essential to the completion of this project! It helped by giving me the impetus to do to fully flesh out the project that I had been hoping to complete.

Whitney Skippings is a master’s student in Temple University’s Counseling Psychology program. She is also a clinical intern at University of Pennsylvania’s Hall Mercer Community Mental Health Center. Before going back to school, she worked for the US State Department, where she was posted to the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She completed undergrad in Philosophy and International Studies at Spelman College, and a previous Master’s degree from Georgetown University in Security Studies, focusing on sub-state violence in East and Central Africa. Whitney is incredibly interested in working with immigrant and refugee populations--specifically from Africa and the Caribbean. She is also deeply interested in policy and advocacy for those populations, and ways to tailor mental health interventions to better serve people during and after forced migration.