Parental emotional maltreatment: can it be reduced through virtual reality?
Background
The research team is looking at emotional maltreatment of children. The prevalence of child maltreatment and how professionals identify it.
– We talk about maltreatment because violence as a concept often reflects intentionality. Maltreatment can be unintentional. It can be the result of a parent’s tiredness, which leads, for example, to loud shouting at the child. Maltreatment is also the neglect of a child.
Target
STOPCEM_VR aims to create novel scientifically remarkable innovations in virtual reality (VR) concerning cutting the intergenerational chain of child emotional maltreatment (CEM) by parents
Define and describe CEM, based on the state-of-the-art evidence
Transfer these into VR, for participating voluntary parents, where they can experience these acts in the role of the child
Measure parents’ empathy, sense of parental competence, risks, and behavior, pre/during/post the VR
Parents are being interviewed after the VR, for getting their experiences about the VR situation, and for getting them express their possibly oppressive thoughts. They can also express their feelings with a therapist, as a part of their group therapy sessions on the voluntary organization they participate and where they have been recruited in this project. We will produce evidence on cutting CEM by VR, and provide VR tools for dissemination in different settings.
Funding
Research Council of Finland (decisions 354921 and 354922)
Partner organizations
Tampereen Setlementti ry
Maria Akatemia ry