Understanding Resilience in the Lives of

Street-Involved Children in Manila,

Philippines
By

Alisa Willis
BA, BSW, MPA

Thesis submitted to Flinders University

for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
College of Business, Government and Law
March 2021
 CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................. VI

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................... VII
GLOSSARY OF TERMS .................................................................................................. VIII
SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................... IX
DECLARATION................................................................................................................... XI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ XII
PROLOGUE....................................................................................................................... XIII
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1
1.1 Understanding Resilience from the Perspective of Street-Involved Children ................. 1
1.2 Significance of the Study ................................................................................................. 3
1.3 The Filipino Context ........................................................................................................ 7
1.3.1 Collectivism and Religiosity ..................................................................................... 8
1.3.2 Street-Involved Children in the Philippines .............................................................. 9
1.3.3 Bahay Tuluyan ......................................................................................................... 11
1.4 The Resilience Discourse ............................................................................................... 13
1.5 Research Methods .......................................................................................................... 18
1.6 Ethical Considerations.................................................................................................... 20
1.7 Study Findings: Children’s Perceptions of Resilience in the Context of Marginalisation
and Political Oppression....................................................................................................... 21
1.8 Organisation of This Thesis ........................................................................................... 23
CHAPTER 2: THE RESILIENCE DISCOURSE .............................................................. 25
2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 25
2.2 Street-Involved Children, Resilience and Agency ......................................................... 28
2.2.1 Lister’s Taxonomy of Agency as a Theoretical Framework to Understand
Children’s Perceptions of Resilience ................................................................................ 33
2.3 The History of the Discourse ......................................................................................... 35
2.3.1 Early Conceptions of “Resilience” .......................................................................... 36
2.3.2 The Social Ecology Approach to Resilience ........................................................... 41
2.3.3 Hidden Resilience .................................................................................................... 44
2.4 A Systematic Search and Literature Review of Filipino Literature ............................... 45
2.4.1 A Summary of the Filipino Literature ..................................................................... 47
2.5 Healthy Functioning and Resilience .............................................................................. 50
2.5.1. Healthy Functioning as a Cultural Construct ......................................................... 51
2.5.1.1 Child Growth and Development ....................................................................... 52
2.5.1.2 Individualism and Collectivism ........................................................................ 54

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 2.5.1.3 The Filipino Construction of “Healthy Functioning” in Street-Involved Children
....................................................................................................................................... 56
2.5.1.4 The Social-Ecological Approach to “Healthy Functioning” ............................ 59
2.6 Critique of the Social Ecology Approach to Resilience ................................................. 65
2.7 Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS ............................................................................. 70
3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 70
3.2 Aims and Objectives ...................................................................................................... 72
3.3 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 73
3.3.1 Anti-Oppressive Research ....................................................................................... 73
3.3.2 Child-Focused Research .......................................................................................... 74
3.3.3 Research with Street-Involved Children.................................................................. 78
3.3.4 Reflexivity ............................................................................................................... 80
3.3.5 The Role of the Researcher ..................................................................................... 80
3.3.6 Research Site ........................................................................................................... 82
3.3.7 Local Advisory Group ............................................................................................. 86
3.3.8 Participants .............................................................................................................. 86
3.3.8.1 Summary of Children who Participated in the Study. ...................................... 91
3.4 Ethics .............................................................................................................................. 93
3.4.1 Child Assent Process ............................................................................................... 93
3.4.2 Confidentiality ......................................................................................................... 96
3.4.3 Ethical Challenges ................................................................................................... 97
3.5 Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 101
3.5.1 Phase One: Children’s Assembly and the “Draw and Talk” Art Activity............. 102
3.5.2 Phase Two: Walk and Talk Child-Led Tours ........................................................ 103
3.5.3 Phase Three: Semi-Structured Interviews ............................................................. 105
3.6 Cultural Considerations ................................................................................................ 106
3.6.1 Role of the Interpreter and Transcriber ................................................................. 108
3.7 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................... 109
3.7.1 Emblematic Case Study Selection and Presentation ............................................. 111
3.8 Study Dissemination and Impact.................................................................................. 114
3.9 Methodological Challenges .......................................................................................... 114
3.9.1 Child-Centred Research and Multiple Data Collection Activities ........................ 115
3.9.2 Environmental Challenges ..................................................................................... 118
3.9.3 Language and Interpretation .................................................................................. 118
3.9.4 Familiarity with the Researcher ............................................................................. 119

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 3.10 Chapter Summary ....................................................................................................... 120
CHAPTER 4: CHILDREN’S DIVERSE PERCEPTIONS OF “ADVERSITY” AND
“DOING WELL” ................................................................................................................. 122
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 122
4.2 The Complete Sample of Children who Participated in the Study .............................. 124
4.2.1 “Miguel” ................................................................................................................ 126
4.2.2 “Mary Anne” ......................................................................................................... 127
4.2.3 “Nicole” ................................................................................................................. 127
4.2.4 “Lyn” ..................................................................................................................... 128
4.2.5 “Reylin” ................................................................................................................. 129
4.2.6 “Marcos”................................................................................................................ 129
4.2.7 “Jean”..................................................................................................................... 130
4.2.8 “Joe” ...................................................................................................................... 131
4.2.9 “Jose” ..................................................................................................................... 131
4.2.10 “Daniel” ............................................................................................................... 132
4.2.11 “Alfredo” ............................................................................................................. 133
4.2.12 “Dianne” .............................................................................................................. 134
4.2.13 “Jessance” ............................................................................................................ 135
4.2.14 “Charles” ............................................................................................................. 136
4.2.15 “Joyce” ................................................................................................................ 136
4.2.16 “Jezz” ................................................................................................................... 137
4.2.17 “Bong-Bong” ....................................................................................................... 138
4.2.18 “Justine” .............................................................................................................. 139
4.2.19 “Jonus” ................................................................................................................ 139
4.2.20 “Joshua” ............................................................................................................... 140
4.2.21 “Andreas” ............................................................................................................ 141
4.3 Emblematic Case Studies ............................................................................................. 142
4.3.1 “Angelica” ............................................................................................................. 143
4.3.2 “Jasmine” ............................................................................................................... 148
4.3.3 “Gabriel”................................................................................................................ 154
4.3.4 “Kyla” .................................................................................................................... 159
4.4. Children’s Perceptions of “Adversity” ........................................................................ 163
4.4.1 “Broken Family” ................................................................................................... 164
4.4.2 Inadequate Resources by which to Survive ........................................................... 169
4.4.3 Dangers of the Streets ............................................................................................ 173
4.4.4 Denial of Rights ..................................................................................................... 177
4.5 Chapter Summary ......................................................................................................... 182

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CHAPTER 5: PERCEPTIONS OF RESILIENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF
POLITICAL OPPRESSION AND MARGINALISATION ............................................ 185
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 185
5.2 The Political Agency of Children Who Are “Othered” ............................................... 186
5.3 Angelica: “Doing Well” via “Getting Out”: Facilitating Resilience via Compliance with
Filipino Constructions of Childhood .................................................................................. 193
5.3.1 Demonstrating Personal Attributes of a “Resilient Child” .................................... 195
5.3.2 “Getting Out” via Compliance with the “Rules of the Game” .............................. 199
5.3.3 A Reflexive Plan to “Get Out” of Poverty ............................................................ 201
5.3.4 Seeking “First-Order” Change .............................................................................. 201
5.3.5 “Getting Out” Summary ........................................................................................ 204
5.4 Jasmine: “Doing Well” via “Getting By”: Facilitating Resilience via Relationships .. 205
5.4.1 Relationships as Opportunity Structures ............................................................... 206
5.4.1.1 Relationship with God that Enables Coping. ................................................. 211
5.4.2 Day-to-Day Strategies Seeking “First-Order” Change .......................................... 213
5.4.3 Ambivalent Relationships with Cultural Values and Discursive Power ............... 214
5.4.4 “Getting By” Summary ......................................................................................... 216
5.5 Gabriel: “Doing Well” via “Getting Back At” Oppression and Marginalisation ........ 217
5.5.1 A Political Conception of Resilience .................................................................... 220
5.5.2 Extending Ungar’s Notion of Hidden Resilience .................................................. 224
5.5.3 Transgressive, Second-Order Agency ................................................................... 226
5.5.4 “Getting Back At” Summary ................................................................................. 228
5.6 Kyla: “Doing Well” via “Getting Organised”: Facilitating Resilience via Collective
Action ................................................................................................................................. 229
5.6.1 A Collective Consciousness with “Othered” Street Children ............................... 233
5.6.2 Challenging the Social Order via Rights ............................................................... 236
5.6.3 Political Action and Collective Acts of Self Help ................................................. 239
5.6.4 Getting Organised Summary ................................................................................. 241
5.7 Chapter Summary ......................................................................................................... 243
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION............................................................................................ 247
6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 247
6.2 Implications of Children’s Diverse Perceptions of Resilience for Theory .................. 248
6.3 Implications of Children’s Diverse Perceptions of Resilience for Policy .................... 250
6.4 Study Limitations ......................................................................................................... 255
6.5 Recommendations for Further Research ...................................................................... 260
6.6 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................... 262
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 263

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APPENDICES ...................................................................................................................... 301
Appendix 1: Child Assent Form ........................................................................................ 301
Appendix 2: Child Participant Information Sheet (English) .............................................. 303
Appendix 3: Information Sheet for Guardian (English)..................................................... 306
Appendix 4: Memorandum of Understanding with Bahay Tuluyan and Risk Matrix ....... 310
Appendix 5: Local Advisory Group Terms of Reference .................................................. 331
Appendix 6: Data Collection Protocol ............................................................................... 334
Appendix 7: Transcriber and Interpreter Confidentiality Agreements .............................. 346
Appendix 8: Systematic Review Terms ............................................................................. 348
Appendix 9: Filipino Universities Contacted for Hard Copy, Unpublished Studies ......... 362
Appendix 10: PRISMA Flow Chart ................................................................................... 363
Appendix 11: Memo 1 to Ethics Committee...................................................................... 364
Appendix 12: Memo 2 to Ethics Committee...................................................................... 366

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 0.1: Child-Led Tour 1 .................................................................................................. xiv

Figure 0.2: Child-Led Tour 2 .................................................................................................. xvi
Figure 2.1: Lister’s Taxonomy of Agency ............................................................................... 35
Figure 3.1: Research Sequence ................................................................................................ 75
Figure 3.2: Map of Research Sites on the Island of Luzon, Philippines .................................. 84
Figure 3.3: Child Participants’ Experience of the Research Process ....................................... 91
Figure 3.4: Interpreter Reading Assent Form to Child ............................................................ 96
Figure 3.5: “Talk and Draw” Activity in Children’s Assembly ............................................ 103
Figure 3.6: Child Participant-Led Tour 3 (Malate) ................................................................ 105
Figure 3.7: Local Advisory Group ......................................................................................... 107
Figure 3.8: Interpreter and Child on Child-Led Tour ............................................................ 109
Figure 4.1: Miguel’s Child-Led Tour .................................................................................... 126
Figure 4.2: Dianne at Her Traineeship at Bahay Tuluyan ..................................................... 134
Figure 4.3: Basketball Court at Bahay Tuluyan Quezon ....................................................... 137
Figure 4.4: Josh’s Child-Led Tour ......................................................................................... 141
Figure 4.5: Andreas’ Child-Led Tour .................................................................................... 142
Figure 4.6: Mary Anne’s Drawing of Relationships that Help Her Overcome Adversity .... 152
Figure 4.7: Angelica’s Illustration of “Children’s Problems” ............................................... 164
Figure 4.8: Jose’s Talk and Draw Activity ............................................................................ 165
Figure 4.9: Joyce’s Talk and Draw Activity .......................................................................... 168
Figure 4.10: Miguel’s Talk and Draw Activity ..................................................................... 170
Figure 4.11: Jasmine’s talk and draw activity ....................................................................... 172
Figure 4.12: Charles’ Perception of Adversity ...................................................................... 174
Figure 4.13: Joe’s Talk and Draw Activity ............................................................................ 175
Figure 4.14: Bong-Bong’s Illustration of “Adversities” Faced by Street Children ............... 177
Figure 4.15: Andreas’s Talk and Draw Activity 1 ................................................................. 180
Figure 4.16: Andreas’s Talk and Draw Activity 2 ................................................................. 181
Figure 5.1: Lister’s Taxonomy and Emblematic Case Studies .............................................. 187
Figure 5.2: Jean’s Illustration of “Doing Well” ..................................................................... 194
Figure 5.3: Angelica’s Talk and Draw Activity..................................................................... 202
Figure 5.4: Mary Anne’s Drawing of “Doing Well” ............................................................. 207

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Summary of Appendices......................................................................................... 72

Table 3.2: Summary of Children Who Participated in the Study ............................................ 91
Table 3.3 Summary of Children’s Perceptions of “Adversity” and “Doing Well” ............... 112
Table 4.1 Summary of Child Participants and Corresponding Emblematic Case Study via
Major Themes in Perceptions of “Adversity” and “Doing Well”.......................................... 123

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 GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Ate A Tagalog word for “sister”

Bahay Tuluyan Street service for children in Manila
Barangay Lowest level of government in the Philippines
Barkada A Tagalog word for “peer group”
Kapwa A Tagalog term to describe a shared sense of identity between
human beings
Kuya A Tagalog word for “brother”
Nanay A Tagalog word for “mother”
Pagtittis A Tagalog word that describes bearing pain calmly and with
forbearance.
Pakikiramdam A Tagalog word that describes an intention and ability to
understand non-verbal cues and respond accordingly to the
emotional needs of the other person.
Pakikisama A Tagalog term that describes the concept of fellowship between
human beings.
Pakisama A Tagalog term to describe getting along with others
Pinagbbabati nila A Tagalog term that has no direct English translation but refers to
kami when a third party influences conflicting parties, and encourages
them to settle their differences, but does not necessarily explicitly
resolve the problem.
Rescue A policy enacted by a range of state bodies by which children are
removed from the streets and detained in custody.
Tagalog Most common language spoken in Manila, Philippines
Tiya A Tagalog term for “aunty”
Utang na loob A term that describes the “debt of gratitude” that Filipino children
owe their parents for raising them that stretches into adulthood.

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 SUMMARY

This study seeks to understand resilience from the perspective of street-involved children in
Manila, Philippines, exploring their perceptions of resilience, that is, moving from
“adversity” to “doing well”, in the context of lives characterised by extreme deprivation and
marginalisation from mainstream society. The major original contribution of this thesis is to
propose a political dimension to resilience that dominant conceptions, used widely in the
development of policy and interventions, have largely ignored. Twenty-five street-involved
children between 11 and 18 years of age participated in the study while under the care and
protection of Bahay Tuluyan, a grassroots community organisation in Manila, Philippines
that works to ensure children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. Drawing on child-
focused research methods, this study acknowledges children as experts in their own lives and,
as such, offered choice and participation at all stages of the research process. Children
engaged in a range of qualitative data collection methods including “walk and talk” child-led
tours of their environment. These methods enabled children to demonstrate to the researcher
the complex processes in which they engage, drawing on resources in themselves, their
relationships, community and culture in order to overcome self-described conditions of
“adversity”, and travel towards their conception of “doing well”.

The dominant conception of resilience has emerged from the Minority World, with studies
undertaken by expert researchers who have defined children as resilient when they meet
normative conceptions of healthy functioning in children. These studies define adverse
circumstances in the context of Western industrialised societies and identify indicators of
“doing well” based on ethnocentric conceptions of development and of desirable child
behaviours. These assumptions are contested by a handful of Filipino studies which have
investigated the lives of street-involved children, with researchers suggesting a culturally
nuanced conception of resilience associated with children demonstrating outcomes and
behaviours that are considered desirable in Filipino society including adherence to collectivist
values and relationships of mutual obligation.

Children in this study perceived “adversity” to be a collective experience they shared with
their families, and other street-involved children who are marginalised and subject to
oppressive government policies. Their perceptions of “doing well” included drawing on
personal, relational, community and cultural resources as they engage in day-to day activities

ix
to manage the effects of marginalisation, as well as making strategic decisions to effect long-
term change in their own lives, and the lives of others. This study makes an original
contribution by suggesting that street-involved children perceive resilience to be an overtly
political construct that includes personal and collective acts of agency as they seek to ensure
that their rights, and the rights of others, are observed and upheld.

To explore this conception of resilience, this thesis brings together Ruth Lister’s use of the
“Othering” discourse, and her “taxonomy of agency”, with Michael Ungar’s “social-
ecological” approach to resilience. This study will extend current understandings of resilience
to suggest that children’s personal and collective acts of political agency are legitimate forms
of resilience that are currently under-examined in the resilience discourse.

x
 DECLARATION

I certify that this thesis does not incorporate without acknowledgment any material
previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any university; and that to the best of my
knowledge and belief it does not contain any material previously published or written by
another person except where due reference is made in the text.

Signed....................................................

Date. 12/07/2020

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people who have helped me on this journey and are deserving of my deep
gratitude. Foremost, I would like to express my thanks to the young people who shared their
stories with me. It was my privilege to walk beside you for a short time and share your lives.
May the findings of this study amplify your voices in your efforts to cause change.

I would also like to thank the staff of Bahay Tuluyan with whom I share the credit for this
study. Catherine, Lilly and each member of the team, this study is a tribute to you and the
work that you do.

I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to my supervisors. Lorna, thank you for your
deep thinking and insight that gave this study depth. Gerry, as a supervisor you provided a
blend of intellectual challenge, and unwavering support. Your commitment to academic
rigour and child-centred research methods made this study what it has become. Kate Leeson,
professional editor, provided copyediting and proofreading services. Thank you for your
patience and attention to detail.

I would like to thank my Filipino family who helped me though: Tina, Edgar, Cindy, Ian,
Suzie, John, Louise and Nicolette. You listened, discussed and encouraged me at the time I
needed it most.

I would also like to thank my immediate and extended family. Mum, Dad, Leanne and
Adrian; you have shared my pain and joy at each step of the way. I would also like to thank
Gretta, Dick and extended family for making it possible for me to undertake this quest when I
thought that I could not.

To my own children, Tom and Poppy, you teach me about children’s capacities every day
and your commitment to this project made our sacrifices possible. I would like to thank my
partner Carl. Without you this study would have been nothing more than a dream to do
something that mattered in the Philippines. We share this.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge that this thesis was written on the traditional Country of
the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. I would like to pay my respects to Elders past and
present and acknowledge their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land are of
continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today.

xii
 PROLOGUE

This prologue locates myself, the researcher, in this study, acknowledging my role as a
contributor, collaborator and subjective participant in the co-construction of knowledge
(Fook 2016). Walking the streets of Manila, it is impossible to ignore the dire circumstances
in which street-involved children live. Congregating on pavements and the steps of shopping
malls, children as young as my own appear to be in ominous circumstances; without the
protection of adults, begging for food and money. Throughout the study, seeing children in
such circumstances has been an uncomfortable experience. This discomfort arises from my
deeply held perceptions of children and childhood that come from being an adult, white,
middle-class Australian, who has enjoyed an upbringing of relative safety and privilege. My
training and career as a social worker have informed my knowledge base about what children
need to survive and thrive. As a mother to my own children, this knowledge translates into
deeply held personal convictions that have no doubt influenced this study and its findings.

Through this study I sought to understand resilience from the perspective of street-involved
children, exploring their perceptions of “adversity” and what it is to “do well” in the context
of their lives. Employing child-centred research methods has challenged me to deeply listen
to the lived experience of children; and has required that I manage my own bias and values
during the study. As an adult, this has required that I attempt to see the world from the
perspective of children and acknowledge their points of view that were different to my own.
It also required that I notice and account for the power deferential between myself and the
children, taking action to ensure the research process did not inadvertently replicate and
compound marginalisation and oppression.

This prologue is an important component of the thesis, accounting for the significance of the
“self” in the study findings. It accounts for my own worldview, captured in a diary that I kept
throughout the study. Completed before, during and after data collection, the diary recorded
my initial thoughts about the children I met, and my response to the circumstances in which
they lived. As the study progressed, this diary became a mechanism by which I arrived at
study findings, recording my emerging recognition of children’s perceptions of “adversity”
and their varied perceptions of what it is to “do well” in their lives.

xiii
Reflexivity can be defined as the process by which the researcher engages in self-awareness
and scrutiny in order to develop insights into how their own lived experience shapes the
research process (Bryant 2016). Reflexivity is a uniquely personal process, and thus, unlike
the rest of this thesis, this prologue is written in the first person. The diary recorded my
unconscious belief at the beginning of this study; the streets of Manila are chaotic and full of
hazards and not a suitable place for children. When I read the early entries now, I see they
reflect my assumptions that the street is a space for adult activity, unsafe for children to play,
earn and socialise without the care and protection of an adult.

Figure 0.1: Child-Led Tour 1

Through speaking to children in this study, my own perceptions of “adversity” and “doing
well” have been challenged and re-configured. In most Minority World contexts, including
my own country of origin, childhood is widely considered to be a time for playing and
learning, free of responsibilities and involving dependence on adults to meet all their needs
(Zelizer 1994). My beliefs about desirable outcomes for children have been reinforced by my
career as a social worker in which I have primarily worked in the field of child protection.
Child protection as a discipline of social work operates within a legislative framework that
includes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and emphasises

xiv
rights of provision and protection, with professional activities aiming to ensure access to
physical and emotional resources that enable children to “do well”.

This study is based on the premise that by deeply listening to children’s stories it is possible
to amplify their voices and challenge oppression and disadvantage. By acknowledging and
holding my own worldview during data collection, I was able to appreciate the protective
resources in the children’s social ecology that I had previously overlooked. Furthermore, as a
non-Filipino, the reflexivity diary enabled me to examine my position as an “outsider” and
account for my own cultural standpoint (Bryant 2016).

As an Australian, I acknowledge the impact on colonisation on Indigenous populations and

the ongoing dispossession of Aboriginal people from their land and cultural connections. I am
aware of my own cultural heritage and the privileging of Western knowledge that devalues
Indigenous knowledge and views about the world. From the earliest years of colonisation,
Western psychologists have devalued Filipino Indigenous values, constructing them as
indicators of deficit modes of social interaction and organisation (Pe-Pua 2006). In order to
support the cultural accountability of this research process, and to address the challenges of
understanding the participant belief systems as an “outsider”, several mechanisms were built
into the research design. In employing child-focused research methods, I adopted a position
of humility that accepted the limitation of my knowledge and experience as a non-Filipino
adult (Dean 2001). A Local Advisory Group guided the development and implementation of
the study, providing cultural advice and assistance with the interpretation of the study
findings. Also, at the conclusion of the data analysis process, available participants provided
feedback regarding the study findings. Through these processes I was able to better
understand the views of children and the key themes emerging in the data and check my
assumptions and ambiguities in my interpretations.

Post-positivist research accounts for the motivations, and the social, political position of the
researcher and the impact this has on the generation of knowledge (Ryan 2006). Over the five
years that we lived in the Philippines, my family and I built a relationship with the children
and staff at Bahay Tuluyan. The motivation to undertake this study grew from my desire to
use my time in the Philippines to make a difference in the lives of children. I write this
prologue at the last stage of thesis writing, a final reflection on the journey of this research
project. By completing this study, I hope to amplify the voices of children and draw attention
to their diverse strategies to “do well” as legitimate expressions of resilience that are

xv
currently under-examined in the evidence base. This study will contribute to an overlooked
conception of resilience that better accounts for the political agency of children, and their
array of personal and collective actions by which they resist the effects of oppression and
marginalisation.

Figure 0.2: Child-Led Tour 2

xvi
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Understanding Resilience from the Perspective of Street-Involved Children

The purpose of this study is to examine the construction of resilience from the perspective of
street-involved children in Manila, Philippines, with the intention of uncovering how they
construct “adversity” and what it is to “do well”. The overall research question that serves as
a guide to this study is:

How do street-involved children construct resilience in the context of their social

ecology?

Drawing on the social-ecological definition, in this thesis resilience is defined as the outcome
of complex non-linear processes in which children engage as they draw on internal and
external resources to overcome conditions of “adversity” and go on to “do well”, as defined
by themselves in the context of their social ecology (Ungar 2011, Ungar, Ghazinour et al.
2013). Social ecology refers to the social and physical environment, including resources that
provide opportunities for attaining health-related outcomes as defined by the social and
cultural context in which the child lives (Ungar 2011, Ungar 2012). In order to address the
research question, the researcher asked a sample of street-involved children in Manila, the
Philippines, about their perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in the context of their
lives, characterised by extreme deprivation and marginalisation from mainstream Filipino
society. The researcher sought to explore how children navigated and negotiated resources in
themselves, their relationships, communities and culture in order to move towards their self-
identified conceptions of “doing well” (Ungar 2011). For the purposes of this study, “child”
refers to human beings who are under the age of 18 years, as defined by the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The dominant conception of resilience, built from a large body of research in Western
industrialised nations, includes character traits such as problem solving, autonomy and a
sense of purpose (Ungar 2010, Panter-Brick 2015). This conception is predicated on specific
notions of “healthy functioning” that are in turn consistent with Western values and norms
regarding children’s growth and development. Using evidence from fieldwork with street-
involved children in Manila and building on both Michael Ungar’s social ecology framework
and the Filipino literature on resilience which foregrounds values such as collectivism,

1
obedience and religiosity, this study will propose alternative constructions of “adversity”,
“doing well” and “healthy functioning”. Some street-involved children described their
conceptions of “adversity” as including being subject to oppressive government policy and
the denial of basic human rights. The children revealed their perceptions of “adversity” as a
collective and politically generated experience that they shared with other street-involved
children and their families. Some street-involved children described “doing well” in terms of
being able to achieve culturally ascribed notions such as attending school and having an
intact family. But for other children, “doing well” also included achieving status in the
community via unorthodox means, such as becoming a powerful criminal.

These alternative perceptions of doing well are consistent with Ungar’s (2005a) conception of
“hidden resilience”, which acknowledges the role of discursive power in defining what is
healthy and what is not, by suggesting that those in positions of power label children who fail
to demonstrate normative outcomes as transgressive and dangerous. Ungar (2005a, 2006,
2009) argues that children’s engagement in dangerous behaviours may represent efforts to
defy these labels, presenting themselves as powerful and competent rather than deviant. Thus
he argues that children can seek health-related outcomes via engagement in unhealthy
activities that are not seen as socially desirable in the culture and context in which the child
lives (Ungar 2005). The thesis supports Ungar’s argument by providing evidence of “hidden
resilience” in the narratives of street-involved children in Manila. However, the thesis also
extends and critiques Ungar’s conception by focusing on resilience as the outcome of
political action. The thesis will argue that the conception of hidden resilience overlooks
children’s shared experience of political oppression, and that Ungar’s approach inadvertently
presents an individualist response to marginalisation and overlooks children’s capacity for
collective protest (Bottrell 2009b; valentine 2011).

Drawing on Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency, this thesis will identify children’s diverse
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”, and the range of actions they take as they seek
to manage the effects of oppression and marginalisation, including personal and collective
acts of protest. Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency identifies four categories of agency as
people struggle to “get by”, “get out”, “get back at” and “get organised”, suggesting that
agency can be every-day, strategic, personal and political. Although formulated in the context
of Western industrialised countries, Lister’s (2004) approach has salience in this study, as the
application of her taxonomy draws attention to the “Othering” of street-involved children; a

2
two-way process by which the oppressed are separated from those in positions of power.
Lister highlights the agency of those who are marginalised to take creative social, political
and economic action as they manage and resist the effects of poverty. In this thesis, Lister’s
(2004) taxonomy of agency provides a mechanism for understanding the meaning of the
ongoing decision-making processes that street-involved children engage in, in order to
manage personal, financial and natural assets, both individually and as a collective, in order
to manage the effects of oppression.

This thesis will therefore suggest that a more robust conception of resilience is required that
accommodates children’s conceptions of “doing well”, which includes outcomes that are not
necessarily related to orthodox notions of child development and good health, and which
recognises the positive contribution to resilience of collective efforts to resist the effects of
political oppression and marginalisation.

1.2 Significance of the Study

This study is significant in four respects. First, it highlights insights that have been largely
overlooked in understanding resilience from the perspective of children who experience
extreme deprivation and marginalisation from mainstream society in the context of the
Majority World. Resilience in children has primarily been investigated by adult, expert
researchers who live in the Minority World (Boyden and Mann 2005, Ungar 2010).This
thesis will use the term “Majority World” to describe developing countries (sometimes called
the “Global South”) in Asia, Africa, and South and Central America. The term “Minority
World” will be used to refer to developed, industrialised countries, primarily in the West,
which are sometimes alternatively referred to as the “Global North” (Twum-Danso Imoh et
al. 2019). The distinction between the Majority and Minority Worlds is important in this
study which highlights the dominance of cross-discipline research regarding childhood and
child development that has emerged from the Minority World with assumed universality
(Boyden 2003). This thesis concurs with the sociology of childhood scholars who have
pointed out that dominant constructions of childhood are implicitly based on social and
cultural norms dominant in the Minority World, overlooking cultural and contextual
variations regarding the role of children in society (James and Prout 2015). However, this
thesis recognises the limitation of this terminology which suggests a dichotomous
relationship between the Minority and Majority Worlds. Twum-Danso Imoh et al. (2019)
suggest that the use of these terms invites generalisations and fails to capture complex

3
societies in which people experience diverse social, economic and political conditions.
Furthermore, they suggest that these terms are polarising, inadvertently leading to “us” and
“them” thinking that facilitates “othering” in international communities (Twum-Danso Imoh
et al. 2019). As such in this study, the terms Minority and Majority Worlds will be used to
abbreviate this distinction while recognising the limitations of this terminology and the
growing similarities of children’s experiences around the world due to global forces such as
colonisation, globalisation and immigration as well as advanced technology that has enabled
the dissemination of ideas about childhood.

Supported by Bahay Tuluyan, a grassroots community organisation based in Manila, this

study drew on child-focused research methods that positioned the researcher as the “learner”
and the children as experts in their own lives (Ryan 2006). The study findings privilege the
voices of children from the Majority World and offers insights into their perceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well” that diverge from those presented in the dominant resilience
discourse.

Second, the study applies and extends the critique by Ungar and others, who have argued that
the dominant conception of resilience fails to account for children’s culture and context
(Boyden 2003, McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005, Micheal Ungar 2008, Hills, Meyer-
Weitz et al. 2016). This thesis will suggest that the Minority World resilience discourse is
based on ethnocentric research that offers a narrow conception of “healthy functioning” that
reflects predominantly Western values and conceptions of child growth and development.
The findings of this study will destabilise the individualist approach to resilience that
emphasises the personal characteristics of a resilient child and places responsibility for
overcoming adversity on the individual (Seccombe 2002). The study will also support the
social-ecological argument that suggests resilience is a cultural and contextual construct,
consisting of multiple complex processes between the child and the internal and external
resources to which they have access (Ungar 2004).

Third, the thesis will present an analysis of the Filipino resilience literature – the first in the
English language to the researcher’s knowledge. The Filipino literature suggests that street-
involved children are resilient when they demonstrate specific behaviours and achieve
outcomes associated with “healthy functioning” that reflect values regarding children and
modes of social organisation that are dominant in the Philippines (Banaag 1997, Caparas
1998, Bautista 2000, Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Bautista and Rolder 2001, Sta. Maria,

4
Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017). The values and aspirations of street-
involved children who participated in the research for this thesis are shown to be partly
consistent with, but also to partly contradict, these Filipino values. This finding has
implications for Ungar’s approach, drawing attention to children’s complex relationships
with dominant cultural and social values. Ungar’s (2006) concept of “hidden resilience”
suggests children and young people who are marginalised from mainstream society
sometimes use unconventional methods, such as crime and risky sexual activities, to achieve
health-related outcomes. This thesis will extend this approach to suggest that children who
are marginalised from mainstream society can hold contradictory conceptions of “doing well”
that are not synonymous with health-related outcomes as Ungar appears to conceptualise
them, and not consistent with culturally specific notions of healthy functioning.

The fourth contribution of this study concerns the children’s perceptions of resilience as an
overtly political construct, when they live in a context of government oppression and a denial
of their human rights. Drawing on accounts of children’s agency, the study highlights the
diverse strategic and day-to-day actions taken by young people in order to overcome the
collective experience of adversity and marginalisation (Redmond 2009, valentine 2011,
Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017). “Othering” is a term pioneered by social and feminist
theorists who have used the concept to draw attention to the processes by which groups in
society are subjected to positions of inferiority by those who have power over language and
social discourse (Said 1985, DeBeauvior 1997 , Canales 2000, Krumer-Nevo 2002, Jensen
2011). Lister’s (2004) discussion of “Othering” and her taxonomy of agency, combined with
Michael Ungar’s (2004a) social-ecological approach to resilience and the literature on
children’s agency, will offer alternative understandings of how children navigate and
negotiate internal and external resources, making day-to-day and strategic decisions to
recover from adversity and go on to “do well”.

This thesis will make its primary contribution by drawing on Lister’s taxonomy of agency
and present case studies of four of the 25 study participants – Angelica, Jasmine, Gabriel and
Kyla – whose stories are emblematic of major themes from the complete participant group to
exemplify how children resist the effects of oppression and marginalisation when they “get
out”, “get by”, “get back at” and “get organised”, managing circumstances of “adversity” and
going on to “do well” (Lister 2004). Lister’s taxonomy draws on Hoggett’s (2001) discussion
of diverse forms of agency to describe the actions of people who individually or collectively

5
seek to improve their position via strategies that comply with or transgress social and cultural
norms (Mills 2008, Lareau, Adia Evans & Yee 2016). In applying this discussion of agency,
this study will extend conceptions of resilience to suggest that the children in this study are
engaged in efforts to “do well” which can be understood as personal and collective acts to
resist the effects of “Othering” that are currently under-examined in the resilience discourse.

The theoretical insights in this thesis hold implications for public policy that aims to build
resilience in children and their families who are marginalised by mainstream society. Public
policies are acts of government designed to achieve specific objectives by drawing on public
resources and the power of the state (Althaus, Bridgman et al. 2013). The resilience discourse
has been heralded as a ground-breaking approach that has shifted the focus of policy makers
away from risk and pathology, towards protective factors in the lives of children (Rutter
2000, Masten and Powell 2003). Resilience has been drawn on as a basis for policy
interventions across diverse settings such as health, education, child protection, youth justice,
climate change and disaster response in both the Minority and Majority Worlds (Blackstock
and Trocmé 2005, Almedom and Glandon 2007, Ager 2013, Bottrell 2013, Haynes and
Tanner 2015, Robinson 2016, Hechanova, Docena et al. 2018).

The resilience discourse has also been drawn on as a basis of neoliberal policy in which the
individual is positioned as responsible for their own success despite disadvantage (Seccombe
2002, Bottrell 2013, Tierney 2015, Crossley 2016). This thesis challenges the individualised
conception of resilience by highlighting the lived experiences of children who perceive
“adversity” and “doing well” to be political constructs. The resilience discourse has largely
overlooked power structures and inequalities in the lives of children. An implication of this
study is that the resilience of children must be understood within their social, political and
economic context and recognise the diverse strategies in which children engage as they seek
to “do well”. Paying attention to habitual and strategic acts of agency holds implications for
understanding children’s use of resources that are available to express political resistance
(Skattebol, Saunders et al. 2012). The findings from this study suggest that policy that seeks
to increase the resilience of street-involved children must account for their political
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”, which include critiques of oppressive and
inadequate government policy that targets children and their families.

6
1.3 The Filipino Context

This research project was undertaken in the Republic of the Philippines and, as such, the
unique social, political, economic and cultural characteristics of the nation provide the
context for this study. The Philippines archipelago is made up of over 7,107 islands, with
approximately 1,000 of them inhabited (Silva 1996). Most of the population lives in the three
major island groups of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The Philippines experienced the
impact of colonisation, which began with the arrival of the Islamic tradition in the 14th
century, followed by the Spanish Catholics in the 16th century (Lasquety-Reyes and Alvarez
2015). Catholicism remains an important foundation of Filipino culture, with the majority of
the population identifying as Roman Catholic (Cukur, De Guzman et al. 2004). The arrival of
Americans in the 20th century further introduced modern concepts such as universal
education and democracy, while also establishing English as well as Tagalog as the most
widely spoken and officially recognised languages (Lasquety-Reyes and Alvarez 2015).
Today, while each region is known for its own distinctive culture and traditions, a common
feature among them is the traditional social structures and belief systems that emphasise
kinship relationships and connections (Lasquety-Reyes and Alvarez 2015).

Emerging from its long history of colonialism in the 1940s, the political history of the
Philippines as a young democratic republic has been turbulent, with successive government
administrations plagued by systemic corruption, the stratification of wealth and popular
unrest (Karnow 1989, Timberman 2016). Thirty years after the People Power revolution,
which saw dictator President Marcos deposed and replaced by a democratically elected
government, the election of the controversial President Rodrigo Duterte has changed the
political and social landscape of the Philippines. Previously the Mayor of Davao City for 22
years, Duterte is popularly believed to have transformed the city that was once plagued by
drugs and crime into an economic and social success by empowering “death squads” to
eliminate drug dealers and criminals (Curato 2017). In 2016, promising a similar
transformation for all of the Philippines, Duterte was elected, promising to create a federal
government that would challenge corruption as well as the eradication of illegal drugs via
extra-judicial killings (Karnow 1989, Timberman 2016). Since this election Duterte has
upheld this promise, implementing a “war on drugs” and other socially oppressive policies,
while enjoying record-breaking rates of grassroots popularity (Curato 2017). While it is
impossible to ascertain exact numbers of extra-judicial killings, scholars estimate thousands

7
of deaths have occurred at the hands of police and vigilantes ostensibly in the interest of
eradicating drugs from the Philippines (Johnson and Fernquest 2018). Recent scholars
suggest the war on drugs provides a policy platform that serves to demarcate criminals from
law-abiding citizens and enables the government to appear to be addressing failed efforts to
achieve economic prosperity for its citizens (Reyes 2016, Johnson and Fernquest 2018,
Gallagher, Raffle et al. 2020). Recently called a crime against humanity, there are growing
calls for an international response to mass violence and corruption (Gallagher, Raffle et al.
2020).

1.3.1 Collectivism and Religiosity

Contemporary commentators argue that the Philippines remains a collectivist culture despite
its history of colonisation by Western nations (Church 1987). Collectivist values are evident
in modes of social organisation that emphasise “in-group” relationships and an
interdependent view of self that is at the core of personhood (Church 1987). The family,
composed of nuclear and extended family members, is the basic unit of Filipino society
(Alampay and Jocson 2011). Immediate families comprise of age-based hierarchies that
privilege the position of adults, with children expected to respect the authority of older family
members (Bessell 2007). Children have a specific relationship with their mother and father,
owing their parents a “utang ng pasasalamat”, which translates as “debt of gratitude”. This
debt of gratitude is conveyed via obligations of interdependence that stretch into adulthood
(Lynch 1970). In collectivist societies, family obligations and responsibilities remain of vital
importance and supersede all personal interests of family members (Lynch 1970). “Kapwa” is
a Tagalog term that can be translated as “fellowship” and describes a shared identity that
binds individuals to each other and gives deference to group membership and family bonds
(Pomm 2005). In the Philippines, extended family members often reside together, sharing
basic material goods necessary for survival and acting as an informal safety net in times of
crisis.

In addition to its collectivist character, commentators agree that the Philippines remains a
deeply religious nation, with the majority of the population identifying as Roman Catholic
(Cukur, De Guzman et al. 2004). A study of the relationship between religiosity and
collectivist values found that in the Philippines religiosity is negatively associated with
attainment of personal status and power, suggesting consistency with collectivist values
(Cukur, De Guzman et al. 2004). Religiosity can be defined as the centrality of religion in an

8
individual’s life and it is a significant social-cultural factor in predicting an individual’s
behaviour (Cukur, De Guzman et al. 2004). Catholic values play an important role in Filipino
culture and remain a powerful influence on individual behaviour and public discourse
(Church and Katigbak 2002). The Catholic Church remains a commanding influence in the
Philippines and has long been identified as having considerable influence over public policy
and political debate (Karnow 1989).

1.3.2 Street-Involved Children in the Philippines

Despite the robust economic growth and a modest reduction in the numbers of people living
in poverty, an estimated 21.6% of the Filipino population, about 22 million people, still live
below the poverty line (Bank 2018). Many of these families become the urban poor, living in
illegal settlements with limited access to health, education and sanitation services (Tuason
and Teresa 2013). The children of these families often engage in activities that contribute
towards the family income and spend many hours working and playing on the streets of
Manila (Aguirre 2005).

In the Philippines, exact numbers of street children are difficult to ascertain. The most recent
count in 2011 reported 246,000 “highly visible children” determined to be in need of urgent
assistance (Unicef 2016). Highly visible children are defined as those who live or work on the
streets for a period of four or more hours per day, with limited adult supervision (Unicef
2016). The majority of Filipino reports regarding the conditions experienced by street-
involved children identify poor physical and mental health, as well exposure to violence and
abuse at the hands of adults and other children in their families, and in the broader
community (Pomm 2005). A 2016 report identified that such children are unable to access
basic resources required for survival and are denied access to essential services in the
community that facilitate growth and development, such as school and health services
(University of the Philippines Manila 2016). Sta. Maria, Martinez and Diestro (2014) have
suggested that street-involved children are aware of their social stigma and mainstream
society’s assumptions about their criminality and deviance.

The researcher recognises the inadequacy of the term “street children”, as it fails to capture
the diversity of experience of children who live and work on the streets (Panter-Brick 2002).
The term “street children” is associated with assumptions of criminality, pathology and
inevitably negative life trajectories in this highly visible group, while ignoring less visible

9
children in equally dire situations (Panter-Brick 2002). Sociological studies have identified
that the term has been used to describe children who are “out of place” in public
environments usually reserved for economic activities, rather than in spheres typically
considered appropriate for children, such as schools and recreational settings (Ennew &
Swart-Kruger 2003).

In an effort to manage these complexities, multiple terms have been used in public policy to
describe children who live in street situations, including “street children”, “children of the
street”, “children on the street”, as well as “orphaned” or “abandoned” children (UN 2017).
The United Nations uses the term “children in street situations” to describe multiple
categories of children including those who live alone, or with their peers or their families, and
depend on the street for income generation. This definition recognises the larger number of
children who form strong connections to public spaces such as parks and economic centres,
and periodically migrate to the street in order to live and work (UN 2017). In Filipino
legislation various terms have described children as “on” and “of” the streets, “working street
child” or “Children in Need of Special Protection”. These terms attempt to reflect the diverse
circumstances that these children experience (Aptekar and Heinonen 2003, Philippines 2012).
Public policy regarding street-involved children in the Philippines primarily uses the term
“street children” to describe children who live in a variety of circumstances including living
with their families, in sheltered accommodation or on the streets (Republic of the Philippines
2012). This study uses the term “street involved” as a shorthand to describe children who fit
into a range of circumstances associated with living and working in the streetscape.

Street-involved children in the Philippines have been found to experience extreme

deprivation of resources necessary for survival, to be subject to abuse and neglect by adults
and other children, and be unable to access essential services such as health and education
that enable growth and development (West 2003, Pomm 2005, Unicef 2016, University of the
Philippines Manila 2016). Street-involved children are also subject to stigma and
discrimination that results in experiences of violence and exclusion from mainstream society
(Pomm 2005, Racelis, Aguirre et al. 2006, Wartenweiler and Mansukhani 2016). Historically
in the Philippines, the perceived criminality and vulnerability of street-involved children has
warranted extreme protective measures delivered by public officials. The primary
government response to street-involved children is the policy of “rescue”, which is enacted
by various government agencies and is governed by the Standards for Community-Based

10
Services for Street Children. Via the policy of “rescue,” children found begging, loitering and
adopting the streets, parks, markets, shopping malls or other public places as home are
removed and detained in Reception and Assessment Centres (RACs) (Willis 2016). These
were described by children in this study as a “jail for street children” and have been reported
as subjecting children to violence and deprivation of their human rights (Bahay Tuluyan
2014).

Under President Rodrigo Duterte, an array of public policies targets street-involved children
with life-threatening consequences (Kattouw 2018, Simangan 2018). In addition to rescue, in
2017 a “curfew” was introduced, criminalising children who are unsupervised in public
places between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am. This policy criminalises the day-to-day
behaviours of children who are street involved and who earn, play and congregate in public
spaces after dark (Bayudan-Dacuycuy 2012). These repressive social policies may soon be
extended by a Senate proposal to amend the Juvenile Justice Act 2006 to lower the age of
criminal responsibility from 15 years to 9 years of age. Oppressive government policies in the
Philippines serve to demarcate street-involved children from law-abiding citizens, who are
encouraged to feel safe because of the harsh law-and-order platform (Reyes 2016). The
police, as part of the war on drugs, often target young men who are street involved. While
exact numbers of extra-judicial killings are hard to ascertain, recent estimates suggest that
thousands of Filipinos from poor communities have been killed by the police and vigilantes
(Gallagher, Raffle et al. 2020). Studies have established that young men experience high rates
of violence in the community and describe feeling unsafe in the street environment
(University of the Philippines Manila 2016).

This context of public policy forms an important backdrop to this study, suggesting that
street-involved children experience significant oppression and marginalisation from
mainstream Filipino society. The day-to-day circumstances of adversity as well as oppressive
public policy measures serve as significant barriers for street-involved children to overcome
adversity and go on to “do well”.

1.3.3 Bahay Tuluyan

This study was conducted in and around the premises of Bahay Tuluyan, a child rights
organisation that was founded in Manila by a group of Catholic clergies who advocated for
human rights at the height of the Marcos era. Based on principles of social justice, the

11
founders believed that the street children of Manila, despite their extreme poverty and
precarious life circumstances, had the capacity to solve their own problems by engaging in
community advocacy activities. The founders established annual Children’s Assemblies in
which children were encouraged to identify social problems and develop solutions. Today,
Children’s Assembles are regularly held and the philosophy that respects the rights and
capacities of children to problem solve remains the foundation of all program and service
delivery.

Bahay Tuluyan headquarters are in metropolitan Manila, with two additional services located
in the surrounding provinces of Laguna and Quezon. The service offers street-based outreach,
sheltered accommodation, and alternative education and employment programs for children
and young people. The UNCRC is used as the framework for all of its interventions, which
include provision of basic resources necessary for survival, access to health care and
education, as well as opportunities for political participation and engagement in advocacy
activities regarding matters that concern them (Bahay Tuluyan 2011). Bahay Tuluyan
provides training to children regarding the UNCRC via a mobile school that is delivered on
the streets of Malate, whereby children learn about child rights. For example, education
regarding hygiene and hand-washing practices is framed within the right to the provision of
basic sanitation and health care. Bahay Tuluyan’s mission is to prevent and respond to abuse
and exploitation of children through the delivery of child-centred programs and services that
are delivered by and for children. Throughout all service delivery, staff seek to maximise
children’s participation and respect the capacities of children to be experts in their own lives.
Young people are trained to become Youth Facilitators who take a leadership role in the
service, teaching other children about the UNCRC and leading advocacy activities. The
training program for Youth Facilitators includes examining the UNCRC and consideration of
rights that are upheld or not in the lives of street-involved children in Manila, Philippines.
Youth Facilitators are regularly called upon to deliver training to government and community
organisations including schools, universities and non-government agencies who wish to learn
about the rights of children. Bahay Tuluyan is at the forefront of public awareness campaigns
and advocacy activities that promote the rights of children in the Philippines (Bahay Tuluyan
2011, 2014, 2017). These activities have included engaging in public protests, action research
and policy development in partnership with the Filipino government (Bahay Tuluyan 2011,
2014). Specific advocacy activities by Youth Facilitators are described in detail in Section

12
5.6, which features Kyla, who serves as an emblematic case study in this thesis, who draws
on her training in child rights as a basis for political and collective agency.

The author of this thesis first began to volunteer at Bahay Tuluyan in 2016 after hearing
about the service at the Australian Consulate in Manila. The researcher began volunteering by
taking part in street outreach activities, teaching the English language and supporting the peer
leadership and drop-in programs. In 2017 I co-designed the child intake and assessment
process and practice guidance in partnership with a working party made up of Bahay Tuluyan
staff and youth facilitators. While undertaking this work Bahay Tuluyan management
suggested they would like to develop an instrument to measure resilience before and after
service provision. Staff identified the need to understand children’s perceptions of resilience
before such a tool was devised. Hence the study was initiated via a project proposal submitted
by the researcher to Flinders University for a PhD candidature. Through the course of this
study, the researcher, her partner and children became involved, accompanying the researcher
on visits to the service. The presence of the researchers’ own children was attractive to the
study participants who built relationships with them and played together regularly.

In this study, Bahay Tuluyan acted as a gatekeeper between the researcher and street-
involved children. Possible perceptions of coercion were managed via a robust informed
consent process that included the researcher attending a Children’s Assembly and talking
about the study. This process gave the children the opportunity to learn about the research
question and take several months to freely self-select into the study. Bahay Tuluyan offered a
high level of security for the researcher and the children, with established occupational,
health, safety and welfare procedures. Child participants and their social workers accessed
Bahay Tuluyan daily and thus felt comfortable and safe during the research process. A social
worker was available after the interview to debrief, provide emotional support and respond if
the child experienced unexpected emotions during the interview process.

1.4 The Resilience Discourse

This study is undertaken in the context of the vast body of resilience literature, spanning over
fifty years of research, applied across multiple disciplines and informing wide-ranging policy
interventions (Prince-Embury and Saklofske , Hall and Lamont 2013). In its earliest iteration,
“resiliency” was understood to be a character trait and it inspired scholars to identify
particular temperaments, talents and abilities that set some children apart from their peers

13
(Richardson 2002). The definition of resilience as a cluster of personal character traits
remains influential, with ongoing efforts by researchers and policy makers to measure and
encourage personal attributes that are associated with children’s perceived ability to succeed
despite adverse circumstances (Ager 2013).

In Minority World studies, researchers observed that resilient children possess the personal
quality of “social competence,” described as the capacity of children to build relationships
with adults and their peers (Benard 2004). Social competence includes a range of personal
qualities such as empathy, a sense of humour and the ability to care for others (Masten and
Garmezy 1985). Throughout the literature, other characteristics associated with resilient
children include having a sense of purpose in life, the ability to solve problems, demonstrate
autonomy and agency in the pursuit of personal goals. (Masten and Coatsworth 1998).
Problem solving is defined as the capability to find creative solutions when faced with
difficult social or cognitive challenges (Benard 2004). Agency refers to having faith in one’s
own ability to make decisions and take action in order to effect change (Benard 1995). A
range of terms have been used in the literature to describe this characteristic including “self-
efficacy” (Garmezy, Masten et al. 1984), “self-esteem” (Rutter 1985) and “independence”
(Anthony and Cohler 1987). A sense of optimism about the future has been observed as
another important characteristic of resilient children (Constantine, Benard et al. 1999). A
future focus includes the development of personal aspirations, as well as the ability to
persevere despite difficulties (Werner and Smith 1992).

As the discourse evolved, researchers began to move beyond a focus on individual

characteristics, instead investigating the interaction between human adaptive systems and
normative processes of growth and development (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000). This change of
focus arose when researchers observed a degree of variance in resilience, noting that
competence could be attained in one life domain, such as social competence, but not another,
such as educational attainment (Willis 2016). These observations led researchers to suggest
that the impact of risk and protective factors were non-homogenous, affecting the growth and
development of children in individualised ways (Rutter 1987). Thus healthy functioning was
defined as positive adaptation in circumstances that threatened normative growth and
development (Daniel, Wassell et al. 2011). Masten (2001), championing this approach,
suggested that most children demonstrate resilience when confronted by adversity, which is
enabled by systems and processes that are the result of ordinary growth and development.

14
Her influential research suggests that resilience is associated with the ability of children to
demonstrate competence criteria associated with age and stages of development that reflect
emerging understandings of child development (Luthar, Cicchetti et al. 2000).

Another major theoretical influence on the resilience discourse was the application of
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development that drew attention to contextual
influences on the developing child (Bronfenbrenner 1986, Ungar, Ghazinour et al. 2013).
Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) approach emphasizes the interactions between individuals and
spheres in their environments, with those in closest proximity to the child considered to have
the greatest impact on the growth and development. This approach encouraged scholars to
take a systems approach, drawing attention to the capacity of humans to undergo ongoing
adaptations within environmental layers to which they both contribute and are affected by.
This model became significant in emerging studies of resilience, particularly in understanding
the impact of environmental risk and protective factors in the individual, family and the
environment (Garmezy 1991).

The social-ecological approach to resilience, championed by Ungar, asserts that resilience is a

cultural and contextual construct, the result of multiple, non-hierarchical processes between
the child and resources in their environment (Ungar 2011). The social-ecological model
draws on understandings of risk and protective factors but goes beyond this approach by
pointing out the multidimensional nature of these processes, suggesting that resilience is
more than the result of straightforward cause and effect (Ungar and Liebenberg 2011). For
Ungar, resilience is a shared quality between the child and their environment, facilitated by
the navigation and negotiation of personal, relational, community and cultural resources as
the child travels diverse pathways towards resilience. The approach acknowledges that
resilience is a culturally nuanced concept, and that those factors that constitute both
“adversity” and “doing well” are culturally defined.

“Hidden resilience” is Ungar’s (2005a) term to describe the unconventional methods by

which children and young people achieve health-related outcomes such as achieving a
positive self-concept, attachments and belonging. For these children, resilience-seeking
personality traits, relationships and activities may sit outside mainstream cultural values but
are nonetheless meaningful in that they enable feelings of competence and a powerful self-
concept (Ungar 2005). In this conception, “unhealthy” behaviours are meaningful as they are
mechanisms to seek out health-related outcomes that promote growth and development

15
(Ungar 2005). This approach has been drawn on to analyse the lives of street-involved
children in the Majority World, with findings suggesting they travel diverse pathways
towards resilience by seeking health-promoting resources that are accessible and meaningful
to them in their context (Malindi 2014b).

Since the emergence of the discourse in the Minority World, Filipino scholars have been
interested in the concept of resilience, particularly examining the lives of children who live
and work on the streets, yet manage the achieve positive growth and development (Banaag
1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista 2000, Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Bautista and Rolder 2001,
Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017). Although only two of
these publications cite Ungar’s approach (Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Wartenweiler
2017), the Filipino studies lend support to his thesis by suggesting a nuanced conception of
resilience that reflects cultural values associated with the Filipino construct of childhood,
obligations to family and religiosity. These scholars draw on Minority World studies but
suggest significant differences. For example, social competence as defined in Minority World
studies emphasises humour, flexibility, and the ability to build relationships (Benard 1991).
In contrast, the Filipino studies describe social competence as evident when children avoid
conflict and maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships that facilitate group membership
(Bautista and Rolder 2001). Cultural nuance is evident in definitions of the personal quality
of “agency” in the Filipino research, in which it is closely associated with compliance with
social norms that govern behaviour including observing Filipino values and resisting the
“lure” of delinquency (Banaag 1997). The Filipino construction of healthy functioning also
emphasises faith and a relationship with God as important indicators of “healthy functioning”
(Banaag 1997). Thus the existing Filipino studies consider Western psychological approaches
to the study of resilience but suggest significant cultural nuance in the construction of healthy
functioning. In this way, these studies support Ungar’s (2004a) view that resilience is a
cultural construction that reflects contextual notions of healthy functioning in children.

Contemporary studies in the Philippines have examined the lived experience of street-
involved children by drawing on child-focused research methods that explore how they
overcome adversity in the context of the street (Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014,
Wartenweiler 2017). In a study that sought to understand protective factors as identified by
children, Sta. Maria, Martinez and Diestro (2014) suggest that children feel safe when they
have adequate resources by which to survive and relationships that facilitate belonging and

16
value in the community. Wartenweiler (2017) applied the concept of hidden resilience in
adults who were once street children in Manila. His study findings suggest that resilience can
be evident in children who pursue healthy outcomes via unhealthy means. His findings point
to engagement in crime and early parenthood as turning points that foster changes in
behaviour and has the potential to facilitate healthy growth and development (Wartenweiler
2017). The approaches taken in these contemporary studies are consistent with the social-
ecological approach to resilience that seeks to understand children’s lived experience of
resilience.

While Ungar’s approach offers a cultural and contextual understanding of resilience, this
thesis suggests that his approach is founded on a narrow approach to “healthy functioning”
that privileges Minority World conceptions of health-related outcomes. This is argued to be
evident from examination of Ungar’s Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM), which
articulates personal, relational and community resources that identify essential components of
“healthy functioning” in a child’s culture and context (Ungar 2005). Some researchers have
suggested that children live very complex lives with beliefs that may contradict mainstream
values regarding good health and development (Panter-Brick 2015). This thesis will argue
that Ungar’s approach acknowledges cultural variance in how children navigate and negotiate
internal and external resources but fails to highlight the variance in children’s conception of
desirable life outcomes. He recognises the use of aberrant behaviours as pathways towards
outcomes that promote good health and development, but only positions them as meaningful
when they serve to facilitate the child attaining a somewhat narrowly defined concept of
“healthy functioning”.

Moreover, the concept of hidden resilience has been critiqued for downplaying the collective
experience of marginalisation and the possibility of aberrant behaviours representing
collective social protest (Bottrell 2009b). Bottrell (2007, 2009b) suggests that Ungar’s
approach, in focusing on individual young people’s behaviour as acts of resistance against
discursive power, reflects a broader problem in the resilience discourse that is preoccupied
with the individual and their response to adversity. Instead, she argues that stereotyping and
discrimination are not just individual experiences but also collective ones and are associated
with group differentiations and social inequalities. In her critique she argues for a shift away
from the focus on individual responsibility for healthy functioning, and towards an

17
acknowledgment of the role of deprivation and marginalisation in particular communities of
young people (Bottrell 2007).

This thesis will draw on Bottrell’s critique to suggest that the dominant resilience discourse
fails to account for children’s collective experiences of political oppression and
marginalisation from mainstream society. The thesis will further this argument by drawing on
discussions of agency that have examined children’s lives in the context of inequalities of
power, and their capacity to hold complex relationships with the dominant values of the
society in which they live (Bottrell 2009b, valentine 2011b, Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo
2017). Lister’s (2004) discussion of “Othering” will be applied to children’s conceptions of
“adversity”, which they described as experiences they shared with children and their families
who experience marginalisation and oppression. Furthermore, the application of Lister’s
(2004) taxonomy of agency will highlight their personal and collective acts in response to
these experiences. The thesis will suggest that children are aware of their powerlessness and
take actions in order to improve their lives and the lives of others. The thesis will use case
studies to offer insights into children’s capacity to engage in acts of strategic and day-to-day
resistance against collective experiences of disadvantage. The application of Lister’s (2004)
conception of agency to Ungar’s approach to resilience will suggest an alternative way of
thinking about resilience that foregrounds the capacity of children to engage in personal and
collective acts of resistance against shared experiences of disadvantage.

1.5 Research Methods

In order to address the research question, the researcher asked study participants about their
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in the context of their lives. In particular, the
researcher sought to uncover how children navigated and negotiated resources in themselves,
their relationships, communities and culture in order to facilitate resilience in their social
ecology.

The epistemological basis of this study is post-positivist, drawing on research methods that
challenge positivist approaches by acknowledging the position of the researcher in
knowledge generation (Ryan 2006). Qualitative research methods have been observed to have
the potential to be transformative, giving voice to minority groups who are traditionally
spoken “about” in research (Rogers 2012). In child-centred research, the researcher is
concerned with involving children in the research process and focusing on questions and

18
issues that they consider are of central importance (Crump 2013). This study is based on anti-
oppressive research methodology that acknowledges children as holders of rights who are
valued participants, rather than objects of study (Kirk 2007). This study was planned to
manage the ethical and methodological challenges related to unequal power relationships
typically characteristic of adult-centred societies that position children as vulnerable, passive
and incompetent (Kirk 2007). Anti-oppressive research methods involve designing the study
in such a way as to minimise power discrepancies between adults and children and allow for
children’s evolving capacities and opportunities to demonstrate competence (Barker and
Weller 2003). Child-centred research practices view children as best placed to provide
insights into their lived experiences (Sakamoto and Pitner 2005).

This study was designed to uncover the lived experiences of children by employing a range
of child-focused research methods that offered choice during all stages of the research
process. Twenty-five street-involved children between 11 and 18 years of age, registered as
Children in Need of Special Protection by Bahay Tuluyan, self-selected into the study. A
range of child-focused qualitative data collection methods in which children could choose to
participate, based on their interests and capacities, were sequenced over several months
(Darbyshire, MacDougall et al. 2005). These activities included a “talk and draw” art activity;
a “child-led tour” of the child’s local environment and a semi-structured interview conducted
at one of the Bahay Tuluyan service sites (Crump and Phipps 2013). During data collection
children selected which activities they were happy to participate in, and which activities they
did not want to participate in.

The relationship between the researcher and the children and staff at Bahay Tuluyan was
critical to this study. The researcher was a regular volunteer at Bahay Tuluyan for two years
prior to the study commencement, becoming involved in several projects that informed the
development of this study. As such, the researcher developed a relationship of trust with the
organisation, the staff and the children. This relationship enabled insights into the lives of
children and was further enhanced by the child-led tours in which the participant took control
of the data collection process. This post-positivist approach to knowledge generation
positioned children as experts in their own lives and positioned the researcher as the learner.
(Ryan and Lickona 1992).

This relationship was formalised in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the

researcher and Bahay Tuluyan. A Local Advisory Group, whose membership included social

19
workers and Youth Facilitators, supported the project to ensure cultural and contextual
relevance. The Local Advisory Group also developed the data collection methodology and
interview guides and assisted with testing and translation of interview questions to ensure
local relevance and understanding. The Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research
Committee approved this study on 30 August 2017. At the completion of the study, the
findings were disseminated to child participants who were able to provide feedback on key
themes and interpretation of data. De-identified study findings were also provided to Bahay
Tuluyan management and staff who utilised the findings as a basis of ongoing improvement
and service development activities.

The research methods were designed to ensure cultural relevance and sensitivity. During the
fieldwork, the researcher completed a daily diary in order to locate the “self” in the study,
providing an opportunity for reflection on potential bias. An appropriately qualified
interpreter accompanied the researcher throughout the study to ensure children were given the
opportunity to speak Tagalog. In order to ensure language comprehension between the
researcher and the children, all documentation such as Information Sheets, Assent Forms and
questions used during the interviews were translated into Tagalog with the support of the
Local Advisory Group. During the course of the study the Local Advisory Group ensured the
study was culturally relevant and provided local advice regarding interpretation of key
themes in the study findings. In order to arrive at the study findings, the researcher undertook
a process of thematic analysis by which qualitative information was categorised in order to
identify patterns that are relevant to the research question. The stories of four participants that
were considered “emblematic” of the major themes that emerged from the raw data were
selected for presentation in this thesis.

1.6 Ethical Considerations

The researcher acknowledges the difficult lives of the participant group, who experience
extreme deprivation and marginalisation from mainstream society. When researching the
lived experiences of children, researchers face complex ethical issues that are difficult to
anticipate and often pertain to the child’s specific circumstances (Morrow 2008). The unequal
power relationships between adults and children in most societies can be inadvertently
duplicated as part of the research process, particularly in population groups that are highly
marginalised. This study was conducted based on the assumption that it is the ethical
responsibility of the researcher to ensure children are not harmed during the process of

20
research, including intervening in the instances where the child is at risk. In order to manage
the complex ethical issues associated with this project, a risk matrix was produced, and
mitigation strategies identified as part of the MOU. For example, this included the
consideration of the multiple risks to participants such as possible perceptions of coercion
and documented a robust informed consent process that provided multiple opportunities and
mechanisms for children to learn about the study that spanned several months.

The informed consent process began with an introduction to the study during Children’s
Assemblies at all three Bahay Tuluyan sites. During the researcher’s presentation about the
study, children had the opportunity to ask questions and consider their interest in
participating. Children were assisted to develop a deep understanding of the research question
through the opportunity to draw their conceptions of “adversities” faced by street-involved
children, and what it is to “do well”. Children were provided with a written information sheet
in Tagalog that explained the risks and benefits of the study and were invited to discuss it
with their social worker if they wished. Children were then invited to indicate their
willingness to self-select into the study and signed an Assent Form at a date and time that
suited them. During the data collection, the researcher sought to minimise emotional upset to
the child. Strategies for this included ensuring that children were not required to reveal undue
personal or traumatic events in their lives and ensuring that the interview ended with a
reflection on the child’s strengths and hopes for the future.

1.7 Study Findings: Children’s Perceptions of Resilience in the Context of

Marginalisation and Political Oppression

The findings of this study suggest that children who live lives characterised by extreme
marginalisation and oppression engage in personal and collective acts of political agency that
can be characterised as legitimate forms of resilience. These are currently under-examined in
the resilience discourse. The social-ecological approach suggests resilience is associated with
complex processes between the child and resources in themselves, their relationships and
community, as they seek to overcome “adversity” and strive to “do well”, as defined by the
culture and context in which they live (Ungar, Ghazinour et al. 2013). The Filipino resilience
literature describes some of their culture and context, for example prioritisation of family
relationships, observance of morality and faith in God (Banaag 1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista,
Roldan et al. 2001, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017). This
thesis supports Ungar’s proposition that resilience is a cultural artefact, the result of complex

21
processes between the child and resources that are available and meaningful in their social
ecology.

However, this thesis will draw on Bottrell’s (2007, 2009b, 2013) critiques of Ungar to
suggest that, while his approach accounts for the role of the culture and context of children
and their ability to access resources in themselves and their environment, it overlooks the
oppression of children who are marginalised by mainstream society as a collective
experience. The children who participated in this study are aware that they are unwelcome in
society and perceive the adverse conditions associated with street life as experiences they
share with other children as well as their families. By drawing together Ungar’s (2007)
social-ecological approach to resilience and Ruth Lister’s (2004) discussion of “Othering”
and her taxonomy of agency, this thesis suggests that street-involved children perceive
themselves to be resilient when they engage in both personal and political acts of resistance
to manage the effects of oppression and marginalisation. The application of Lister’s
taxonomy of agency and the social-ecological approach to resilience highlights how street-
involved children use their agency towards both personal and political ends in diverse
everyday and strategic ways in order to “do well”: by “getting out” (of poverty and off the
streets); “getting by” (surviving on the streets); “getting (back) at” those who are held
responsible for their situation; and “getting organised” through collective action for the
recognition of street children’s rights (Lister 2004). This study therefore highlights a
neglected way of understanding resilience that acknowledges the collective experience of
oppression and the diverse political, as well as personal, processes in which children engage
to overcome adversity and travel towards self-identified conceptions of “doing well”.

The findings of this study are exemplified through a focus on the experiences of four child
participants whose narratives are presented as emblematic cases studies: Angelica, Jasmine,
Gabriel and Kyla. The thesis proposes that Angelica takes personal, strategic action to “get
out” of poverty in ways that are culturally and socially normative in children in mainstream
Filipino society. Thus Angelica complies with Filipino notions of “healthy functioning” that
she associates with “doing well”. Jasmine demonstrates everyday agency when she “gets by”,
facilitating her resilience by developing networks of “like family” relationships in the
community, including groups of street-involved children. Her conception of “doing well”
includes coping day to day by drawing on resources to which she has access. Gabriel
identifies himself as resilient when he takes personal action to “get (back) at” a government

22
that he perceives as oppressive, when he becomes an underground fighter and seeks to
become a powerful criminal in the community. After being exposed to the concept of child
rights at Bahay Tuluyan, Kyla engages in collective action with other street-involved children
by engaging in acts of political advocacy to protest the oppression of street children. These
case studies exemplify children’s diverse conceptions of “doing well” as they manage the
effects of injustice and oppression.

1.8 Organisation of This Thesis

This study seeks to understand street-involved children’s conception of resilience by

examining their perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in the context of their social
ecology. In order to address the research question, this remainder of this thesis is organised
into six chapters. Chapter 2 reviews literature regarding the resilience discourse, beginning in
Section 2.2 by examining how the resilience of street-involved children has been investigated
in relation to agency. In this section, Lister’s (2005) Taxonomy of Agency will be introduced
as a theoretical framework for this study, as a basis to highlight a political perspective that
remains underexamined in the dominant construction of resilience. In Section 2.3, the history
of resilience will be examined, suggesting that most of this research has emerged from the
Minority World and is based on ethnocentric conceptions of “healthy functioning” in children
that reflect predominantly Western values. Ungar’s social ecology approach will be discussed
as a means of furthering this discussion. Section 2.4 suggests that the Filipino conception of
resilience gives substance to Ungar’s argument, supporting the suggestion that resilience is a
cultural construct that reflects notions of “healthy functioning” in children that are specific to
the child’s context. In Section 2.6 the literature review concludes with critiques of the social-
ecological approach to resilience, suggesting that this conception overlooks the collective
experience of adversity. This second concludes in section 2.7 by suggesting the application of
Lister’s conception of “Othering” and her taxonomy of agency in the context of poverty as a
mechanism for extending current conceptions of resilience to accommodate political agency.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the research design and methods employed to investigate
the research question, including a description of child-focused data collection methods that
sought to provide multiple opportunities for children to demonstrate choice and competence.
The chapter also outlines the complex methodological and ethical challenges encountered
during the study and actions taken to mitigate risks to children. Chapter 4 presents an
introduction to the complete sample of children who participated in the study, as well as the

23
four emblematic case studies that offer insights into children’s diverse conceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well”, which include examples of compliance with and divergence
from dominant conceptions of “healthy functioning” in Filipino culture. In Section 4.2 all the
children who participated in the study are introduced and their engagement in the child-
centred research methods is summarised. In Section 4.3 each of the emblematic case studies
are introduced with a summary of their participation in the research and a brief description of
their perceptions of adversity. Angelica is discussed as an example of a resilient child who
reflects the Filipino conception of “healthy functioning” in children. Jasmine’s case study is
presented, especially her perception that she is resilient when she builds “like family”
relationships in her social ecology. The case study of Gabriel is presented, including his
perception that he is resilient when he transgresses social and cultural norms in response to
political oppression and marginalisation. Kyla’s case study is introduced and demonstrates
her self-identified perception of “doing well”, which includes having her human rights upheld
and respected. Section 4.4 summarises the major themes from the complete study sample
regarding children’s perceptions of “adversity,” drawing on themes in the emblematic case
studies including “broken families,” “inadequate resources by which to survive,” “dangers of
the streets,” and “denial of rights. Chapter 5 elaborates on the study findings by applying
Lister’s concept of “Othering” and taxonomy of agency, suggesting that Filipino street-
involved children sometimes consider themselves to be “doing well” when they are engaged
in both personal and collective actions to resist the effects of oppression. The chapter
suggests that resilience for this group of street-involved children is an overtly political
concept that includes engaging in collective acts of self-help and political action. The final
chapter concludes the thesis and considers the theoretical and policy implications of the study
findings. The final chapter also discusses some limitations of the study and makes
recommendations for further research.

24
 CHAPTER 2: THE RESILIENCE DISCOURSE

2.1 Introduction

This chapter surveys the vast body of resilience literature that has examined the capacity of
children and young people to overcome “adversity” and go on to “do well”. The chapter
suggests that the dominant conception of resilience that emphasises personal attributes of
children who meet normative expectations of growth and development is primarily a
Minority World construct, informed by Western research from within the discipline of
psychology, but has often been applied across cultures with assumed universality (Boyden
2003, Armstrong, Stroul et al. 2005, Ungar, Brown et al. 2008, Hills, Meyer-Weitz et al.
2016). While not all Western literature has complied with this paradigm, the social-ecological
approach pioneered by Ungar has critiqued this psychological construction by suggesting that
resilience is a shared quality between the child and the environment and the result of complex
processes as the child navigates and negotiates access to resources that enable them to
achieve health-related outcomes (Ungar 2011, Theron 2014, Ungar 2015). This thesis draws
on the social-ecological approach as a foundation in understanding the multifaceted, non-
linear processes children navigate, as they negotiate access to individual, relational and
community resources in ways that vary across cultures and contexts (Liebenberg 2011). The
social-ecological approach suggests that comprehending how cultures make sense of
“adversity”, as well as those factors that define “doing well”, are critical in determining a
culturally nuanced definition of resilience (Ungar 2011).

In order to explore cultural nuancing of the concept of resilience in the Filipino context, this
chapter also reports on a systematic search and review, undertaken as part of this study, of
Filipino literature on street-involved children and resilience. Filipino researchers have drawn
on the Minority World concept that has identified personal, familial and community
resources that are associated with children who overcome adversity, but also suggest resilient
children demonstrate compliance with Filipino values that are largely absent in the Minority
World concept (Banaag 1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Banaag 2016).
This includes a personal relationship with God that guides behaviour, observance of mutual
obligations, and engagement in income generation. More recent studies have identified
protective factors from the perspective of children themselves, and drawn on Ungar’s concept
of “hidden resilience” to describe children whose idea of “healthy functioning” is to pursue

25
health-related outcomes such as belonging and attachment via “unhealthy” means such as
crime, early income generation and parenthood (Wartenweiler 2017).

This thesis will argue that identifying those factors that constitute “adversity” and “healthy
functioning” in children are key to understanding resilience within a specific cultural context.
Over the evolution of the discourse, dominant conceptions of “healthy functioning” have
privileged children’s achievement of outcomes associated with good health in children who
live in the Minority World, such as educational attainment and parental attachment. Minority
World researchers have identified multiple indicators of “healthy functioning” including
specific personal and relationship characteristics that are perceived to be universal and
optimise growth and development regardless of culture and context. This chapter will
introduce the social-ecological approach to “healthy functioning”, which critiques the
dominant approach by emphasising the complex processes between children and resources in
themselves and the environment, including cultural and social norms of children and child
development. An analysis of Ungar’s Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) and
“seven tensions” in this chapter will suggest that the social ecology approach positions
healthy functioning in children as specific to context and reliant on resources in the children
themselves, their relationships, their community and their culture (Ungar 2005).

In this chapter I will argue that Ungar’s approach acknowledges cultural variance in how
children navigate and negotiate these resources, but inadvertently overlooks the variance in
children’s own conceptions of desirable life outcomes, which do not always conform to
dominant notions of “good health” in the cultural context in which the child lives.
Furthermore, I will argue that, for children who experience marginalisation from mainstream
society, “healthy functioning” can include a political dimension, expressed in personal and
collective acts of resistance against oppression and marginalisation. This thesis will make an
original contribution to knowledge by bringing together Michael Ungar’s social-ecological
approach to resilience, and Ruth Lister’s discussion of agency in the context of poverty to
suggest that children who are oppressed and marginalised perceive “adversity” to be an
experience they share with other children and their families. This thesis will expand on the
work of Bottrell (2009b), who has pointed out that Ungar’s approach overlooks the collective
experience of children who are marginalised by mainstream society.

This chapter is organised as follows. Section 2.2 considers the body of resilience literature in
relation to street-involved children, suggesting these studies have examined “agency” as a

26
personal resource that facilities survival in the harsh conditions associated with street life
(Davies 2008, Bordonaro 2012, Mizen and Ofosu-Kusi 2013). Section 2.3 explores the
history of the resilience discourse and discusses some inadequacies of the concept of
resilience, including values and conceptions of childhood growth and development that have
limited relevance outside the Majority World. This section will also examine how Ungar’s
social-ecological approach seeks to address these shortcomings by pointing out the culturally
specific nature of resilience and indicators of healthy functioning in children (Ungar 2006,
Didkowsky, Ungar et al. 2010, Eggerman and Panter-Brick 2010, Rabaia, Giacaman et al.
2010, Panter-Brick 2014). In Section 2.4 literature by Filipino academics on resilience in
street-involved children is discussed. Analysis of the dominant construction of “healthy
functioning” will be undertaken in Section 2.5, suggesting the conception that has emerged
from the Minority World privileges individualist values and Western norms associated with
the growth and development of children. This section will also draw on the Filipino studies to
suggest a culturally nuanced conception of “healthy functioning” in street-involved children
that is reliant on their demonstration of personal qualities that are highly valued in Filipino
culture such as faith in God and observing relationships of mutual obligation (Watson and
Morris 2002, Cukur, De Guzman et al. 2004, Triandis 2018). This section will suggest that
the Filipino studies support Ungar’s thesis regarding a culturally nuanced conception of
resilience that reflects the child’s ability to meet norms associated with “healthy functioning”.

In Section 2.6, the concepts of “healthy functioning” and “healthy outcomes”, as used by
Ungar, are further explored, and the work of Bottrell (2009b) and Lister (2004) is used to
elaborate some potential limitations in his use of the concepts. Bottrell’s (2009b) critique of
Ungar suggests that, while the concept of hidden resilience acknowledges the role of
unorthodox behaviours as pathways towards resilience, it remains an individual-level analysis
that overlooks the significance of collective acts of political resistance. (Bottrell 2009)
(Bottrell 2009b) (Bottrell 2009) (Bottrell 2009) To elaborate this argument, in Section 2.7 the
social and political status of children will be considered in the context of adult-centric
societies. Ruth Lister’s (2004) discussion of “Othering” and taxonomy of agency will be
introduced as a framework for extending current understandings of resilience including the
consideration of political agency. The application of Lister’s approach highlights the diversity
of children’s responses to the collective experience of marginalisation. This section suggests
that children facilitate resilience via engaging internal and external resources in complex
processes in the context of their social ecology to resist the effects of “Othering” that

27
separates street-involved children from Filipino society (Lister 2004). The chapter will
conclude with Section 2.8 summarising the resilience discourse and establishing a foundation
for investigating the research question.

2.2 Street-Involved Children, Resilience and Agency

Researchers have investigated resilience in populations of street-involved children in both the

Minority and Majority Worlds, attempting to account for their ability to survive despite
adverse conditions (Aptekar 1994, McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005, Bordonaro 2012).
These studies reflect the new paradigm of childhood that acknowledges the capacity of
children as social actors, who both shape and are shaped by their circumstances (Mayall
2002, James 2008, James and Prout 2015). Studies with this approach have highlighted the
capacity of children to appreciate their social worlds and make decisions and choices in
relation to these understandings (James 2008). In doing so they have contributed to the
growing evidence base which supports children’s capacity as agents with the ability to
exercise choice, even when faced with considerable structural and resources constraints
(Grugel and Ferreira 2012). These studies have served as a basis for arguing that children and
young people have the capacity to contribute to social and political matters that concern
them.

The resilience of children in the Minority and Majority Worlds has been conceptualised
differently with varying definitions of the conditions associated with “adversity” in the lives
of children (Boyden and Mann 2005). In the Minority World, studies have primarily
considered adverse circumstances to be associated with familial risks and being exposed to
criminality in poor neighbourhoods. In the Majority World, adverse circumstances have
included children’s exposure to armed conflict, human migration and the impact of natural
and human-made disasters (Boyden and Mann 2005). In both the Minority and Majority
Worlds, street-involved children have been shown to experience poor physical and mental
health and to be subject to exploitation and abuse by unscrupulous adults (Cénat, Derivois et
al. 2018). Street-involved children have also been observed to experience stigma,
discrimination and victimisation in many societies (Bar-On 1997, Le Roux and Smith 1998).
In both Minority and Majority World nations, children are subject to oppressive public
policy, including their removal from the streets by government officials, often against their
will (McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005, Buske 2011, UN 2017). Anthropologists Ennew
and Swart-Kruger (2003) suggest street-involved children are subject to extreme public

28
policy measures as they are considered transgressive in society, as they are highly visible in
spaces reserved for adult economic, recreational and spiritual activities from which children
are traditionally excluded. Other researchers have supported this assertion by pointing out
that, in many societies, street-involved children defy cultural values that determine modes of
social organisation and the role of children in a society (Ennew and Swart-Kruger 2003,
Davies 2008, Naterer 2011).

This thesis draws on discussions of agency in order to explore street-involved children’s

conceptions of resilience and their diverse perceptions of what it is to “do well” in the context
of extreme political oppression and marginalisation. Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory
provides an important foundation for conceptualising the role of structures and how they
enable and constrain human agency. Human beings, he suggests, “create and re-create social
institutions in which they live by making choices and taking actions, within the constraints of
their circumstances” (Giddens 1984, p. 2). In this approach, rather than a dichotomous
relationship between the individual and the structural, Giddens (1984) proposes that human
beings both create and are constrained by the social, economic and political structures that
enable and constrain agency. Central to Giddens’ (1984) argument is that human beings are
reflexive agents, capable of accounting for their actions and decisions. Reflexivity is defined
as the capacity for the individual to explain their actions and is the basis of other people
assessing a person’s competence (Giddens 1984). Drawing on Freud, Giddens (1984) argues
that there is limited delineation between “conscious” and “unconscious” reflexivity,
suggesting even unconscious thought is hierarchical, expressing one’s life history and
experiences.

Hoggett (2001) calls for a more robust account of agency that considers the complexity of
human experience and the capacity of humans to damage themselves and others. He argues
that decisions are often made in situations of urgency, can be involuntary and can include
actions that are against our own better judgement. Moreover, he argues that human beings are
not always aware of their own motivations and make sense of their choices via narratives that
take place after the event: “The question boils down to this, is it always true that we know
(even tacitly) why we are doing what we are doing when we do it or is a good deal of
reflexivity actually post hoc?” (Hoggett 2001, p. 39). Hoggett (2001) argues that conceptions
of agency must address the “negative capacities” of human beings such as self-harm,
depression and acts of violence (Hoggett 2001). To explain his approach, Hoggett draws on

29
studies of male violence and highlights findings that suggest men minimise, deny or justify
acts of violence and their consequences. He points out that different versions of oneself can
dominate at different times, depending on social relations and roles that the individual takes
up in a situation. Hoggett argues that conceptions of agency must accommodate reflexive and
non-reflexive actions, and account for negative behaviours and acts of self-destruction.
Importantly for this study, Hoggett (2001, p. 43) warns researchers to resist the temptation to
“slip into equating agency with constructive coping, as if the two were synonymous”. He
warns that there is nothing necessarily constructive about coping and we should be wary of
normative judgements that reflexivity is associated with good choices, while non-reflexivity
is associated with a lack of agency and “bad” choices and behaviours. For Hoggett, agency
can be understood as a continuum that accommodates how individuals use formal rules to
create “first-order change”, described as “alignment with the changes one expects and is
expected to make” (Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo 2017, p. 318). “Second-order change” is
reflexive actions that rupture the current order and create non-incremental change. Thus, for
Hoggett, a radical model of agency should highlight the capacity of individuals to create
ruptured, non-incremental changes to their lives, communities “and just occasionally, within
whole societies” (Hoggett 2001, p. 51).

The emphasis on rationality and self-interest has presented problems for the conception of
agency when applied to the complex lives of children (Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo 2017).
The conception of children as individual agents who make choices within their own best
interests fails to account for children’s choices and the constraints they encounter within
adult-centric societies (valentine 2011).

Children’s agency needs to be understood in the context of social and economic

constraint, but also in the context of dependence on, and submission to, the authority
of adults. Within the confines of this relationship, some agency is sanctioned or
positively encouraged, while some agency can also be understood in terms of
rebellion against adult and parental authority. (Redmond 2009, p. 544)

valentine (2011) points out that children are not always able to account for their actions and
may not be seen by adults to act in their own best interest. She argues for a more nuanced
approach that accounts for children’s capacities and how their competence is assessed in
adult-centric societies in which children have limited access to power and control over their
lives (valentine 2011).

30
Agency when applied to children is predominantly defined as their capacity to make
decisions and act in their own best interests, despite their limited access to structures and
institutions that support normative development in children (Davies 2008). “Best interests of
the child” is named in Article 3.1 of the UNCRC as the primary consideration in all actions
concerning children, and children are positioned as citizens who are entitled to resources that
enable development. The use of this definition of agency is consistent with other fields within
childhood studies that have highlighted adult-centric policy assumptions and argue for
children’s rights, including the right to participation (valentine 2011). Landsdown (2005)
points out the evolving capacities of children to make decisions in their own best interests as
they grow and develop, resulting in a diminished requirement for adults to determine their
best interests. She suggests that children are also a differentiated group and that a range of
social, economic, political and cultural factors determine their development and their
perceived capacity to make decisions (Landsdown 2005). The recognition of children’s
capacities has highlighted the importance of participation and challenged researchers and
policy makers to think beyond the rights of provision and protection (Panter-Brick 2002).
Studies in the Majority and Minority Worlds have identified a variety of strategies which
children employ in order to overcome adversity and “do well” (Aptekar 1994, McAdam-
Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005). Agency is predominantly defined as the capacity of children to
make decisions and act in their own best interests, despite their limited access to structures
and institutions that support normative development in children (Davies 2008). The use of
this definition of agency is consistent with other fields within childhood studies that have
highlighted adult-centric policy assumptions and argue for children’s rights and participation
(valentine 2011). Multiple studies of street-involved children have explored their resilience
and found evidence of an array of strategies, including activities such as drawing, art and
music as well as drawing on their faith in God, in order to cope with the challenges of day-to-
day life in the harsh conditions of the streets (Foley 1983, Aderinto 2000, Kombarakaran
2004, Amury and Komba 2010, Malindi 2014). Aptekar (1991) suggests that street-involved
children demonstrate agency when they exploit their status in society and employ deliberate
strategies such as wearing dirty clothes to elicit sympathy from helpful adults when begging.
Other studies acknowledge children’s hardiness when they engage in dangerous strategies
that present significant risk, but nevertheless offer opportunities for survival, including
prostitution, violence and participating in armed conflict (Mizen and Ofosu-Kusi 2010,
Mizen and Ofosu-Kusi 2013). Some researchers however have argued that these
demonstrations represent “thin agency” born of severely constrained choices and thus cannot

31
be seen as legitimate demonstrations of agency (Bordonaro 2012, Chikoko, Muzvidziwa et al.
2019). Atkinson-Sheppard (2017) argues that children and young people who live and work
on the streets employ “protective agency” by engaging in crime that gives them access to the
patronage and protection of adult criminals. As such they argue that street-involved children
make decisions motivated by survival, rather than rational thought that promotes their own
best interests (Atkinson-Sheppard 2017).

Decisions that are motivated by survival suggest a constrained form of agency. Amartya Sen
(1992) defines agency in a more positive sense, as comprising freedom a person has to bring
about achievements to which they ascribe value. Sen (1992) defines “achievement” as the
realisation of aspirations that are not necessarily determined by the pursuit of wellbeing. In
furthering this approach to agency Kabeer (1999, 2005) in her discussion of women’s
empowerment draws attention to the ability to make strategic decisions when overcoming
inequality based on access to resources. She points out that meaningful choice is affected by
poverty and disempowerment, often interwoven in society with inherent social, political and
economic inequalities. She argues that agency refers to the process by which choices are
made and includes both the “power to” make a choice, even in the face of opposition, as well
as having “power over” with the freedom to exercise authority (Kabeer 2005).

Kabeer’s (2005) approach can be applied to the lives of street-involved children whose
choices are constrained due to their powerless position in society. Studies of agency in the
lives of children have examined the closely intertwined concepts of agency, wellbeing and
participation as scholars attempt to understand the ability of children to exercise choice and
control over their lives in the context of adult-centric societies (Hart 2018).An important
theme in the street children and resilience literature has been the development of social
networks that facilitate survival (Ayuku, Kaplan et al. 2004, Omiyinka 2009, Ali 2011, Gadd
2016). Street-involved children have been observed to form “surrogate families” that provide
belonging, attachment and protection in the street environment (Ali 2011). Peer groups have
been shown to offer children an informal economy of cooperation and reciprocal
arrangements for protection and access to income-generating activities (Mizen and Ofosu-
Kusi 2010). Children have been observed to draw on community resources in very deliberate
ways that reflect their agency (McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005, Malindi and
Machenjedze 2012). For example, a study of children’s engagement with adult “helpers”
suggests that children draw on professional relationships with social workers in community

32
organisations, making their own assessments of offers of help and deciding themselves
whether to comply with or disregard the service rules (Turnbull, Hernández et al. 2009).

Children who live and work on the streets have also been observed to challenge oppression
and marginalisation via the creation of subcultures (Beazley 2002, 2003, Davies 2008). These
studies have found that children adopt specific modes of language, dress codes and behaviour
that offer them a powerful collective identity and group membership that counters their
rejection from mainstream society (Beazley 2002, 2003, Davies 2008). In Indonesia for
example, street-involved children have been observed to establish alternative cultures as an
expression of resistance to oppression and marginalisation from mainstream society (Beazley
2002). In Kenya Davies (2008) found that street-involved children create subcultures and safe
domains for themselves away from the surveillance and oppression of adults, by developing
informal rules that govern their behaviour and social organisation. In eastern Ukraine, a
mixed-methods study found that street children develop strong social relationships between
themselves including a shared code of behaviour and rituals including drug use that facilitates
survival (Naterer 2011). These studies suggest a more nuanced understanding of resilience is
required that considers how children develop mechanisms to challenge experiences of
marginalisation from mainstream society.

Recently, in the broader childhood literature, the treatment of agency in the lives of children
has been critiqued as simplistic, failing to examine the children’s choices and constraints
within adult-centric societies (valentine 2011, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017). Some
researchers have argued that street-involved children’s choice to migrate to the streets due to
familial abuse is an indication of agency, while others have argued that such constrained
choice is not a legitimate expression of agency due to limited options and resources
(Schimmel 2006, Ali 2011, Bordonaro 2012). valentine (2011) argues for a more nuanced
approach to agency that accounts for children’s lives in the context of adult-centric societies,
as well as broader issues of race, class, gender and language that shape how human beings
make choices and decisions.

2.2.1 Lister’s Taxonomy of Agency as a Theoretical Framework to Understand Children’s

Perceptions of Resilience

This thesis suggests that a robust conception of resilience must account for street-involved
children’s location of their experiences of “adversity” and “doing well” within the socio-

33
political contexts of their day-to-day experiences. To do this, the thesis will draw on Ruth
Lister’s (2004) approach to agency to describe mechanisms by which people manage the
experience of poverty and the concept of “Othering” to describe the relationship between the
“poor” and the “non-poor”. Lister’s discussion draws on sociologist and feminist scholars
who have argued that “Othering” encompasses multidimensional issues of power
relationships in society that pertain to class, race and gender (Said 1985, Spivak 1985,
DeBeauvior 1997, Jensen 2011). Contemporary researchers have applied the concept in
various contexts to describe the definition of subordinate groups within society by those in
positions of power (Schwalbe 2000, Andersson 2010). Jensen (2011) defines “Othering” as a:

Discursive processes by which powerful groups, who may or may not make up a
numerical majority, define subordinate groups into existence in a reductionist way
which ascribe problematic and/or inferior characteristics to these subordinate groups.
Such discursive processes affirm the legitimacy and superiority of the powerful and
condition identity formation among the subordinate. (Jensen 2011, p. 65)

This thesis will suggest that the street-involved children in this study understood they were
“Othered” from mainstream society when they were subject to abuse, discrimination and
oppression by adults in positions of power. Lister (2004) defines “Othering” as processes
used by those in positions of power and privilege to separate themselves from those who are
poor and marginalised. She suggests that this is a two-way relationship that is largely dictated
by the non-poor who control the social discourse, and whose attitudes, beliefs and behaviours
influence how those who are poor experience poverty. Lister (2004) suggests “Othering” is
expressed via value judgements in which the marginalised are constructed in language and
images as poor, threatening, undesirable or objects of pity. She gives the term a capital “O”,
by which she emphasises the “symbolic weight” of this “animated process” of demarcation
and differentiation that takes place in society (Lister 2004).

Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency identifies four categories of agency as people struggle to
“get by”, “get out”, “get back at” and “get organised”. As Figure 2.1 shows, Lister locates
these four categories of agency to manage and resist the effects of poverty on two axes or
continuums: the vertical axis represents the continuum of agency from the everyday to the
strategic, and the horizontal axis represents the personal–political continuum.

34
 Everyday

“Getting by” “Getting back at”

Personal Political/citizenship

“Getting out” “Getting organised”

Strategic

Figure 2.1: Lister’s Taxonomy of Agency

This study will draw on Lister’s conception of “Othering” and her taxonomy of agency to
further understandings of resilience from the perspective of children, by highlighting their
own narratives of collective experiences of social injustice and personal and collective acts of
resistance. The study will aim to contextualise agency within the multifaceted social orders in
which young people live, in ways that resonate with, and extend, the social-ecological
approach to resilience.

2.3 The History of the Discourse

Initially emerging from the physical sciences, the conception of resilience was first applied to
the lives of children by ground-breaking social researchers who, when studying illness and
pathology, noticed that some children managed to recover despite exposure to risk and
adversity (Masten and Obradović 2006). Werner and Smith conducted a landmark
longitudinal study of children born in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, making an
extraordinary observation that over two-thirds of children who exhibited four or more risk
factors during childhood managed to recover and live successful adult lives (Werner and

35
Smith 1977, Werner 1982, Werner 1993, Werner 1995). Rutter (1985) studied children whose
mothers were diagnosed with schizophrenia, finding that approximately half of the children
studied did not become mentally ill, nor demonstrate maladaptive characteristics in
adulthood. These early investigations transformed subsequent researchers’ approaches to
studying children, shifting the focus away from investigating risk and pathology, and towards
determining circumstances and characteristics that make a difference in achieving successful
life outcomes despite exposure to adversity (Masten 2007).

The concept of resilience is broadly applied as a basis of treatments and programs that seek to
improve the outcomes of children (Rutter 2013). Nonetheless, the resilience discourse
remains both complex and incomplete, particularly in the context of the Majority World
(Luthar, Cicchetti et al. 2000, Ungar 2004, Eggerman and Panter-Brick 2014, Wartenweiler
2017). Competing discourses have defined resilience as associated with innate character
traits, and processes related to growth, development and adaption, as well as the result of
interactive processes between risk and protective factors (Anthony and Cohler 1987, Rutter
1987, Garmezy 1993, Benard 1997, Luthar, Cicchetti et al. 2000, Durbrow, Pen et al. 2001,
Fergus and Zimmerman 2005, Werner 2013, Southwick, Bonanno et al. 2014). Some of these
discourses are elaborated in the subsections below.

2.3.1 Early Conceptions of “Resilience”

This subsection will summarise the complex resilience discourse that has evolved over fifty
years and has been marked by overlapping and competing theoretical and methodological
approaches (Masten 2007). In the earliest discourse, “resiliency” was positioned as an
mysterious character trait, associated with particular temperaments, talent and abilities that
differentiated successful children from their less successful peers when exposed to adversity
(Panter‐Brick and Leckman 2013, Southwick, Bonanno et al. 2014). At this time both
researchers and public commentators sought to identify and celebrate children who remained
“hardy”, “stress-resistant”, “invincible” and “invulnerable” despite exposure to circumstances
of risk (Anthony and Cohler 1987). Such children were said to possess an unknown personal
quality that enabled them to achieve positive life outcomes despite exposure to adverse
circumstances such as poverty, crime, and parental physical and psychological illness.
Seeking to understand this phenomenon, researchers sought to identify clusters of personal
character traits and attributes that were evident in such children.

36
The emphasis in the early resilience discourse on the personal characteristics of agency and
autonomy has been drawn on in conjunction with neoliberal ideology to highlight individual
choice and responsibility, informing public discourse that has proposed the emergence of a
pathological and dysfunctional “underclass” as an unintended consequence of the welfare
state (Lister 2004, Martin 2004, Tyler 2013, Crossley 2016). Neoliberalism is a political
approach that de-emphasises welfare state provision, instead positioning the free market as
the preferred mechanism to meet human need. Neoliberalism advocates for autonomous
individuals to be responsible and capable of self-organisation in response to stress (Joseph
2013, Chandler 2014). Neoliberalism has embraced the concept of resilience as a form of
governmentality that emphasises individual adaptation via mechanisms such as preparedness,
making informed decisions, and citizens understanding their role and responsibilities (Joseph
2013). In the Philippines, neoliberalism has been associated with the preservation of the
power and wealth of the upper classes via state-sanctioned violence against a social
movement of the poor during the War on Terror (Holden 2012). Globally critics have argued
that the resilience discourse has offered neoliberalism a new type of colonialism that
overlooks relationships of unequal power and the responsibilities of governments to provide
social equality (Lindroth & Sinevaara-Niskanen 2019).

Researchers have identified personal characteristics such as social competence, problem

solving and persistence, which have been associated with children who manage to overcome
adversity. Social competence describes the ability of children to build relationships by
eliciting positive responses in children and adults (Benard 1995). Autonomy and a sense of
purpose describes children having a sense of their own identity, and an ability to exert control
over their environment and their future (Benard 1991). A range of terms describes the
characteristic of autonomy, including “independence” (Anthony & Cohler 1987), “self-
esteem” (Rutter 1985) and “self-efficacy” (Garmezy 1983). The development of “agency”
has been identified as an important indicator of healthy functioning in children who
overcome “adversity” and go on to “do well”. The term “agency” is used to describe an
individual who is autonomous, purposeful and creative, and who can exercise choices that
reflect their own best interests (Lister 2004). A sense of purpose and optimism is also
associated with children who manage to overcome threats to normative growth and
development (Benard 1995).

37
The conception of resilience as a collection of personal character traits that are internal to the
child remains dominant in resilience discourses (Ungar 2005). A recent systematic review of
psychological instruments identified the dominance of personality traits as primary indicators
of resilience (Smith-Osborne & Whitehill Bolton 2013). In the Majority and Minority
Worlds, defining resilience as a personal character trait has been popularised by commending
the achievements of “super-kids from the ghettos” who manage to avoid socially undesirable
behaviour and delinquency despite their proximity to risk (Masten 2001). This conception of
resilience has become an important foundation for public policy that attempts to ameliorate
problems in the lives of children and their families who are deemed to be at risk of poor
outcomes.

Positioning resilience as a personal characteristic has been associated with the neoliberal
public policy agenda that suggests the individual as responsible for overcoming challenges to
achieve economic, material, and social success (O’Brien 2014). The ideology of
neoliberalism argues that economic growth is achieved when individuals take responsibility
for their own lives, thereby reducing the responsibilities of government. Private ownership
and a robust free market are positioned as the preferred methods for delivering goods and
services that meet human need (Tierney 2015). Government policies and programs that aim
to build resilience in children have focused on individual character development as the
primary means by which they are prepared for future success (Hall & Lamont 2013). This
approach can be found in school programs that focus on developing skills and abilities in
individual children, although these have been critiqued for failing to address structural
barriers and injustices that prevent children from overcoming adversity (Tierney 2015).

Commentators have critiqued this personality-focused conception of resilience, noting the

emphasis on deficits in children and families who did not manage to overcome adversity and
achieve healthy functioning (Southwick, Bonanno et al. 2014). An alternative view suggests
resilience is the result of interactive processes related to human development and adaptation
in response to environmental risk and protective factors (Zolkoski & Bullock 2012).
Researchers have investigated the diverse effects of adversity in the lives of children, and
have sought to further explore why resilience may be present in one aspect of a child’s life
(for example academic attainment) but not in another (for example social competence).
Researchers observed that children and young people respond to stress in non-homogeneous

38
ways and began to emphasise the multiple processes between the internal and external
protective factors in the child and their environment (Rutter 2013).

This investigative focus encouraged researchers to propose highly dynamic and changeable
processes including “chains” and “turning points” of risk or protective factors associated with
resilience (Cicchetti, Murray-Close et al. 2014). These developments in the discourse resulted
in researchers moving beyond a description of resilient children, and toward an understanding
of the processes by which such characteristics develop. In this approach, personal qualities
can be understood not as innate or fixed, but rather as the result of a facilitated process of
development and adaptation in response to the environment (Rutter 1985, Rutter 2013). This
development in the discourse caused researchers to examine the processes by which risk and
protective factors interact between the child, their families and the broader environment, in
ways that impact on the life of the child (Walsh, Dawson et al. 2010).

The dynamic processes between human adaptive systems and growth and development has
been a key focus for resilience researchers (Luthar, Cicchetti et al. 2000). Masten’s landmark
research challenged the definition of resilience as a personal characteristic when she found
that resilience is not an uncommon phenomenon and arises from ordinary human systems
within children, their families, and the communities in which they live. (Masten 2001, 2011).
Famously describing resilience as “ordinary magic”, and the result of “self-righting
tendencies”, Masten (2001, 2011) suggests that resilience is evident in most children who
experience situations of adversity. She sought to identify the processes and systems
associated with positive adaptions in human beings (Masten & Obradović 2006). For
example, she identifies the process of attachment between children and their parents and the
learning and stress response systems in the human brain, arguing that resilience is more likely
to be evident and when these systems and processes are functioning well (Cicchetti & Curtis
2007). In this context, children demonstrate healthy functioning when they can meet
normative expectations of growth and development. Thus, this research suggests resilience as
related to children’s capacity to demonstrate competence criteria as defined by ages and
stages of normative growth and development.

Bronfenbrenner’s ground-breaking study The ecology of human development (1979) offered a

foundation for investigating multiple environmental influences on child development and
resilience (Bronfenbrenner 1977, 1986, Ungar and Liebenberg 2013). Bronfenbrenner
pointed out that human development occurs within spheres of the environment that are

39
“nested like Russian dolls” (1977, p. 515) around the developing child. Bronfenbrenner
(1977, 1986) argued that humans are involved in ongoing interactions within these
environmental layers and, as such, both contribute to and are affected by, layers within the
environment in both direct and indirect ways. In this approach, those spheres in closest
proximity, such as the immediate family, are considered to have the greatest influence on the
developing child. Additionally, the approach suggests that cultural and socio-political
structures as well as access to services influence the child’s development. Understanding
human development in this way suggests that physiological and emotional wellbeing are the
result of interpersonal and environmental interaction. This approach has had considerable
influence on resilience research, providing a foundation for understanding the myriad of
processes in the child’s environment that influence development.

In his study of the impact of environmental factors on the resilience of children, Garmezy
(1991) used Bronfenbrenner’s theory as a foundation to investigate risk and protective factors
between the individual, the family, and the environment. Earlier researchers had focused
investigative efforts in trying to identify those risk factors that appeared to influence the onset
or progression of psychopathology (Garmezy, Masten et al. 1984). Garmezy (1991) defined
“protective factors” as those correlative, identifiable elements that have a positive influence
on development and are shown to prevent or ameliorate risk. In his work, he argues that
protective factors are likely to be the result of interactions between the child, their family and
their community and serve to safeguard and buffer against the effects of risk (Garmezy,
1991). Protective factors are also associated with interrupting chains of risk factors or
preventing a negative effect on the child’s life (Noltemeyer and Bush 2013). Further,
exposure to certain risk factors are seen to have a “steeling effect” by which resilience
functioning is enhanced (Rutter 1985, 2006, 2012). Rutter (1985) defined resilience as a
process influenced by a triad of factors, the child’s personality, cohesion of the family and
environmental supports available. His suggestion that this blend of factors has the potential to
facilitate a range of positive dynamics and coping strategies has become highly influential in
understanding resilience enhancing processes (Rutter 1987).

Increasingly sophisticated investigations of resilience have recognised the complex and

multi-layered processes that contribute to a child’s capacity to recover after an experience of
adversity. These have included examinations of competence, risks, vulnerabilities and
community resources that have significant impact on the lives of children (Lester, Masten &

40
McEwen 2006). Panter-Brick and Eggerman (2012) point out that the resilience discourse has
moved beyond a focus on the individual by exploring “material and social interactions in
multi-layered contexts” and children’s trajectories “towards enhanced or compromised health
outcomes” that are bound by culture, space and time (p. 370).

2.3.2 The Social Ecology Approach to Resilience

Ungar suggests that resilience is the capacity of both individuals and their environments to
interact in ways that optimise health-related outcomes, with resilience becoming evident
when individuals are able to access the resources that they require in order to thrive, as
defined by the culture and context in which the child lives (Liebenberg 2011). Thus for Ungar
(2012), resilience depends on the child’s capacity to navigate towards resilience-enhancing
resources as well as the capacity of the family, community and culture to provide the
necessary resources. This approach de-centres the child as the location of resilience, and
emphasises environmental resources such as education, housing and health care as critical in
the facilitation of resilience (Ungar 2006).

Ungar’s model destabilises earlier resilience discourse that presented a cause and effect
approach to risk and protective factors in the child and their environment. In contrast,
Ungar’s approach offers an understanding of non-linear and non-hierarchical processes as the
child moves within their social ecology, drawing on resources in themselves, their
relationships and their communities to achieve desirable outcomes (Liebenberg, Ungar et al.
2013). Ungar’s emphasis on the dynamic processes between humans and resources in their
environment echoes Gidden’s (1984) structuration theory which suggests that structures that
enable and constrain agency only exist through the actions of humans. In this approach,
Giddens (1984) proposes that human activity and structures exist in a dynamic, interactive
process, and that social, economic and political structures both enable and constrain agency.

Ungar suggests that resilience is a culturally and contextually specific construct consisting of
multiple interactions between the child and their environment (Ungar & Liebenberg 2011).

Resilience is about both the child’s ability to navigate to health resources (the exercise
of personal agency) and the capacity of the child’s family, community and culture to
provide health sustaining resources (availability and access) ranging from positive
attachments to the provision of instrumental supports such as education, housing and
medical care, as well as meaningful participation, good governance, safety and a
collective identity. (Ungar 2006, p. 57)

41
Thus, the social ecology approach extends Bronfenbrenner’s ecological definition to
highlight the complex, multiple processes through which the individual interacts with their
environment and cultural meanings ascribed to these resources. This approach builds on
understandings of risk and protective processes in the individual’s environmental context but
goes further to suggest that resilience is facilitated via multidimensional processes, rather
than simple “cause and effect” (Ungar 2011, p. 13). The social ecology approach moves
beyond the “nested” conceptualisations of the effect of the ecology on child development,
and towards a less deterministic model that recognises the value ascribed to each part of the
system. The approach de-centres the individual and points out the impact of available
services, funding, family structures and cultural norms that provide opportunities for
accessing resilience-enhancing resources. Ungar proposes that these aspects of the social
ecology are responsible for “constraining or liberating people’s choices with regard to coping
strategies that will result in pro-social behavior or pathological adaption” (Ungar 2013, p.
255). As such, in this approach, understanding resilience requires examination of what is
meaningful in a specific cultural context, and those resources that are available and accessible
to the child.

The social ecology approach suggests that resilience is a cultural construct that pertains to
culturally specific understandings of child and adolescent development (Ungar 2006). In
summarising the resilience discourse Ungar (2008) points out an evidence gap in
understanding resilience in children who live in the Majority World, or who are members of
Indigenous populations in Western nations.

While this literature has contextualized risk and documented a number of relational
protective processes that predict positive outcomes, by and large resilience
researchers have focused on outcomes that are: 1) western-based with an emphasis on
individual and relational factors typical of mainstream populations and their
definitions of healthy functioning (staying in school, attachments to a parent or
caregiver, forming secure attachments with one partner later in life, non-delinquent
forms of adaptation, etc.); and 2) lacking in sensitivity to community and cultural
factors that contextualize how resilience is defined by different populations and
manifested in everyday practices. (Ungar 2008, p. 218)

There are a growing number of studies that have examined resilience in Indigenous children
who live in Western industrialised nations (Thomas et al. 2010, Kirmayer et al. 2011, Wexler
2014). These studies have suggested that Minority World investigations have largely
overlooked Indigenous strategies for positive adaptation that are grounded in language,
sacred stories and teachings (Tummala-Narra 2007, Kirmayer et al. 2011, Wexler 2014). This

42
oversight is evident in tools that measure resilience, with the majority of instruments failing
to address cultural protective factors (Jongen et al. 2019). Indigenous people’s conceptions of
resilience have been shown to include greater emphasis on family and community protective
factors as well as a strong Indigenous sense of cultural identity, engagement in cultural
traditions and harmonious relationships with the environment, which have been shown to
reduce the risk of mental health issues and substance misuse (Jongan et al. 2019).

Traditional stories of origin and the adventures of mythic figures encode ideas about the
relationship of people to the environment as well as moral and aesthetic ideas about balance,
harmony, peace and friendship. These ways of narrating identity and collective experience
can contribute to resilience through emotion regulation, problem solving, social positioning
and collective solidarity (Kirmayer et al. 2011, p. 85). Strong Souls is a measure of resilience
developed with Australian Aboriginal people that highlights the holistic nature of physical
and mental health and considers the individual within the context of the wellbeing of the
entire community (Thomas et al. 2010). Further studies of Australian Aboriginal young
people have identified cultural knowledge and spiritual connection as important protective
factors but locate them in experiences of racism and marginalisation (Stathis et al. 2012,
Hopkins, Taylor & Zubrick 2018). Studies of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and the United States have also suggested culturally specific conceptions of
resilience associated with narratives of survival despite experiences of colonisation and
political oppression (Kirmayer et al. 2011). These studies suggest that political activism and
engagement in reconciliation activities can strengthen a personal and collective sense of
agency.

Finally, many communities are strengthening individual and collective agency

through political activism, empowerment, and reconciliation. Active engagement or
success in political negotiations such as land claims or the search for other forms of
recognition of rights and identity not only brings material benefits but also enhances
collective and individual self-esteem and is associated with better mental health.
Collective efficacy strengthens individual efficacy and so makes individuals feel more
capable of addressing their own needs. (Kirmayer et al. 2011, p. 85)

Such findings hold profound implications for policy and clinical service provision for
Aboriginal children and young people, as cultural resources have been found to facilitate
resilience (Kirmayer et al. 2011). Thus, these studies support Ungar’s social-ecological
approach, which argues resilience is a cultural construct but further locates the concept in the
political context.

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2.3.3 Hidden Resilience

Hidden resilience is the term used by Ungar (2004a) to describe the “unhealthy” mechanisms
by which children seek out health-related outcomes. For Ungar (2004a), youth who are
considered “dangerous, delinquent, deviant and disordered” by researchers, policy makers
and social workers use unconventional behaviours in order to survive in difficult
environments. The term “hidden resilience” describes the irregular behaviour in which
children and young people engage to seek out healthy outcomes. Socially unacceptable
activities such as petty crime, drug use and gang membership can offer potential positive
outcomes such as a sense of purpose, belonging and attachment, financial security, a
powerful concept of self, relationships, and access to food and shelter (Ungar 2009). For
Ungar, these unorthodox behaviours represent diverse efforts to achieve healthy outcomes
and are therefore indicators of healthy functioning. On this basis, Ungar (2009) argues that
socially unacceptable behaviours can lead to “hidden” expressions of resilience that are
overlooked by mainstream resilience researchers.

Ungar’s (2004a) approach accepts that commonly held understandings about health in a
community are influenced by uneven relations of power in society. Drawing on Foucault,
Ungar suggests that dominant definitions of good health are the result of competing social
discourses that define behaviours, attitudes and beliefs as either health seeking or evidence of
pathology (Ungar 2004). In seeking to understand resilience in a particular social context,
Ungar asks the researcher to uncover the dominant view of healthy functioning and pay
attention to those who have created or maintain this view (Gergen 2015). Ungar suggests that,
for young people who are marginalised by mainstream society, hidden resilience represents
efforts to exert a powerful self-concept and control over the narrative about themselves. He
suggests that young people who engage in crime, drug use and risky sexual activity are
actually making efforts and taking actions to resist labels such as deviance or delinquency
that are ascribed by those who are in control of the dominant health discourse (Ungar 2005).
He suggests that social workers, teachers and other health professionals who work with these
young people can uncover their motivations to seek health and positive outcomes via
listening to their narratives and the reasons they give for their actions.

The concept of hidden resilience has been applied in non-Western contexts in populations of
street-involved children (Theron & Malindi 2010). Malindi and colleagues have examined the
patterns of living that sit outside Western constructs of child development and norms of

44
socially appropriate behaviour, but nevertheless enable children to recover after
circumstances of adversity (Theron & Malindi 2010). These studies argue that street-involved
children engage in behaviours such as wearing dirty clothes in public, using violence or
participating in petty crime in order to cope with the challenges of street life. The findings
suggest that, while these behaviours do not fit with socially approved pathways towards child
development, they enable the street-involved child to access resources and find support
networks that enable them to meet their immediate needs (Theron & Malindi 2010). Thus,
Ungar’s concept of hidden resilience has been applied to the lives of street-involved children.

2.4 A Systematic Search and Literature Review of Filipino Literature

In order to establish an understanding of the evidence base, this study includes a systematic
literature search of publications regarding the resilience of street-involved children in Manila,
Philippines. To the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first systematic search completed
regarding the resilience of street-involved children in the Philippines. This search formed the
basis of the subsequent literature review and serves as a basis for understanding the Filipino
conception of resilience, as well as a guide for conducting research with Filipino street-
involved children as discussed in Chapter 3. The review drew on the Preferred Reporting
Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) and included
predetermined objectives and eligibility criteria for publication inclusion (Moher D 2015).

The objectives of the search were as follows:

1. Identify all Filipino qualitative and quantitative research regarding the resilience of
street-involved children who live in the Philippines.
2. Identify all grey literature research regarding the resilience of Filipino street children.
3. Select those studies that meet selection criteria for inclusion for further appraisal
based on study inclusion criteria.
4. Critically analyse and synthesise those studies, identifying thematic categories, and
interpreting data in relation to theoretical and methodological approaches in the
broader resilience literature. In particular, the review sought to identify cultural
variations in the Filipino construction of resilience.

The selection criteria include publications where study participants are in the Philippines with
the inclusion of cross-cultural studies if Filipino data can be separately identified. Studies
focused on child participants, aged up to 18 years, and adopted a broad definition of street-

45
involved children including children in need of special protection, homeless children, orphans
and street children. The researcher reviewed studies that were published post-1990 in order to
ensure relevance. Studies needed to be available in English.

The following electronic databases were searched during June 2017: Psych INFO (Ovid),
Medline (Ovid), Pro Quest Social Sciences Premium Collection, Pro Quest Psychology Data
Base, Scopus, and Inform it Databases. The search was reviewed and updated in 2019, with
one additional study published in late 2017 that met the selection criteria.

Due to multiple definitions of resilience in the evidence base, as discussed earlier in this
chapter, the researcher employed a broad range of search terms to increase the sensitivity of
the search. Search terms included the following: “resilience”, “positive adaption”,
“psychological wellbeing”, “adaptability”, “coping behaviour”, “emotional adjustment”,
“post-traumatic growth”, “psychological endurance or adjustment”, “stress and coping
measures” or “agency” or “autonomy” or “independence”. Culturally specific attributes
associated with the resilience in the Filipino literature were also included. In defining street-
involved children, a number of terms were used to capture the maximum number of studies
including: “children in need”, “special protection”, “children of/on the street”, “street child”,
“street children” or “homeless” or “at risk” or “abandon” or “neglect” or “beggar*” or
“runaway” or “urchin”. An electronic grey literature search was undertaken via Google using
similar terms. See Appendix 8 for a full list of search terms.

The researcher contacted university libraries in the Philippines in order to locate publications
that were not electronically available (Appendix 9). The researcher hand searched the library
at the Philippines Association of Social Services in order to locate studies in hard copy
publications that were not electronically available. All records were managed using the
Endnote X9 software package.

As the result of this search 1317 publications were identified through database searching and
6 publications were identified via hard copy searching. 675 publications were removed and
the remaining 648 screened based on a review of the title and abstract in accordance with the
inclusion criteria. A further 141 texts were assessed for eligibility, with 133 articles excluded
after reading the complete text and an assessment that they did not meet the inclusion criteria.
The inclusion criteria were defined as follows:

• The study concerns resilience, with resilience defined.

46
 • The study is based in the Philippines.
• The study participants are children aged under 18 years.
• The study participants are (broadly defined as) street-involved children.
• The study was published post 1990 to ensure relevance.
• The study considers ethical challenges associated with the vulnerable participant
group.

Of the 141 studies examined for eligibility, 133 were found to use the term resilience in
passing but failed to provide a definition or contribute to theoretical understandings of the
concept.

The final sample for analysis contained 8 publications, 5 being academic articles and the
remaining 3 grey literature reports. Appendix 10 shows the PRISMA flow chart and the study
identification process undertaken.

The Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) method was employed in order to synthesise the
findings of the identified studies (Dixon-Woods, Cavers et al. 2006, Fane, MacDougall et al.
2016). A critical appraisal template was devised for this study and applied to all identified
studies that met the selection criteria. The template extracted elements in each study
including the theoretical perspective, data collection and analysis methods, as well as study
findings.

2.4.1 A Summary of the Filipino Literature

Since the early 1990s, a small number of Filipino researchers have investigated resilience in
children who live and work on the streets of Manila. The systematic search described above
identified eight outputs (Banaag 1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista 2000, Bautista, Roldan et al.
2001, Bautista and Rolder 2001, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler
2017). All researchers employed qualitative research methods, including life story interviews,
case studies and focus group discussions, which are well suited to the oral traditions of the
Philippines (Bautista 2000). The findings of the review suggest that the construction of
resilience in this literature draws on Minority World approaches but includes culturally
defined conceptions of “healthy functioning” in children that reflect Filipino values.

Eminent psychiatrist Dr C. G. Banaag conducted the earliest study of resilience in the

Philippines in 1997, providing further commentary in another publication in 2016. Banaag
interviewed 25 street-involved children who demonstrated the personal character trait of
“resiliency”. Concurring with Minority World studies of resilience including Werner and

47
Smith (1982), the study identifies the “internal strengths” associated with the child’s
character and temperament and “externally directed traits” such as leadership and faith in
God (Banaag 1997).

Caparas, in her 1998 study, suggests that community organisations can facilitate resilience
when they offer opportunities for personal skill development, such as via the Junior Peer
Educator Program at Bahay Tuluyan. Although Caparas does not reference Minority World
literature, her study presents resilience as a personal quality that can be developed in children
and relies on the commentary of adult social workers who described the goals and mode of
program delivery that support the development of resilience in children.

In her earliest publication regarding resilience, Bautista (2000) suggests that researchers and
practitioners must consider cultural factors in therapeutic work with street-involved children.
Her study findings suggest that community organisations can facilitate resilience in children
by providing family-like relationships that go beyond Western conceptions of professional
relationships. Bautista’s study reflects the development of Indigenous psychological
approaches that reflect the values and experiences of Filipino people and suggests that
resilience is evident when children demonstrate the ability to meet desirable characteristics
that are consistent with Filipino culture.

Bautista et al.’s 2001 publication entitled Working with abused children: from the lenses of
resilience and contextualization argues for a nuanced understanding of resilience that is
culturally specific to the Philippines. Bautista, Roldan and Garces-Bacsal (2001b) suggest
that street-involved children can be considered resilient when they achieve “healthy
adaption” in response to an array of environmental risks. The same year Bautista, Roldan and
Garces-Bacsal (2001a) released a third publication based on this study that presented life
stories of the children featured in the study, further identifying culturally specific indicators
of resilience in the personal characters of street involved children.

The study by Sta. Maria and her colleagues, “Typologies of risk and protection in the lives of
Filipino street children in Manila” takes a developmental approach when it defines resilience
as “manifested competence in the context of significant challenges to adaption or
development” (Sta.Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, p. 113). They suggest that resilience is
associated with human adaptive systems that work to protect the child in times of risk and
adversity (Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014). The authors cite Ungar when they suggest

48
resilience is a multidimensional construct that is related to the social, political and economic
context in which the child lives (Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014). The study concludes that
children feel safe when they are within familial relationships and are assured of the provision
of their basic needs for survival by their community (Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014).

Wartenweiler (2017) investigates the lived experience of two adults who were once street
children, applying Ungar’s notion of “hidden resilience” to his findings. The study suggests
that overcoming adversity involves multiple “turning points” that facilitate achieving healthy
outcomes over time including atypical strategies such as early parenthood, engagement in
work and crime. Wartenweiler (2017) suggests that these negative experiences can induce
behaviour change and thus increase healthy functioning and positive outcomes over the life
course.

The Filipino construction of “adversity” is consistent with global studies of street-involved

children in which the street environment is presented as overwhelmingly injurious to the
health of children (Hixon 1993, Silva 1996, Le Roux & Smith 1998, Njord, Merrill et al.
2008, Merrill, Njord et al. 2010). The Filipino studies suggest street-involved children have
inadequate access to health, education and social services caused by limited social
infrastructure, which is amplified by accelerated population growth, urban migration and
insufficient opportunities for adult employment (Sta. Maria, Martinez & Diestro 2014;
Caparas 1998). Street involvement is associated with extreme risks to the child’s physical,
mental and spiritual health and moral development (Banaag, 2016). Street-involved children
have been found to be subject to abuse and violence by adults and other children and also to
experience discrimination and victimisation by members of the public and government
officials (Wartenweiler 2017). Filipino researchers highlight that criminal and delinquent
behaviour is a significant risk factor for street-involved children (Banaag 2016; Bautista,
Roldan & Garces-Bacsal 2001b; Sta. Maria, Martinez & Diestro 2014).

The Filipino studies draw on Minority World psychological approaches to resilience but
suggest a culturally nuanced construction of “doing well” that is based on Filipino values.
Studies by Banaag (1997, 2016) and Bautista (2000; Bautista, Roldan & Garces-Bacsal
2001b) identify culturally specific personal characteristics that are seen as desirable in
Filipino children and reflect collectivist values. Sta. Maria, Martinez and Diestro (2014)
identify protective factors from the perspective of children, while drawing on a definition of
resilience that emphasises human adaptive systems and protective processes. Wartenweiler

49
(2017) examines Ungar’s conception of hidden resilience and suggests it is evident in street-
involved children who pursue healthy outcomes via unhealthy means, achieving normative
development in adulthood. These studies suggest culturally specific conceptions of “doing
well” that reflect conceptions of “healthy functioning” in children that are dominant in
Filipino society.

In Section 2.5, these studies will be drawn on as a basis for understanding the construction of
“healthy functioning” in Filipino street-involved children. Thematic analysis of the studies
suggests that religiosity, observance of mutual obligations, the prioritisation of family and
adherence to normative standards of behaviour are associated with street-involved children
who are identified by expert adult researchers as resilient and demonstrating “healthy
functioning”. In Chapters 5 and 6, this conception of resilience will be contrasted with
children’s own perceptions of “doing well”, which include diverse expressions of resistance
to political oppression and “Othering” by mainstream society (Lister 2004).

2.5 Healthy Functioning and Resilience

This thesis suggests that “healthy functioning” is a state achieved by individual resilient
children, as well as a collection of behaviours that are perceived to faciliate good health and
wellbeing (Lester, Masten et al. 2006). Throughout the resilience discourse, various terms
have been used to describe “doing well”, including “positive adaption”, “recovery” and
achieving “better than expected” outcomes (Smith-Osborne & Whitehill Bolton 2013; Alvord
& Grados 2005; Masten 2011; Luthar, Cicchetti & Becker 2000). Children who manage to
overcome adversity are described in the literature as being able to maintain “healthy
functioning” despite risk, or being able to recover to a “normal state” after an experience of
trauma (Luthar, Cicchetti et al. 2000, Lester, Masten et al. 2006). “Positive adjustment” is
another term used to describe when children achieve “better than expected” outcomes across
multiple life domains (Luthar, Cicchetti et al. 2000).

A meta-analysis of the literature found that outcomes and behaviours are associated with
resilience when they facilitate “good health” and are unexpectedly achieved by children who
succeed more than their peers who come from similar conditions of adversity (Smith-Osborne
and Whitehill Bolton 2013). These outcomes and behaviours include school attendance,
academic attainment, and attributes such as social competence and avoidance of criminal or
delinquent activities. In the literature these outcomes are contrasted with other outcomes and

50
behaviours considered less desirable, such as failure to reach developmental milestones, or
engagement in behaviours associated with delinquency such as school failure and drug use
(Hauser and Allen 2007). In the Western resilience literature, these activities are labelled
“deviant” and are associated with poor health outcomes and negative life trajectories (Ungar
2001). Thus “healthy functioning” in the dominant discourse is associated with the child
achieving outcomes that contribute to good health and development in a Minority World
context.

2.5.1. Healthy Functioning as a Cultural Construct

A growing body of researchers who have studied resilience in the Minority World suggest
that those circumstances that constitute healthy functioning in children are culturally defined
(Noltemeyer and Bush 2013, Hart, Gagnon et al. 2016). Culture has been argued to be the
basis of human reasoning styles, constructions of self, and notions of choice and fairness
(Jones 2010). Overlooking culture and context ignores nuances in population groups, children
with disabilities, rural populations, diverse racial backgrounds, children in non-Western
countries, and even those individuals in Western countries who do not attend university
(Liebenberg, Ungar et al. 2013). Culture can be understood as a cluster of “values, beliefs and
everyday practices that are transmitted between individuals and reinforced through social
discourse” (Ungar, Ghazinour & Richter 2013, p. 348). The social-ecological approach points
out that resilience is a culturally embedded artefact and requires examination of those values
that define what is understood as “healthy” development in children (Ungar 2008). This
approach calls attention to how cultures define “adversity”, as well as those factors that are
attributed to enabling children to “do well” (Boyden and Mann 2005, Theron, Liebenberg et
al. 2015). That is, it proposes that ideas about health and wellbeing are context specific and
often reflect culturally normative values.

In the proliferation of tools devised to measure healthy functioning in children that have
emerged over the years, cultural variance has been largely ignored (Windle, Bennett et al.
2011). Psychological studies that seek to understand human behaviour have been primarily
investigated in the Western, industrialised, rich, democratic world, with sample groups often
being American undergraduate university students (Henrich, Heine et al. 2010). Despite the
narrow chacracteristics of the participant groups, these investigations have led to broad
claims regarding human behaviour and assumptions that the findings are representative
across culture and context (Jones 2010).

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2.5.1.1 Child Growth and Development

In the Minority World resilience literature, indicators of “healthy functioning” are based on
children demonstrating normative progression through developmental milestones. Piaget’s
theory of cognitive development has become a foundation for understanding child
development as universal and biologically determined life stages associated with social,
physical, cognitive and emotional progression (Boyden 2003). In Western countries,
developmental milestones that are associated with resilience include academic attainment,
demonstration of social competence and the ability to build and maintain close relationships
(Hauser & Allen 2007). Early studies defined children as resilient when they demonstrated
competence in meeting these developmental milestones despite negative experiences such as
abuse and neglect (Masten & Garmezy 1985). For example, longitudinal studies of abused
infants examined successful attainment of developmenal tasks such as the ability to develop
secure attachments and the demonstration of pro-social skills (Farber & Egeland 1987).

The conception of the “ideal” childhood, unburdened by economic responsibilities, and

reserved for learning and playing, is an important value in modern Western societies and
arguably permeates Minority World conceptions of “healthy functioning” in children.
Western normative ideas suggest childhood is a distinct phase of life that is separated from
adult responsibilities and freedoms. In this understanding children are confined to the private
sphere of the home or school and are reliant on the care and protection of adults for their
survival. In this conception of childhood, children are neither political, social, or economic
actors having primarily an emotional value to their parents (Zelizer 1994).

The notion of the “correct” childhood enshrined in international law such as the UNCRC has
been criticised as not representative of the experiences of children in the Majority World (Al-
Saadoon, Al-Adawi & Al-Adawi 2021, Adonteng-Kissi 2018, Tisdall & Punch 2012). The
new sociology of childhood has pointed out the dominant construction is ethnocentric and
instead suggests that childhood is a diverse social and historical category rather than a
biologically determined fact, and can vary with the cultural, economic, political and social
context in which the child lives (Beazley 2002, Mayall 2002, Boyden 2003, Morrow 2011,
James & Prout 2015). Thus, in this understanding, risk and protective factors in childhood are
understood differently across culture and context (Zolkoski & Bullock 2012). Understanding
diversity in childhood recognises that classifications of risk are not universal, and that
adversity is influenced by gender, evolving capacities, and social, cultural and economic

52
circumstances (Boyden & Mann 2005). Regardless of this critique, public commentary and
research often positions a divergence from the construction of the “correct” childhood as
harmful to children and their growth and development (Westwood 2013).Even though the
UNCRC has been ratified by countries around the world, researchers such as Woodhead
(1999) suggest that it could be regarded as a form of cultural imperialism, overlooking the
relativity of childhood as determined by geography, poverty, cultural traditions and social
norms. The notion of the “global child” implicit in the UNCRC is based on Minority World
values that confine children to spaces considered appropriate for growth and development
such as home and school (Leonard 2004). An important criticism has concerned the
positioning of children as individual social actors, emphasising personal agency and
overlooking relationships of mutual obligation towards family and community that remain
across the life span (Al-Saadoon, Al-Adawi & Al-Adawi 2021, Adonteng-Kissi 2018, Tisdall
& Punch 2012). In Africa, this tension between the UNCRC and conceptualisations of child
responsibility led to an alternative articulation of children’s rights in the African Charter on
the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990).

The discourse regarding children’s rights within varied cultures and contexts is a key theme
in international discussions regarding child labour (Myers 1991, Woodhead 1999, Aktar &
Abdullah 2013, Taft 2021). Researchers and policy makers have drawn on the UNCRC
Article 32 as a basis to exclude children from engagement in paid work enacted via
international and domestic legislative instruments. This discourse argues for protection of
children from economic exploitation and hazardous work, which are threats to optimal
growth and development (Adonteng-Kissi 2018). Studies of children in the labour market
have positioned work as a binary opposite to school attendance and have highlighted the
vulnerability of children to abuse and exploitation (Myers 1991, Woodhead 1999). In doing
so, such studies overlook children’s own perceptions of work as essential for their own
survival and that of their family (Leonard 2004). Critics have called for a more nuanced
approach that acknowledges children’s own perception of work and the value they ascribe to
income generation within their culture and context (Aktar & Abdullah 2013). Children’s
efforts to claim the right to work are evident in the child worker movement which includes
advocating for robust labour regulations that enable them to work in safety and live with
dignity (Leonard 2004). In 2015 in Peru working children marched through the streets and
demanded they be consulted in the development of child worker legislation and regulations.
Such actions destabilise the perception that children are passive recipients of their rights and

53
instead suggest that children are capable political and economic actors (Taft 2019).
Furthermore, they challenge the notion of a “global” childhood free of economic
responsibilities that is dominant in Western industrialised nations and enshrined in the
UNCRC.

2.5.1.2 Individualism and Collectivism

Ungar (2005a) points out that Western psychological research has been founded on
understanding the individual experience, as opposed to that of the collective. In
individualistic cultures, desirable personal characteristics that indicate children have achieved
“healthy functioning” include a high degree of personal agency and associated qualities such
as independence, goal-orientation and competitiveness (Kagitcibasi 2005). Researchers have
observed that in the United States personal qualities associated with economic success are
highly valued in children and include ambition, competition and goal attainment (Hui &
Villareal 1989). In contrast, in collectivist cultures, personal attributes that include a deep
connection to others, observation of duty and harmonious inter-personal relations are highly
valued (Hui & Villareal 1989). In collectivist cultures, the individual has an extended sense
of self in relation to their physical and social environment and seeks to live in harmony with
their environment. The construction of self is considered “interdependent”, with other people
the focus of the individual experience (Markus 1991). In collectivist societies, the basic unit
of social organisation is often the extended family, and this is associated with social,
emotional and material interdependence (Hui & Villareal 1989).

In the Minority World construction of resilience, the parental dyad is identified as the
primary source of attachment, with parents shaping desirable attributes in children that reflect
individualist values (Jaffee, Caspi et al. 2007). The role of parents can be seen in the work of
Martin Seligman (Seligman et al. 1995), the father of the positive psychology movement,
who argues parents are best placed to develop a range of cognitive skills in their children,
including optimism and persistence, that will enable them to achieve material, academic and
financial attainment success in adulthood.

Masterful action is the crucible in which preschool optimism is forged. Your child’s
task aided by informed parenting is to make a habit of persisting in the face of
challenge and overcoming obstacles. Once your child enters school, the tactics for
creating the optimistic child shift from masterful action to the way your child thinks –
particularly when he fails. (Seligman et al. 1995, p. 12)

54
The values espoused as desirable by Seligman are compatible with American culture, which
celebrates “self-made” individuals who achieve success despite hardship (Masten 2001).
Thus the dominant construction of resilience remains concerned with personal achievement
and attainment of desirable outcomes as defined by Minority World values (Walsh, Dawson
et al. 2010).

The emphasis on agency and autonomy in Western nations has been elaborated in Weber’s
theory on the Protestant work ethic, which emphasised personal responsibility and sacrificing
personal interests for the pursuit of economic goals (Weber 1930, Tamis‐LeMonda, Way et
al. 2008). Notions of “good parenting” within this context are associated with teaching
children to be autonomous and to demonstrate personal choice, intrinsic motivation, self-
esteem and self-maximisation (Tamis‐LeMonda, Way et al. 2008). Parenting practices in
collectivist cultures such as in many Asian, Latin and African societies facilitate strong
relationships with multiple caregivers in the extended family and seek to promote the
developmental goal of “relatedness” rather than independence and autonomy (Tamis‐
LeMonda, Way et al. 2008).

In collectivist cultures, orientation towards the family and respect and obedience towards
elders is greatly valued in children (Tamis‐LeMonda, Way et al. 2008). In the Philippines, a
1970s national study that found 60% of parents reported that the most valued characteristic in
their children was to obey their parents (Alampay & Jocson 2011). In this study, the personal
qualities of “independence” and “self-reliance” were cited as less desirable characteristics in
children (Alampay & Jocson 2011). More recently, in a cross-cultural study, Durbrow and
colleagues (2001) considered parental descriptions of characteristics of “good” and
“competent” children in qualitative interviews with Filipino mothers in rural settings.
Mothers described competent children as those who were “obedient” to their parents, “helpful
with chores”, undertook care tasks for younger siblings and prioritised the needs of their
families over personal desires. Such findings suggest that, in some collectivist contexts,
children are functioning well when they observe age-based hierarchies and demonstrate
compliance to their elders. This emphasis on obedience and interdependency stands in
contrast to the application of resilience in the discipline of psychology, which has emerged
from Western industrialised nations, where autonomy and self-reliance are emphasised.

55
2.5.1.3 The Filipino Construction of “Healthy Functioning” in Street-Involved Children

This thesis suggests that, while the Filipino research draws on the Minority World resilience
literature, the construction of “healthy functioning” is culturally nuanced and emphasises
compliance with values and behaviours that are highly valued in children in the Philippines.
The Filipino population is highly religious, with a large percentage of the population
identifying as Roman Catholic (Enriquez 1987). Moreover, despite centuries of colonisation,
Filipino society remains based on collectivist modes of social organisation that reflect
Indigenous belief systems (Enriquez 1987, Reyes 2015, Lasquety-Reyes 2016). The
systematic search and literature review summarised earlier in this chapter identified themes
regarding children who are considered to be resilient, finding that they are consistent with
Filipino values and include having a personal relationship with God that guides behaviour,
prioritising family relationships and engagement in productive work. This thesis will argue
that Filipino resilience researchers, while not always specifically citing Ungar, concur with
his approach that suggests constructions of resilience in children are specific to culture and
context.

A major theme in the Filipino literature is the capacity of street-involved children to have a
relationship with God that guides their beliefs and behaviour, enabling them to achieve
“healthy functioning” despite the vices and temptations of the street (Banaag 1997). The
Filipino researchers draw on early Minority World studies that also defined children as
resilient when they manage to resist engaging in behaviour associated with delinquency and
crime (Smith, Lizotte et al. 1995, Benard 1997). However, the Filipino studies suggest a
culturally specific conception of “healthy functioning” when they associate an absence of
delinquency with religiosity and observance of morality consistent with Christian values that
are dominant in Filipino society.

Banaag (1997, p. 68) suggests that a personal relationship with God is a “natural component
of Filipino culture” and that faith in God enables street-involved children to believe that
“things will get better”. Banaag (1997, p. 25) argues that the belief in “something that is
bigger than one-self” is a source of comfort that enables children to make choices that reflect
standards of morality that are consistent with religious values. While global studies of street-
involved children have also identified faith in God as a source of protection and comfort, the
Filipino studies also associate religiosity with having a good and wholesome character, which

56
is evidenced when children make moral choices that reflect the teachings of the Bible (Cook
2000, Orme 2007).

Many of the ten [participants] expressed their belief that the power of faith had helped
them stay away from trouble … they admitted that they did not go to mass regularly
…. nevertheless their behavior showed they had a personal relationship with God.
(Banaag 1997, p. 25)

Banaag (1997) borrows the term “adaptive distancing” from Minority World studies that
investigated children of alcoholic parents who managed to separate themselves from the
dysfunction of their families and achieve success (Berlin, Davis et al. 1988, Kaplan, Turner et
al. 1996, Kumpfer and Bluth 2004). Banaag suggests that resilient street-involved children
are those who avoid engaging in delinquent behaviours such as “begging, stealing, lying,
fighting, drug use, and prostitution” (1997, p. 17).

Building on Banaag’s study, Bautista and her colleagues (2001b) also argue that the ability to
avoid delinquency and crime is enabled by faith in God and observing the teachings of the
Bible that promote morality. This study suggests that the Filipino conception of “healthy
functioning” includes having a wholesome character and upholding standards of morality that
are dominant in Filipino society. The most contemporary study of resilience of Filipino
street-involved children has further explored the relationship between avoiding criminal
behaviour and belief in God. Wartenweiler (2017) directly applies Ungar’s concept of
“hidden resilience” via case studies in which he suggests Filipino street children can engage
in coping behaviours that may be seen maladaptive but, when combined with other resources
such as a personal relationship with God, can lead to healthy outcomes.

The Filipino literature also emphasises other indicators of “healthy functioning” that are
suggestive of specific cultural values, including children demonstrating an interdependent
view of self and observance of mutual obligations to family members. In Bautista’s study,
being “other-person centred” is identified as a desirable “trait” and is evident when children
consider and prioritise the welfare of others (Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001). The Filipino
studies emphasise harmonious interpersonal relations that prioritise getting along with the
group and making a contribution towards the survival and wellbeing of their families
(Racelis, Aguirre et al. 2006). Banaag (1997, 2016) suggests that Filipino children observe a
debt of gratitude towards their parents when they undertake productive work such as
household chores, providing care for siblings and earning an income for their families. In
Wartenweiler’s (2017) study, participants talked retrospectively about early parenthood as a

57
source of inspiration and motivation to persevere and find an honest source of income,
overcoming adversity for the sake of their children and family.

The Filipino studies also suggest that engagement in paid informal and formal work is an
important indication of “healthy functioning” in children (Banaag 1997, Sta. Maria, Martinez
et al. 2014, Wartenweiler 2017). In Banaag’s (1997) study, children described being engaged
in income-generating activities such as vending, scavenging, car washing and shoe shining,
and described being proud of contributing towards the family income. Children identified that
these activities were valued by other family members and were regarded as important as they
contributed to the families’ survival. Similarly, Sta. Maria, Martinez and Diestro (2014) argue
that street-involved children seek to engage in activities that are valued by their peers and
their communities. They argue that criminal behaviours are better understood as children
searching for opportunities to engage in productive activities that are valued by their peers.
They suggest that when society fails to provide children with protection, they will use other
means, including those that are undesirable, in order to achieve their conception of
competence. They quote one of their study participants:

We also have gimmicks, we break glass windows, we steal … to have money. We get
clothes from the ukay-ukay (used clothes) shop … we bring knives for our enemies
… We join riots in Cubao against our enemies, throwing stones, breaking bottles
stabbing … When we don’t have goods to sell, we beat up those who have goods and
get their goods to see …. among us there is no such thing as pity. (Sta. Maria,
Martinez & Diestro 2014, p. 123)

They argue that engaging in productive activities enables children to feel competent and
valued by their peers and to create relationships with others who care about them (Sta. Maria,
Martinez et al. 2014). Similarly Caparas (1998) found that young people who took part in
community activities developed strong relationships and new skills that were valued by
themselves and others. This study argues that engagement in productive activities can lead to
increased self-esteem and belonging in the community (Caparas 1998).

Scholars of childhood have pointed out that normative ideals of children and child rearing
vary across culture and contexts (Bourdillon 2006, Westwood 2013). In Western cultures,
engaging in economic activity (except in carefully prescribed circumstances) is seen to
transgress normative ideals of childhood and is seen as injurious to the child’s health and
development (Bourdillon 2006, Westwood 2013). Conversely in the Philippines, children are
regarded as economic contributors who observe relationships of mutual obligation and

58
reciprocity (Tuason & Teresa 2013). Filipino children often engage in paid and informal
work, being important contributors to the survival of the family. In a cross-cultural study of
street children, findings suggested that Filipino youth expressed self-loathing when they did
not engage in productive work (Verma, Sta Maria et al. 2011). In global studies of children in
other Majority World contexts, engaging in work is seen as an important contributor to their
survival (Orme 2007, Liebel & Saadi 2012, Westwood 2013). Children who grow up in
resource-poor environments have been shown to consider engagement in income-generating
activities as providing them with opportunities for growth and development from which they
would otherwise be excluded (Libório & Ungar 2010). Thus in the Philippines, engaging in
productive activities that contribute to family survival reflects a culturally nuanced
conception of “healthy functioning” in children.

This section suggests that, without explicitly citing Ungar, the Filipino scholars concur with
Ungar’s thesis, offering a culturally nuanced conception of healthy functioning in children.
The Filipino literature suggests that children who demonstrate healthy functioning are
considered resilient when they demonstrate fidelity to culturally ascribed notions of desirable
outcomes and behaviours in children. These values include demonstrating a personal
relationship with God that enables them to avoid delinquent activities, as well as prioritising
family relationships and engaging in work to ensure they are able to contribute to the survival
and wellbeing of their families.

2.5.1.4 The Social-Ecological Approach to “Healthy Functioning”

The social-ecological approach to healthy functioning is evident in the Child Youth

Resilience Measure-28 (CYRM-28), Ungar’s (2004a) international instrument developed to
accommodate culturally and contextually specific constructions of “healthy functioning”. Led
by Ungar, the Resilience Research Centre undertook an international study that examined the
tension between global and contextually specific processes that promote healthy functioning
in children: “The purpose of the Resilience Research Centre (RRC) and its network of
collaborators globally has been to explore both etic (homogeneous) and emic (heterogeneous,
indigenous) conceptualizations of resilience” (Ungar & Liebenberg 2011, p. 128).

The CYRM-28 is based on Ungar’s sociological approach to resilience, which suggests good
outcomes are negotiated “benchmarks” of psycho-social development between the child and
those who are in power of the health discourse in the child’s culture and context. Thus,

59
Ungar’s indicators of “healthy functioning” are synonymous with resilience and involve the
child meeting expectations of “functional competence in culturally relevant ways” (Ungar &
Liebenberg 2011, p. 127).

The Resilience Research Centre sought to develop a culturally sensitive resilience measure
that could be used in various contexts, accommodating the common and nuanced components
of resilience (Ungar & Liebenberg 2013). The research involved the purposeful selection of
14 communities across 11 countries to develop the measure with 1,451 young people aged
between 11 and 23 years of age (Ungar & Liebenberg 2013). In order to manage Minority
World bias in the interpretation of results, the team examined Majority World countries that
are currently under-represented in the existing body of resilience research, including an
Aboriginal Innue community in Northern Canada, as well as young people in America, Hong
Kong, China, Palestine, Israel, Columbia, Russia, India, South Africa and Gambia (Ungar &
Liebenberg 2011).

Via qualitative processes, researchers identified and tested children’s perceptions of resources
that enable them to “do well”. In the pilot CYRM, 58 items covering subscales that include
personal, relational, community and cultural factors were identified, and subsequently
reduced using exploratory factor analysis (Liebenberg 2011).

To what extent …

1. Do you have people you look up to?

2. Do you cooperate with people around you?

3. Is getting an education important to you?

4. Do you know how to behave in different social situations?

5. Do you feel that your parent(s) watch you closely?

6. Do you feel that your parent(s) know a lot about you?

7. Do you eat enough most days?

8. Do you strive to finish what you start?

9. Are spiritual beliefs a source of strength for you?

10. Are you proud of your ethnic background?

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 11. Do people think you are fun to be with?

12. Do you talk to your family about how you feel?

13. Are you able to solve problems without using illegal drugs and/or alcohol?

14. Do you feel supported by your friends?

15. Do you know where to go in your community to get help?

16. Do you feel you belong at your school?

17. Do you think your family will always stand by you during difficult times?

18. Do you think your friends will always stand by you during difficult times?

19. Are you treated fairly in your community?

20. Do you have opportunities to show others that you are becoming an adult?

21. Are you aware of your own strengths?

22. Do you participate in organized religious activities?

23. Do you think it is important to serve your community?

24. Do you feel safe when you are with your family?

25. Do you have opportunities to develop job skills that will be useful later in life?

26. Do you enjoy your family’s traditions?

27. Do you enjoy your community’s traditions?

28. Are you proud to be (Nationality: _____________)? (Ungar & Liebenberg 2011,
p. 146)

The subscales of the CYRM-28 can be examined to uncover implicit assumptions in Ungar’s
conception of “healthy functioning” including children’s use of personal, relational,
community and cultural resources. Scrutiny of questions in the “personal” subscale reveals an
emphasis on self-esteem, social skills and compliance with behavioural expectations of
children that are contextually specific. For example, Question 21 asks “Are you aware of
your own strengths?” The measure also identifies persistence (Question 8): “Do you strive to
finish what you start?”, and social skills (Question 2): “Do you cooperate with people around
you?” The CYRM also asks about the child’s ability to comply with social expectations of
children (Question 4): “Do you know how to behave in different situations?” and (Question

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13): “Are you able to solve problems without using illegal drugs and/or alcohol?” Thus,
measurement of personal skills associated with healthy functioning focuses on knowing how
to comply with culturally specific notions of healthy functioning and facilitates positive
growth and development in the context of where the child lives.

The second subscale addresses characteristics of physical and psychological care that
facilitate resilience. Physical care includes (Question 7): “Do you eat enough most days?”
and (Question 24): “Do you feel safe when you are with your family?” Psychological care
includes (Question 5) “Do you feel that your parents watch you closely” and (Question 17)
“Do you think your parents will stand by you in difficult times?” These questions appear to
assume that the primary providers of physical and psychological care are parents, which is
particularly appropriate to Minority World cultures.

The third subscale addresses contextual factors relating to context and culture, including
(Question 9): “Are spiritual beliefs a source of strength for you?” and (Question 10) “Are you
proud of your ethnic background?” Question 22 asks: “Do you participate in organised
religious activities?” and (Question 28): “Are you proud to be (Nationality)?” The child’s
attitude to education and community participation are also covered: (Question 3) “Is getting
an education important to you?” and (Question 23) “Do you think it is important to serve
your community?” These questions suggest that healthy functioning is reliant on navigation
towards resources in the community including school, religious activities and celebrations,
and national pride. They assume that resilience is dependent on the child sharing culturally
normative ideals that are dominant in the context in which the child lives.

In order to progress his argument and explain the diverse processes by which children travel
towards resilience, Ungar (2007) proposes that children who are resilient successfully
navigate their way through seven tensions that enable them to achieve health and wellbeing in
their culture and context. The seven tensions articulate the complex processes children
employ by drawing on resources identified in the CYRM. These tensions cannot be seen in
isolation but operate simultaneously and are resolved according to the strengths and resources
that are available to young people in themselves and their environment (Ungar 2007). The
tensions highlight the diverse processes in which children engage in order to achieve healthy
outcomes:

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 1. Access to material resources, which include financial, educational, health,
employment, food, clothing, and shelter in order to meet basic survival and
development needs.
2. Access to supportive relationships, which include peers and adults in the family and
community, who provide attachments, supervision and care.
3. A sense of identity that includes a personal and collective sense of purpose, self-
appraisal of strengths and weakness, as well as a collection of aspirations, beliefs and
values, and religious identification.
4. A sense of power and control that can be achieved by caring for self and others, being
able to effect change in environment, particularly when accessing resources.
5. A sense of cultural adherence, which refers to observance of global and local cultural
practices, values and beliefs.
6. Access to social justice, including being able to have a meaningful role in the
community and a sense of social equality in the community.
7. A sense of cohesion, which involves balancing one’s personal interests with the
greater good, feeling that one is socially and spiritually part of something larger than
oneself. (Ungar 2007, p. 295)

Ungar (2007) argues that these tensions are non-linear and dynamic, converging in different
ways over time in relation to other tensions with which they interact and overlap. Thus,
children who achieve healthy functioning do so by navigating their way through the seven
tensions to a greater or lesser degree, depending on cultural and contextual values and
meaning systems.

This thesis argues that the CYRM and seven tensions highlight variance in how “doing well”
is defined across culture and context, including those resources children draw on in order to
achieve culturally specific outcomes associated with good health and development. However,
this thesis will suggest the CYRM downplays children’s diverse conceptions of “doing well”,
which include outcomes that may not be associated with good health in their culture and
context. Rather, this thesis suggests that Ungar’s CYRM relies on culturally normative values
in order to measure resilience, overlooking children’s own diverse conceptions that may
contravene culturally specific notions of healthy functioning in children.

In his conceptualisation of “hidden resilience” Ungar (2005a) allows some leeway in terms of
how children negotiate resources when he suggests that children who are marginalised from

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mainstream society engage in unhealthy behaviours in order to achieve good health
outcomes. Engaging in transgressive activities can represent “diverse pathways” towards
resilience that he associates with outcomes that are believed to promote good health and
development and defined by the culture and context in which the child lives (Ungar 2005,
2007). However, this thesis will argue that Ungar inadvertently overlooks variance in
children’s own perceptions of desirable life outcomes, which may not comply with those that
are dominant in the child’s own culture or context.

Ungar’s (2009) conception of desirable life outcomes as exclusively defined by the culture
and context in which children live can be seen in his discussion of the troubled teenagers he
treats in his social work practice in Canada. He argues that young people who are
marginalised by mainstream society are labelled as deviant and dangerous when they engage
in crime, early sexual activity and drug use (Ungar 2009). Ungar (2004a) suggests that these
activities represent a discursive battle between young people and adult practitioners and
policy makers who define what is healthy and what is not. He suggests that in his practice, he
perceives young people’s engagement in transgressive activities as efforts to present
themselves as powerful, attached and well resourced, embracing these behaviours as a
mechanism of achieving a powerful self-concept (Ungar 2009). As such, he argues that these
behaviours represent efforts to achieve positive healthy outcomes, albeit via unhealthy means
(Ungar 2004).

This thesis will argue that Ungar’s approach assumes young people are motivated by a desire
to attain life outcomes that comply with the normative aspirations for children and young
people that are dominant in the society in which the child lives. For while Ungar’s approach
recognises the diverse pathways that children travel towards resilience when they engage in
unhealthy behaviours, it overlooks children’s diverse conceptions of desirable life outcomes
that may not be related to good health as conceptualised in Minority World discourses.

This thesis will draw on studies that have been undertaken in diverse cultural contexts to
suggest children have diverse relationships with normative notions of what it is to have a
“good life” (Eggerman & Panter-Brick 2010, Panter-Brick & Eggerman 2012, Panter-Brick
2015). Panter-Brick (2015) points out that in the resilience discourse culture has been
primarily treated as a single variable that impacts the lives of children in predicable ways.
She argues that researchers have overlooked the perceptions of children when they hold
diverse, contradictory and fluid goals for their lives that may include diverse material,

64
spiritual, economic and political aspirations that may contravene those of the dominant
society in which they live (Panter-Brick 2015). For example, in a study in Afghanistan,
Eggerman and Panter-Brick (2010, p. 71) found that cultural values are both “an anchor of
resilience and anvil of pain”, offering a source of hope as well as frustration that limits
personal aspirations and plans for the future. This thesis will draw on these studies to suggest
that children can hold competing and contradictory aspirations for their lives that are
unaccounted for in Ungar’s social-ecological approach to healthy functioning in children.

This thesis will also argue that Ungar’s conception overlooks that “problem behaviours” can
be mechanisms of political agency that are shared between children who protest collective
experiences of injustice. To do this, the study will draw on critiques of Ungar that have
investigated populations of disadvantaged young people and found they developed modes of
coping that can be understood as resistance against collective experiences of social inequality
(Bottrell 2002, 2007, 2013). Bottrell (2009b) suggests that understanding resilience in groups
of marginalised young people means accounting for their social and political situations of
adversity and the collective strategies in which they engage in order to resist these conditions.
This thesis argues for an alternative approach to the resilience discouse that accounts for
children’s collective efforts to resist the effects of marginalisation.

2.6 Critique of the Social Ecology Approach to Resilience

This thesis will suggest that Ungar’s social-ecological approach highlights the dynamic
processes between the child and resources in their social ecology but overlooks the collective
efforts of children to manage the effects of marginalisation and oppression as legitimate
expressions of resilience. The CYRM-28 overlooks issues of powerlessness in the lives of
children who are marginalised from mainstream society and downplays their political agency
when they take short-term and long-term action to change their lives, and the lives of others.
The CYRM privileges positive health outcomes associated with the navigation of personal,
relational and community resources within a specific culture, but overlooks “adversity” as a
shared experience between children and the personal and collective action they take to resist
the effects of oppression.

This thesis suggests that studies of resilience in marginalised children must pay attention to
young people’s own conceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”, which may diverge from
those that are dominant in the mainstream society in which they live. In his conception of

65
“hidden resilience”, Ungar (2005a) recognises the use of transgressive behaviours as an
individual effort to resist the effects of being labelled as delinquent and dangerous by those in
control of the dominant health discourse. This thesis suggests that Ungar’s approach is
significant in that it acknowledges the meaning of “unhealthy” behaviours, but inadvertently
falls into an individual-level analysis when it fails to consider adversity as a collective
experience by young people who live in an adult-centric society. Furthermore, these
behaviours are only positioned as meaningful when they are mechanisms that facilitate the
child attaining health-related outcomes that are associated with culturally specific notions of
“healthy functioning”.

In seeking to contribute a social theory of resilience that accounts for the collective
experiences of marginalised children, Bottrell (2002, 2007, 2009b) examined the lives of
young women who live in an inner-city public housing estate in Sydney, Australia. Her
findings suggest that the young women developed resistant modes of coping in response to
collective experiences of social inequality. Bottrell acknowledges Ungar’s attention to young
people’s social and cultural context, but suggests his approach overlooks issues of social
inequality and young people’s capacity for resistance. She suggests that resilience researchers
must account for the social and political contexts in which children live, which are integral to
the experience of disadvantage, and that studies of resilience in marginalised children and
young people must account for power differences that they experience in their day-to-day
lives. She suggests the need to move beyond an individual-level analysis of resilience, and
that this requires acknowledging acts of resistance as indications of resilience and measuring
positive outcomes on young people’s own terms (Bottrell 2009b).

This thesis aims to provide evidence that supports Bottrell’s argument. Bottrell (2009b)
acknowledges children’s complex relationship with the discursive powers that shape their
lives and the lives of their families, particularly in circumstances of poverty and
marginalisation. In this thesis, I aim to show that the children who participated in this study
revealed an awareness of their powerlessness in an adult-centric society in which they
experienced oppression and marginalisation. The findings will suggest that these children
constructed adversity as an experience they shared with other street-involved children and
their families, who were denied basic resources and oppressed by government policy. To do
this, this thesis will draw on scholars of agency (Giddens 1984; Hoggett 2001; Lister 2004)

66
and on scholars who focus on power relationships between adults and children (Giddens
1984, Hoggett 2001, Lister 2004, valentine 2011, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017).

Lister’s taxonomy of agency will form the basis of a discussion of the four emblematic case
studies of Angelica, Jasmine, Gabriel and Kyla as a means of illustrating the diverse actions
that children undertake in order to overcome “adversity” and “do well”. Lister’s taxonomy
categorises actions, rather than actors, with the potential for one person to simultaneously
express multiple forms of agency on both the everyday–strategic and personal–political axes.
By drawing on Lister’s taxonomy of agency and Ungar’s social-ecological resilience, this
thesis argues that children perceive resilience to be diverse and dynamic and that they draw
on multiple resources in the context of their social ecology (Ungar 2016) . This study will
draw on Lister’s conception of “Othering” and her taxonomy of agency to further the social-
ecological approach to resilience from the perspective of children, by highlighting their own
narratives of collective experiences of social injustice and personal and collective acts of
resistance. The study will aim to contextualise agency within the multifaceted social orders in
which young people live, in ways that resonate with, and extend, the social-ecological
approach to resilience in the context of extreme marginalisation and oppression. This thesis
will therefore extend current conceptions of resilience to include a social and political critque
that accounts for children’s position in adult-centric societies and the various actions in which
they engage in order to resist the effects of “Othering” (Lister 2004).

2.7 Chapter Summary

This chapter began by summarising the literature regarding street-involved children and
resilience before examining the dominant discourse that has emerged from the Minority
World, and critiques of this discourse when applied to the Majority World (Ungar 2006,
Didkowsky, Ungar et al. 2010, Eggerman & Panter-Brick 2010, Rabaia, Giacaman et al.
2010, Panter-Brick 2014). The social-ecological approach to resilience pioneered by Ungar
(2011, 2012) suggests resilience is a shared quality between the child and their environment,
the result of complex processes between resources in the child, and their relationships,
community and culture. The chapter provided an analysis of indicators of “healthy
functioning” in children who “do well”, finding that both the dominant conception, and
Ungar’s social-ecological approach, privilege processes that lead to health-related outcomes
that are synonymous with growth and development in the culture and context in which the
child lives.

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The chapter has also analysed the existing evidence base regarding the resilience of Filipino
street-involved children by reporting on the systematic search and literature review
undertaken as part of this study. This review found a handful of resilience studies primarily
undertaken within the field of psychology that have defined resilience as a phenomenon
associated with achieving normative growth and development that is synonymous with
dominant conceptions of “healthy functioning” in the Philippines (Banaag 1997, Caparas
1998, Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016,
Wartenweiler 2017). Analysis of the Filipino literature suggests a culturally nuanced
definition of resilience whereby children are considered to demonstrate “healthy functioning”
when they demonstrate a strong relationship with God and an interdependent view of self that
is consistent with Filipino values. This chapter suggests that the Filipino studies concur with
Ungar’s thesis, even though they do not for the most part refer to his work, and suggest that
resilience is a culturally determined construct based on nuanced conceptions of “adversity”
and “doing well” that are specific to culture and context (Ungar 2007, Ungar & Thomas
2013).

This thesis suggests an alternative approach, which suggests children’s own perceptions of
healthy functioning may not conform with normative notions of growth and development in
the culture and context in which they live. To do so, this thesis will draw on studies of
marginalised children who engage in a range of strategies that diverge from culturally
ascribed notions of “healthy functioning” in children, but nevertheless are suggestive of
resilience (Bottrell 2007, Davies 2008, Beazley 2003). I will aim to show that some children
in this study considered themselves resilient when they met culturally normative notions of
healthy functioning. However, I will also aim to show that others considered themselves
resilient when they sought “unhealthy” outcomes such as being powerful underworld figures
involved in gangs and crimes. This thesis will suggest that Ungar’s (2005a, 2006, 2009)
approach to hidden resilience goes some way to acknowledge the diverse mechanisms by
which children facilitate resilience in the context of their social ecology However, analysis of
Ungar’s conception of “healthy functioning” in this chapter suggests that his approach still
privileges health-related outcomes and behaviours that facilitate growth and development in
the culture and context in which the child lives. Ungar overlooks children who seek out
diverse conceptions of “doing well” that privilege an alternative conception of healthy
functioning. Furthermore, this chapter has suggested that Ungar’s approach overlooks the

68
social and political context of young people’s lives and their collective efforts to resist
marginalisation (Bottrell 2007, 2009b, 2013).

This thesis will make an original contribution to knowledge by bringing together Michael
Ungar’s (2011) social-ecological approach to resilience and Ruth Lister’s (2004) taxonomy
of agency to suggest healthy functioning, in the context of extreme marginalisation, is a
political expression of resistance and can include individual and collective action against
oppression and marginalisation. In the following chapters, this thesis will aim to show that
children in this study understood adversity to be a collective as well as a personal experience
and engaged in multiple and complex processes in order to manage the effects of these
circumstances. Like Bottrell (2009b), this thesis will suggest that resilience in this context is
an overtly political process whereby children equate “doing well” with resisting the effects of
oppression. I will furthermore argue that children in this study added an explicitly political
dimension to their conceptions of resilience by identifying government policy as being at
least partly responsible for their marginalisation and drawing on human rights discourses in
response.

The following chapter will describe the methods employed to answer the research question.
The chapter will lay the foundation for the study findings, which suggest that, while children
sometimes perceive themselves to be resilient when they comply with cultural norms and
expectations, they can also see themselves as resilient when they transgress these norms and
engage in personal and collective acts of resistance against marginalisation.

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 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS

3.1 Introduction

This chapter describes the methodology devised to answer the research question:

How do street-involved children construct resilience in the context of their social

ecology?

In order to address this research question, the researcher asked study participants about their
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in the context of their lives. In particular, the
researcher sought to uncover how children navigated and negotiated resources in themselves,
their relationships, communities and culture in order to facilitate resilience in their social
ecology. The findings suggest that Filipino street-involved children experience adversity
when they are deprived of resources necessary for survival, excluded from structural
resources in the community, and exposed to discrimination, stigma and victimisation.
Further, children perceive themselves as “doing well” in highly diverse ways that both
comply with and contradict culturally normative notions of healthy functioning in children
that are dominant in Filipino society.

This study is based on anti-oppressive research methodology that seeks to contribute towards
the evidence base regarding the resilience of street-involved children (Dalrymple & Burke
2006, Strier 2006, Rogers 2012). Anti-oppressive research requires recognising children as
holders of rights who are active agents in their own lives, rather than objects of study (Kirk
2007). Conducting research in this way involves considering the power relationships between
adults and children, ensuring the research design allows for children’s evolving capacities
and presuming their competence in participating in the knowledge-creation process (Barker
& Weller 2003). It also requires that the researcher manage potential exploitation during the
research process while acknowledging that children are best placed to provide insights into
their lived experiences (Greene & Hogan 2005, Sakamoto & Pitner 2005).

This study was designed to uncover the lived experiences of children by employing child-
focused research methods that offered choice and participation during all stages of the
research process. Twenty-five street-involved children between 11 and 18 years of age,
registered as Children in Need of Special Protection by Bahay Tuluyan, self-selected into the

70
study. A range of child-focused qualitative data collection methods in which children could
choose to participate, based on their interests and capacities, were sequenced over several
months (Darbyshire, MacDougall et al. 2005). This included a “talk and draw” art activity, a
“child-led tour” of the child’s local environment and semi-structured interviews (Crump &
Phipps 2013). In order to overcome language comprehension issues, a trained interpreter
accompanied the researcher throughout the data collection activities.

The study was only possible due to a close relationship between the researcher and Bahay
Tuluyan. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the researcher and Bahay
Tuluyan addressed the complex ethical challenges the study was likely to encounter. A Local
Advisory Group, whose membership included social workers and Youth Facilitators,
supported the project to ensure cultural and contextual relevance. Recordings of discussions
with the children were transcribed by a Tagalog-speaking transcriber and underwent a
process of narrative and thematic analysis in which key themes were identified and analysed.
The research findings were disseminated to the child participants and Bahay Tuluyan utilised
(anonymised) findings for further service development.

This chapter will outline the methodology and research design for this research project and is
organised in the following sections. After this introduction, Section 3.2 outlines the research
aims and guiding questions. Section 3.3 then goes on to describe the research methodology,
including the foundations of anti-oppressive and child-focused research. Ethical issues,
including child assent, confidentiality, and the required approval processes, are described in
Section 3.4. The multiple qualitative methods that facilitated the child-led process of data
collection and the mechanisms by which cultural and contextual sensitivity were addressed
are then discussed in Section 3.5. Cultural considerations, including the role of the interpreter
and transcriber is discussed in Section 3.6. In Section 3.7, the analysis of the interview data
is summarised, and the dissemination of the study findings is discussed in Section 3.8. In
Section 3.9 the challenges encountered during the research are articulated. The chapter is
summarised in Section 3.10.

Documents relating to the research process are attached to this thesis as appendices and are
referenced throughout this chapter. Table 3.1 outlines appendix numbers and titles and
specifies the languages in which the document was made available to study participants.

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Table 3.1: Summary of Appendices

Appendix Document Name and Languages Available

No.

#1 Child Assent Form. Available in English & Tagalog

#2 Child Participant Information Sheet. Available in English & Tagalog

#3 Guardian’s Information Sheet

#4 Bahay Tuluyan Memorandum of Understanding with the Researcher and Flinders

University of South Australia (including Confidentiality, Privacy and Informed
Consent Protocol)

#5 Local Advisory Group Terms of Reference

#6 Data Collection Protocol for Child Participants. Available in English & Tagalog

#7 Transcriber Confidentiality Agreement

Interpreter Confidentiality Agreement

#8 Systematic Review – Search Terms

#9 Systematic Review – list of university libraries contacted for hard copies of

publications only available in hard copy in the Philippines

# 10 Systematic Review PRISMA Flow Chart

# 11 Memo 1 to the Ethics Committee

# 12 Memo 2 to the Ethics Committee

3.2 Aims and Objectives

The research design and methodology have been guided by the research question, which
seeks to understand how Filipino street-involved children construct resilience in the context
of their social ecology.

In order to meet the aims of the research, the researcher identified a number of secondary
questions based on the two components of resilience: “adversity” and “doing well”. As such,
the secondary research questions asked:

How do street-involved children perceive “adversity”?

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 How do street-involved children perceive “doing well”?

The final question asked:

How do street-involved children navigate and negotiate individual, community and

cultural resources in order to facilitate resilience in the context of their social
ecology?

The research methodology devised to address this question is discussed in the following
section of this chapter. This discussion will examine the use of anti-oppressive and child-
focused research methods when researchers seek to understand the lived experience of study
participants who come from marginalised population groups.

3.3 Methodology

This study is based on the phenomenological research design tradition, which seeks to
understand the lived experience of people and the phenomena being investigated from the
perspectives of the study participants (Groenewald 2004, Lewis 2015). Drawing on
qualitative methods, the study aims to explore the phenomena by accepting the plurality of
meaning people ascribe to experiences that are important to them (Vaismoradi, Turunen et al.
2013). When seeking to understand resilience, Ungar (2003) suggests that qualitative
research methods offer advantages in uncovering the complex processes that affect the lives
of children. This study employed qualitative methods as they have been observed to be well
suited to understanding cultural and contextually specific conceptions of resilience (Bautista
2000).

3.3.1 Anti-Oppressive Research

The epistemological basis of this study is post-positivist, acknowledging the non-neutrality of

knowledge generation (Ryan 2006). Positivist research methods seek to investigate factual
happenings via methods that are independent from the researcher. Often based on quantitative
research methods, positivist research assumes the world is based on laws of causation that
can be understood via processes of reduction. This study is post-positivist, acknowledging the
relationships between the researcher and participants, with the motivation and commitment of
the researcher being central to the research process. This approach seeks to understand lived
experience by drawing on a range of research methods that uncover the complex lives of

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human beings (Ryan 2006). Post-positivist research has been undertaken in both Majority and
Minority world contexts and across a range of disciplines. The post-positivist approach is
closely aligned with critical theory, and postmodern and feminist critiques that locate
research within the social-political context and challenge the privileging of quantifiable data
(Agger 1991, Habermas 1992).

This study is based on the notion that research that is rich with the voices and experiences of
marginalised groups has the potential to challenge accepted policies and contribute towards
social change (Maschi 2016). In the Philippines, street-involved children and their families
face extreme marginalisation and victimisation and are subject to oppressive and inadequate
social policies (Espenido 2018). The goal of anti-oppressive research is to contribute towards
an evidence base that informs advocacy activities by challenging marginalisation and
oppression (Strier 2006). Anti-oppressive research recognises that research with oppressed
peoples can inadvertently replicate patterns of inequality and discrimination during the
research process (Dalrymple & Burke 2006, Rogers 2012).

In this, anti-oppressive research diverges from more traditional research methods in that it
challenges the expert status of the researcher as distinguished from the subject (Maschi
2016). Anti-oppressive research enables the participation of research participants,
encouraging them to engage in research processes that generate new knowledge (Bryant
2016). When researching with children, anti-oppressive research involves working from a
human rights approach that recognises that children are rights holders and therefore should be
considered experts who are best placed to provide insights into their lived experiences
(Greene & Hogan 2005). Researching in this way requires an examination of the power
relationships between adults and children and a research design that addresses children’s
evolving capacities and provides opportunities for demonstrations of competence (Barker &
Weller 2003).

3.3.2 Child-Focused Research

The research question that guided this study focused on issues that were pertinent to street-
involved children and the study design sought to establish a process of mutual learning
between the researcher and study participants. This study was planned in accordance with
child-focused methodologies that seek to reduce the power discrepancy between the
researcher and the child, and accommodate the varying capacities related to cognitive

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development (Kirk 2007). Research activities were undertaken after a long relationship-
building phase to establish trust with the children. In the Filipino resilience research,
relationship building with study participants has been identified as critical when researching
street-involved children (Bautista 2000). The children got to know the researcher and her
family when they participated in activities at Bahay Tuluyan on community days,
celebrations and events such as the Street Children’s Congress. During these events the
researcher and her family shared meals, participated in working bees and engaged in other
community activities with the children. Engagement in these activities facilitated the
development of relationships that were characterised by warmth, empathy and trust, which
facilitated the co-construction of research knowledge. Working in this way required the
researcher to plan strategies that built trust and allowed children to demonstrate their
competence (Crump & Phipps 2013).

Relationship
building at
Bahay Establish Data
Tuluyan Local Children's collection
Advisory Assembly at methods Dissemination
Project Development Analysis of Thesis writing
Group Malate, of findings to
proposal of MOU raw data - case studies
Develop Luguna and children
Literature Quezon • Child-led tours
research • Talk and draw
review
methods • Semi-structured
Ethics interviews
approval

Figure 3.1: Research Sequence

Figure 3.1 illustrates the sequence of the research study. The study began with a long
relationship-building phase at Bahay Tuluyan with children and staff that ran concurrently
with preparation of the project proposal, systematic search and review of the literature and

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the ethics approval process. The formalisation of the relationship with Bahay Tuluyan was
documented in the MOU, which included agreed processes to establish informed consent,
participant self-selection processes and criteria, and confidentiality protocols. At the
Children’s Assemblies children were informed about the research and were invited to self-
select into the study. The children also had the opportunity to engage in a “talk and draw
activity”, which gave them the opportunity to articulate their perceptions of “adversity” and
“doing well”. A range of data collection mechanisms was available to children. These
included a child-led tour of their environment as well as a more private semi-structured
interview, which took place at Bahay Tuluyan. The study findings were shared with the
children and staff of Bahay Tuluyan who were able to provide feedback. Anonymised
findings were made available to Bahay Tuluyan with the purpose of informing advocacy
activities that aimed to improve the lives of street-involved children.

This project sought to differentiate itself from adult-centric research methods that replicated
the unequal power relationships in adult-centred societies that position children as vulnerable,
passive and incompetent (Kirk 2007). Adult-centred research has positioned children as
research subjects who have been investigated as part of families, schools and communities
through the lenses of their adult caretakers. The “missing child” has been observed in
research traditions where children are researched as subjects to be investigated rather than
contributors who are recognised as key informants on their own lives (Darbyshire,
MacDougall et al. 2005). Adult-centric research methods are based on the assumption that
children are incapable, and in a state of incomplete maturity (Woodhead 2015). In this
approach, children are considered unable to understand their world and lacking the skills to
conceptualise and verbalise their experiences (Darbyshire, MacDougall et al. 2005). Based on
concepts of developmental psychology and universal stages of child development, childhood
is a period of life in which the child is considered incompetent and in a period of incomplete
development (Boyden 2003). The consequence of this conception of childhood in research is
that children have been considered to be unable to provide insights into their lives and their
experiences have been considered invalid. As a result, traditional research methods have
privileged the views of adults and have failed to reflect the lived experiences of children.

The new sociology of childhood challenged this understanding as sociologists began to

examine the “category” of childhood. Sociologists determined that childhood is a non-
homogenous construct positioned in opposition to adulthood but one that is diverse in

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different cultures and contexts and with differences in race, gender, disability and
chronological age (James & Prout 2015). For the researcher, understanding childhood in this
way means recognising the cultures of childhood and accepting that childhood is socially
constructed (Harden et al. 2000). This suggests the need to design research methods that
position children as experts in their lives, but that also take account of children’s evolving
capacities. Research with children in adult-centred societies is further complicated by (often
legitimate) adult concerns about exploitation of children in the research process. For this
reason, participation by children in research is often dependent on permission by adult
gatekeepers.

The research method employed for this thesis was designed to address the research questions
by privileging children’s own voices. Researchers who are interested in child-centred
approaches must use appropriate means to elicit good quality information from children while
simultaneously protecting them from processes that fail to respect their ideas, exploit them, or
ignore their right to privacy (Kirk 2007). Furthermore, children who are considered highly
marginalised, and in special need of protection, such as street-involved children, can be
harder to access and build rapport with, and therefore may be overlooked in mainstream
research. Researchers who wish to understand the lived experiences of marginalised children
must plan their research methods to minimise power discrepancies and address the
methodological challenges of researching with this hard-to-reach group.

The research question that has guided this study focuses on issues that are pertinent to street-
involved children and the study design sought to establish a process of mutual learning
between the researcher and study participants. However, child-centred researchers face the
dual challenge of enabling children to express their views about their lives, as well as
understanding those views that they choose to express (Spyrou 2011). Discussed in further
detail in Section 6.4, efforts to uncover the “authentic” voice may inadvertently assume a
singular viewpoint for all children, or else overlook the diverse beliefs that individual
children may choose to share about their circumstances at a point in time (Eldén 2013,
Komulainen 2007, Spyrou 2011). Spyrou (2011) cautions that qualitative research with
children tends to privilege the spoken word, overlooking the meaning of silences and those
questions children choose not to answer. Skattebol, Redmond and Zizzo (2017) also observe
this when they draw attention to the complex lives of children and suggest that in research it
is not always clear if children’s actions and decisions are reflexive, instinctive or collectively

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made. To address these challenges this research project provided multiple data collection
opportunities for child participants that took account of non-verbal communication and
provided varied mediums for children to express themselves. These methods were planned
with the intention of enabling multiple and deep insights into the complexities of children’s
experiences and beliefs about their lives (Eldén 2013). The next section discusses the special
considerations that researchers have taken into account when conducting research with street-
involved children.

3.3.3 Research with Street-Involved Children

Researching the lives of street-involved children is methodologically and ethically complex.

Street-involved children experience the power differentials experienced by all children in
adult-centred societies, but these are further intensified due to their exclusion from social,
economic and political participation, and due to assumptions by many in mainstream society
about their criminality and deviance (Young & Barrett 2001). Street-involved children’s lives
are complex and non-homogeneous, requiring researchers to understand a broad range of
circumstances and experiences associated with street life (Berckmans, Velasco et al. 2012).
Researching within an anti-oppression framework requires that the researcher adopt methods
of inquiry that account for the complex ethical terrain inherent in any child-centred research
and also respond to the unique experiences of street-involved children.

Furthermore, researchers face the difficult task of building relationships of trust with street-
involved children who are highly mobile and difficult to find (Young & Barrett 2001, p. 384).
Researchers may be seen by street-involved children as representing authority figures. Given
that street-involved children are often in conflict with authorities, this can create further
difficulties in building relationships. Researchers have observed that street-involved children
often create elaborate subcultures in order to survive and thrive in the context of the streets
(Beazley 2002, Beazley 2003, Davies 2008, Hills, Meyer-Weitz et al. 2016). These
subcultures can seem impenetrable to researchers, who may be denied entry into street-
involved children’s lives. As a result, this population group is under-researched. There is
therefore an incomplete evidence base concerning their lived experience (Bemak 1996). This
incomplete evidence base means that policies and programs that aim to improve the lives of
street-involved children are often based on good intentions rather than robust evidence
(Berckmans, Velasco et al. 2012).

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This study was designed to engage with street-involved children in order to obtain rich
insight into their lives. The researcher was assisted by Bahay Tuluyan, a service with a 30-
year history of working with children in Manila. The researcher attended the Children’s
Assemblies during which children were invited to self-select into the study, with their interest
triggering a robust process of informed consent that was supported by the social workers at
Bahay Tuluyan.

A variety of mechanisms were used throughout the data collection process to attempt to
address the researcher–child power imbalance. The research was designed to enable child-led
data collection activities that were flexibly delivered and paid attention to the interests and
evolving capacities of the children (Lansdown 2005). The children were invited to participate
in a variety of data collection activities based on their interests, including “talk and draw”
activities, “walk and talk” activities, and semi-structured interviews. Several young people
did not want to undertake the “walk and talk” activities, as they did not wish to be seen on the
streets with a researcher. This was particularly the case for young people who were involved
in gang activity, for which the streets are divided into territories, which they must observe.
Several participants who were gang members chose not to undertake the tour as they felt it
would put the researcher at risk to walk the streets with them.

In the semi-structured interviews, some children chose not to discuss topics that were
sensitive or caused them emotional distress. In these instances, the researcher relied on the
child’s assessment and respected their status as the expert in their own life. The researcher
took care to ensure that she dressed in a way that did not draw attention to her. During the
child-led tours the child participant held the recording device and led the researcher through
their environment. The frequency and duration of the meetings were determined by the child,
with the researcher taking care to observe the child’s verbal and non-verbal cues for
tiredness, distress or boredom.

From the outset, the researcher entered the child’s social ecology as a novice student who
made clear her willingness to learn about his or her life. The data collection protocol
(Appendix 6) guided the meetings with children. The researcher relied on the child
participant for their interpretation of protective factors in their culture and context. This
included when children talked about illegal activities or actions by which children
transgressed social or cultural norms in the Filipino context. In most instances, the researcher
adopted a non-judgemental, pleasant disposition, joking when appropriate and using play. For

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example, prior to data collection the researcher would play ball with the children. In some
instances, the researcher used the Wii in the drop-in centre. After data collection, the
researcher would eat with the children. At times, the researcher’s own children would attend
the centre and play with the children at the centre.

3.3.4 Reflexivity

Reflexivity is necessary for the researcher to manage the ethical and methodologically
complex challenges of studying street-involved children (Young & Barrett 2001). Reflexivity
can enable the researcher to address the “culture gaps” between the child participant and the
adult researcher, and to reflect on their own assumptions and how they might influence their
research. This research design included reflexivity strategies that recognised the researcher is
not an objective, politically neutral observer who stands outside and above the study (Denzin
2002).

In this study, the researcher kept a journal that accompanied the data collection process. This
journal examined motivations, assumptions and interests in street-involved children. The
researcher reflected on her position as an outsider, and on her historical, cultural status, and
how this might impact on the research (Denzin 2002). The journal documented the process by
which the researcher uncovered assumptions about the capacities of children and how her
own cultural and social position influenced the study findings.

The journal also provided a mechanism for considering dilemmas that the researcher
confronted during the process of data collection (Finlay 2002). The journal included
reflections on the resilience literature in relation to patterns and themes arising from the
fieldwork. It also reflected on conversations with the interpreter after each data collection
meeting with a child regarding issues and concepts specific to Filipino culture.

The reflexive process employed during this study is discussed in detail in the prologue to this
thesis. Sections of the journal were extracted and used as a basis for the prologue, which was
completed at the last stage of thesis writing.

3.3.5 The Role of the Researcher

This study acknowledges that the relationship between the researcher and participant is
central in knowledge generation. The post-positivist epistemological basis of this study

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required that the researcher locate herself within the research process and acknowledge her
own impact on the study findings. Reflexive activities undertaken during the research process
included the examination of the power dynamics between the adult researcher and child
participants including differentials between their social, economic and political status as well
as education and access to resources (Mayall 2000, Morrow 2008, Graham, R. et al. 2013).
These reflections are documented in the prologue to this thesis.

In an effort to reduce the power differential between the child participant and adult
researcher, the research design was devised to afford children with maximum power within
the study process (Graham et al. 2013). The relationship between the child participants and
the researcher was central to the research design and method. Prior to the study
commencement, the researcher and her family built a strong relationship with Bahay Tuluyan
by regularly engaging in volunteer work over several years. This relationship enabled the
development of trust between the researcher and the agency, which acted as gatekeeper and
guardian to the child participants. In addition, the researcher’s frequent attendance at Bahay
Tuluyan meant that she blended into the environment without attracting undue attention from
the children and community. This relationship reduced barriers between the child and the
researcher and facilitated participation by child participants who were familiar with the
researcher and her family.

Research and programming with street-involved children involves acknowledging children as

rights holders and undertaking activities in a way that demonstrates respect for children as
individuals (O’Kane 2003). Upholding the rights of street-involved children requires that the
researcher acknowledge the specific challenges street-involved children face in realising their
rights, including being subject to oppressive government policy and persecution (UN 2017).
All Bahay Tuluyan services and programs are based on the child-to-child approach which
recognises children as citizens who can competently contribute to solving problems in their
community (Gibbs, Mann & Nathers 2017). The child-to-child approach is operationalised
when Bahay Tuluyan staff talk with groups of street-involved children about their lives and
their day-to-day experiences of injustice. These conversations take place at the frequently
held Children’s Assemblies where children learn about the UNCRC and their basic human
rights. Within this context children are encouraged to select issues which they would like to
address, take action on and create change. Children decide on advocacy activities and
participate in campaigns, seminars and public meetings where they are supported to take a

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lead role in advocating for themselves. These activities target duty bearers who have
influence over the lives of street-involved children. For example, Bahay Tuluyan frequently
holds meetings and seminars with police and other public officials who frequently interact
with children in the street environment. These meetings provide the opportunity for children
to speak to powerful adults about their experiences of injustice and, in doing so, initiate
change.

During this study the researcher behaved in a way that was congruent with the child-to-child
approach including privileging the voices and experiences of children and recognising their
capacity for problem solving in their communities (Gibbs et al. 2017). Working in this way
required that the researcher was sensitive to the views and perspectives of children and that
all research activities were planned to address the power imbalances in adult–child
relationships (Lansdown 2009). These included ensuring that children were able to choose to
participate in data collection and determine the extent of their involvement in the project. For
example, children were given the choice to engage in a child-led tour and/or art activities.
Times and dates for meetings with the researcher were at the discretion of the child
participants. The child-led tours provided children with the opportunity to “lead”, with the
researcher taking on the role of “learner” rather than an expert. At the conclusion of the
study, the researcher also shared the themes that emerged from the study findings with the
children, thus demonstrating respect for children’s participation and contribution to
knowledge generation (Maschi 2016).

During all data collection activities, the researcher aimed to be sensitive to the child’s mood
and emotional state. The researcher took care to avoid situations where children became
distressed during the research process and was alert for verbal and non-verbal signals of
dissent. In several meetings with children, the researcher halted the interview, as it appeared
that the child was becoming distressed. After each contact with children, Bahay Tuluyan
social workers were on hand to provide emotional support if requested by the child.

3.3.6 Research Site

This study was based at Bahay Tuluyan, a child’s rights service based in Manila, Philippines.
Bahay Tuluyan’s mission is to prevent and respond to the abuse and exploitation of children
through the delivery of child-centred programs and services at the grassroots level. Bahay
Tuluyan works in collaboration with local and international partners for social development

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and change. Throughout all programs, Bahay Tuluyan seeks maximum children’s
participation and positions the best interests of the child as being paramount. The UNCRC is
the overarching framework for all program activities. Based on the Child-to-Child Approach,
young people are engaged in solving social problems via engaging in community action and
advocacy activities. The model addresses the power relationships between children and adults
in society and establishes a way of working that enables children to communicate their views,
develop ideas, make decisions and take collective action (Kirby & Gibbs 2006). The Child-
to-Child Approach originated as a health promotion tool and is now widely used around the
world (Kirby & Gibbs 2006). The Child-to-Child Approach has been evaluated and found to
be an effective method of empowering children and young people to take collective action
with regard to issues that concern them (Kirby, Lanyon et al. 2003).

At Bahay Tuluyan, children are encouraged to identify issues of injustice that concern them
and engage in advocacy and research activities that target duty-bearers who have influence
over the community in the children live. For example, in 2004 in response experiences of
rescue in which children are involuntarily removed from the streets of Manila and placed in
detention, a group of young people formed a group entitled Pinag Isang Lakas ng Kabataan
(PILAK) which means “United Strength of Youth” and decided to adopt the issue of rescue
for its advocay campaign. Supported by volunteers at Bahay Tuluyan, the group undertook a
study entitled “Sagip or Huli? Indiscriminate Rescue of Street Children in the City of Manila
in December 2007 to January 2008.” The results of this study were compiled into a report and
resulted in changes to the policy of rescue and the introduction of new protocols for Police
and public officials in the delivery of rescue operations. Changes to these protocol included
the introduction of social workers who are required to liaise with families and child welfare
organisations.

Bahay Tuluyan provides services to over 400 children per month across its three sites.

Figure 3.2 shows the geographical location of the three sites. Malate is located in
metropolitan Manila, running alongside Manila Bay and the major tourist and red-light
district of old Manila. The site is close to Tondo, one of the most densely populated areas of
Manila that is dominated by urban slums. Many of the children who access this site come
from families who live in temporary dwellings along the Pasig River. The Malate site offers
emergency and residential shelters, and a drop-in centre that offers children a safe place to
shower, eat, rest and play. The site also offers children bridging and formal education

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programs, including a mobile unit that offers protective behaviour education and basic
numeracy and literacy programs to children on the streets. Youth Leadership and Education is
a program that trains children in child rights and then enables them to become Youth
Facilitators, who teach other children their rights as part of the mobile unit. The service also
offers social enterprise activities including the Makabata Guest House as a pathway towards

employment. Most children access Bahay Tuluyan at this site and are then referred to other
sites as appropriate.

Figure 3.2: Map of Research Sites on the Island of Luzon, Philippines

The Laguna site is located about 100 kilometres from metropolitan Manila on the main
highway and is accessible by car and public bus. The site was previously a children’s home
owned and operated by the Japanese government. Since assuming ownership in the early
2000s, Bahay Tuluyan has transformed the site into a working farm with small homes for the

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children dispersed across the site. The site is located beside a small town, which includes a
school, church and medical centre which the children access. This site is used for sibling
groups, both boys and girls, who reside together with a house parent allocated for their care.
The site also includes facilities for the children’s families to stay with them for short periods.

The Quezon site is located about 200 kilometres from metropolitan Manila and is accessible
by car and public bus. The site is isolated, several kilometres away from a small town that
includes a school and church. This site operates as a fully functioning farm, producing rice
and meat for the other Bahay Tuluyan sites. It provides long-term accommodation for young
men; those who wish to remove themselves from Manila due to gang-related activity. The
young men move here to learn farming skills and attend the local school. The site is set up
with small group homes dotted throughout a farm that grows rice and breeds farm animals.
Data collection occurred in and around all three Bahay Tuluyan sites, based on where the
children who participated in the study resided.

Bahay Tuluyan has participated in numerous studies over its 30-year history, including the
earliest Filipino resilience studies by Banaag (1997) and Caparas (1998). These studies and
others take a child rights approach and focus on issues identified by children as problems
they experience in their lives. In 2006 Bahay Tuluyan undertook a study entitled “Youth
Pimps of Malate”, which examined the experiences of six youth pimps and their pathways
towards child exploitation. In 2014 they published Sagip or huli? Rescue of street children in
Caloocan, Manila, Pasay and Quezon Cities (Bahay Tuluyan 2014). This study investigated
the policy of rescue, finding that the removal of children from the street environment is
indiscriminate, involuntary and ineffective in relieving problems faced by children and their
families. Recent examples of participatory action research include a partnership with
UNICEF in 2017 in which Youth Facilitators mapped children’s services in Metro Manila,
which was made available to service providers in the Philippines. Bahay Tuluyan also leads
the Child Safe initiative in the Philippines, working with the Department of Tourism to
reduce child exploitation in the tourism industry.

As noted above, the researcher and Bahay Tuluyan negotiated and signed an MOU prior to
data collection activities. The process of development of the MOU included multiple
meetings with social workers, management and the researcher where the terms of the
agreement were brainstormed and problem solved. This included a process of identification
of possible physical, psychological and ethical risks, and planning of mitigation strategies.

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Ethical issues discussed and agreed included managing the possible perceptions of coercion
to participate by child participants, developing a robust informed consent process and
agreements regarding conditional confidentiality. Conflict resolution and problem-solving
mechanisms were also agreed. Legal experts at Flinders University examined the MOU. At
the conclusion of the negotiation the researcher and the Bahay Tuluyan Executive Leader
signed the document. A copy of the MOU is attached to this thesis as Appendix 4.

3.3.7 Local Advisory Group

Bahay Tuluyan assisted the researcher in establishing a Local Advisory Group. Group
members included Youth Facilitators who were previously street-involved children but who
were now delivering child rights training on the streets of Manila to other street-involved
children. Other members of the Local Advisory Group included social workers at Bahay
Tuluyan and the Executive Director.

The Terms of Reference detailed the role of the group in providing local knowledge and
support to the project. The Terms of Reference detailed the aims and objectives of the group
as well as decision-making protocols. This group guided the development of the interview
protocols and oversaw the testing of possible questions. The group also acted as a point of
coordination for planning the logistics of data collection.

In total, the Local Advisory Group met on six occasions, at each phase of the study. The
Local Advisory Group provided advice regarding the development of the interview protocol
including the translation of key terms children were likely to discuss in data collection. The
Local Advisory Group also supported the presentations about the study at the Children’s
Assemblies as part of the informed consent process. As the study progressed, the group also
provided an interpretation of themes emerging in the study and provided cultural and
contextual knowledge. The Local Advisory Group also provided a key point of contact for
the coordination of the study and the support of child participants during and after data
collection. The terms of reference of the Local Advisory Group is attached to this thesis as
Appendix 5.

3.3.8 Participants

The UNCRC defines a child as a human being who is below the age of 18 years, unless
otherwise stated by the country in which the child lives. This study involved child

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participants who were aged 11–18 years and were registered as Children in Need of Special
Protection under the care of Bahay Tuluyan. The Philippines Republic Act 7610 section 2
defines Children in Need of Special Protection as children “below eighteen (18) years of age
or those over but are unable to fully take care of themselves or protect themselves from
abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation or discrimination because of physical or mental disability
or condition”. Bahay Tuluyan is licensed and accredited by the Philippines Department of
Social Welfare and Development to provide care and protection to such children. All
participants who participated in this study were registered as being under the care and
protection of Bahay Tuluyan. All participants had an allocated social worker and were case
managed with a current assessment and case plan.

As there is no electronic client data reporting available at Bahay Tuluyan, management and
the Local Advisory Group provided information about the client group who access services in
preparation for this study. Children who access Bahay Tuluyan primarily come from Metro
Manila, living in streets surrounding the Malate site, including Tondo, Manila Bay and the
Smoky Mountain rubbish dump. Children often learn of Bahay Tuluyan via the Mobile Unit
Street Education Program which travels the nearby streets and teaches children about their
rights. Street-involved children are encouraged by social workers and youth facilitators
staffing the mobile unit to access the nearby drop-in centre where they are provided with
food, shelter, hygiene facilities, and are referred to other services at Bahay Tuluyan including
the services at the Laguna and Quezon sites. This information is supported by the child
participants in this study, of whom 24 of the 25 who participated described accessing Bahay
Tuluyan via the Malate site in Metro Manila. Children described learning about Bahay
Tuluyan via the mobile education unit or by accessing the drop-in centre for food or safety.

Children who access Bahay Tuluyan are between the ages of 5 to 18 years, although during
this study staff told the researcher that children of all ages, including babies, have received
services. Staff also advised that roughly even numbers of boys and girls frequent Bahay
Tuluyan. They primarily identify as Roman Catholics, although a small number are Muslim.
Many children are multilingual with their first language being Tagalog but often speaking
English in addition to another language spoken by their parents and relatives from the
province from which they originate. Children who access Bahay Tuluyan come from a
variety of living conditions including living on the streets alone, with other children, or living
in temporary dwellings with their families in nearby high-density urban areas. In most

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instances, children present to the service with complex needs including not having access to
school and medical services as well as experiencing abuse or violence at the hands of their
parents or other relatives. Children are often engaged in formal or informal work including
shoe shining and selling food. In some instances, they are also involved in illegal income
generation including begging, drug dealing or engagement in petty crime either alone or as
part of a gang.

Although comprehensive data regarding street-involved children in Manila is notoriously

unreliable, this thesis suggests that the client group who access Bahay Tuluyan is broadly
comparable to what is known about the broader population of street-involved children
(UNICEF 2004). UNICEF (2004) estimates that most street-involved children in the
Philippines are between the ages of 6 to 17 years, with approximately one in four having
never been to school. Children are likely to have migrated from rural areas with their
families, moving to urban areas that are highly populated with few services and amenities.
Pomm (2005) suggests that street-involved children in Manila are primarily male, with up to
70% being boys, with girls likely to be less visible and more often engaged in domestic
labour in the home. Bahay Tuluyan on the other hand advised that roughly an even number of
boys and girls access their services.

Many of the children who access Bahay Tuluyan undertake formal and informal work to
support themselves and their families. This is consistent with UNICEF’s (2004) report that
the majority of street-involved children earn an income for themselves or their families by
whatever means they are able including car washing, vending and domestic work. Like the
children in this study, UNICEF (2004) suggests that street-involved children are vulnerable to
gang membership and drug-related activity as well as exploitation by unscrupulous adults.
Researchers have ascertained that street-involved children often face significant adversities
including being subject to abuse, violence at the hands of family members and public
officials, and involvement with criminal justice (Banaag 1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista 2000,
Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Bautista & Rolder 2001, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014,
Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017).

This study acknowledges that street-involved children who reside at Bahay Tuluyan
demonstrate varying levels of maturity and competency. The broad age range of the child
participants in this study suggested the need to pay attention to the concept of “evolving
capacities” referred to in Article 5 of the UNCRC, which stipulates that guidance provided by

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parents or guardians must consider the capacities of the child to exercise rights on their own
behalf. As such, children were invited to self-select into the study at the Children’s
Assemblies. Children’s Assemblies are a regular occurrence at Bahay Tuluyan during which
children participate in decision making about the services that Bahay Tuluyan provides, and
their advocacy activities. The researcher attended a Children’s Assembly at each Bahay
Tuluyan site, several weeks before data collection was due to begin. At the Children’s
Assembly the researcher provided the following information:

• study aims,
• participant selection criteria (age, care and protection under Bahay Tuluyan),
• voluntary participation,
• study risks and benefits,
• process of informed consent and
• confidentiality and anonymity provisions.

Children were invited to participate in a “talk and draw” activity in order to facilitate
conversations about resilience. Children were then invited to register their interest in
participating by speaking with their social worker after the meeting.

The National Ethical Guidelines for Health Research in the Philippines specify that child
participants must be assessed for competency prior to participation in a research study to
ensure informed consent can be provided. In accordance with this requirement, the Bahay
Tuluyan Management Committee considered each child in relation to the participant selection
criteria after they had registered their interest in participating in the study during the
Children’s Assembly.

The selection criteria for participation were devised between the researcher and Bahay
Tuluyan and documented in the MOU (Appendix 4). Criteria for participation included a
willingness to participate in the research, including meeting with the researcher and translator
at Bahay Tuluyan. Children in the study could participate if they were aged between 11 and
18 years, and were assessed as having the capacity to communicate, ask questions, and make
an informed independent choice after assessing possible risks and benefits of participation.
Children who participated had to be under the care of Bahay Tuluyan and reside in sheltered
accommodation at the Malate, Laguna or Quezon sites, with an allocated social worker.
Children were deemed suitable if they had enough time to participate in the study without

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detracting from other activities such as education and life skill program involvement. It was
also deemed important that children were relatively recovered from psychological, emotional
or physical trauma, to ensure participating in the study did not exacerbate residual trauma. All
children who registered their interest in participating at the Children’s Assembly were
deemed to meet the selection criteria. Initially twenty children were interested in
participating; however another five asked to participate as the research progressed. An
important component of the study process included the opportunity for children to be
informed of the study findings.

One year after data collection, the study findings were presented to the Local Advisory Group
for discussion of and feedback about the key themes. Six children could be reached, and these
were provided with the key themes from the study findings. The children who could not be
reached at the time of the delivery of the study findings had returned to the care of their
parents or had left the care of Bahay Tuluyan. A summary of the complete thesis will be
made available to Bahay Tuluyan to share with participants if and when they access Bahay
Tuluyan at a future time.

The children’s experience of the research process is summarised in Figure 3.3. The figure
documents the child participant learning about the study at the Children’s Assembly. The
child was then able to self-select into the study and participated in a “talk and draw” activity
regarding “adversity” and what it means to “do well” as an introduction to the concept of
resilience. The child was then given the opportunity to meet with their social worker and
confirm their willingness to participate and address any perceptions of coercion. After this,
the child was introduced to the researcher and viewed the Assent Form. The child was then
given the opportunity, if they wished, to undertake a child-led tour and semi-structured
interview, after which they were offered a “debrief” from their social worker. One year after
the data collection children who could be contacted had the opportunity to learn about the
study themes and findings.

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 Child learns about Child participates in a
Child self-selects into
study at Children's "talk and draw" art
study
Assembly activity

Child has a meeting

Child and researcher
with their social
Child-led tour meet and view child
worker to confirm
Assent Form
self-selection

Child debriefs data

Semi-strucutured collection activities Child learns about
interview with their social study findings
worker

Figure 3.3: Child Participants’ Experience of the Research Process

3.3.8.1 Summary of Children who Participated in the Study.

Twenty-five children participated in the study across the three locations of Bahay Tuluyan.
Table 3.2 summarises the characteristics of the child participants and their engagement in the
data collection activities.

Table 3.2: Summary of Children Who Participated in the Study

No. Alias Location Age Gender Draw & Child-led Semi-

talk tour structured
interview
1 Angelica Laguna 13 Female Yes Yes Yes
2 Miguel Laguna 11 Female No Yes Yes
3 Mary Laguna 12 Female Yes Yes Yes
Anne
4 Joan Laguna 12 Female Yes Yes Yes
5 Nicole Laguna 13 Female Yes Yes Yes
6 Lyn Laguna 12 Female No No Yes
7 Reylin Malate 14 Female No No Yes

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 8 Gabriel Malate 17 Male No No Yes
9 Jose Malate 13 Female No No No
10. Jasmine Malate 13 Female Yes Yes Yes
11 Kyla Malate 17 Female No No Yes
12. Daniel Malate 12 Male No No Yes
13 Alfredo Malate 15 Male Yes No Yes
14 Dianne Malate 15 Female No No Yes
15 Jessance Malate 14 Female No No Yes
16 Joe Malate 16 Female No No Yes
17 Charles Quezon 16 Male No No Yes
18 Joyce Quezon 15 Male No No Yes
19 Jezz Quezon 16 Male No No Yes
20 Justine Quezon 17 Male Yes Yes Yes
21 Marcos Quezon 17 Male No Yes Yes
22 Jonus Quezon 17 Male No Yes Yes
23 Joshua Quezon 17 Male No Yes Yes
24 Bong Quezon 17 Male No Yes Yes
25 Andreas Quezon 17 Male No Yes Yes

Table 3.2 provides a summary of all participants who took part in the study including their
alias which will be used to refer to them in this thesis. The table also indicates the Bahay
Tuluyan site at which they resided, their age, gender, and the data collection activities in
which they participated.

The table suggests that the mean age of the children who participated in the study was 15
years. At the time of data collection, six of the children resided at the Laguna, ten at Malate,
and nine at the Quezon sites of Bahay Tuluyan. Thirteen children were female and twelve
were male. Of note, the gender breakdown of the study was influenced by the locations of the
Bahay Tuluyan services which served as the research sites. The Laguna site is reserved for
female children or sibling groups of young children, while the Quezon site is reserved for
older boys who go there to undertake a farm traineeship. The Malate site, located in Metro
Manila, offers accommodation for both boys and girls and includes an outreach service
including a drop-in centre, mobile school, and traineeships in hospitality at the Makabarta
Guest House. These issues were discussed in Section 3.3.6 of this thesis, which presented the
implications for the study of the research sites.

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As discussed in Section 3.3.2, in all data collection activities children were provided with
maximum choice for participation. This table summarises their choices of data collection
activities. Eight children participated in the “draw and talk” art activity in response to the
researcher’s questions, and twelve children participated in the child-led tour. All children
participated in the semi-structured interview. The impact of children’s choices in data
collection is discussed further in this thesis in Section 3.9 “Methodological Challenges”,
which examines the implications for data analysis and the impact on the study’s findings.

3.4 Ethics

In order to manage the ethical challenges likely to be encountered during this study, a
comprehensive risk assessment and mitigation plan was devised by the researcher and Bahay
Tuluyan prior to study commencement. This process was undertaken under the guidance of
the Local Advisory Group and included identifying risks and benefits to the participants, the
researcher and the service. This risk assessment informed the development of the MOU and
the associated informed consent and confidentiality protocol (see Appendix 4).

The Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research Committee approved the study in
compliance with the Philippine National Health Research System Act enacted in 2013.
Approval was granted on 30 August 2017 with an expiry date of 31 December 2021. On two
occasions during the course of the study the committee was notified and approved of
amendments to the research design as per the ethics application and approval.

• Approved 1 November 2017: Modification to the application requesting the use of

“flash cards” that articulated four Tagalog concepts to aid in interpretation and
knowledge translation.
• Approved 10 November 2017: Memorandum advising the committee that the
researcher was obliged to break the confidentiality of two child participants due to
perceived risk of imminent harm (Appendix 11 and 12).

3.4.1 Child Assent Process

It was important that this study mitigated perceptions of coercion and, as such, a robust assent
process was devised that ensured children’s express agreement to participate in the research.
Coercion was deemed a particular risk as these children are reliant on Bahay Tuluyan for
their survival. As such, children were advised both verbally and in writing that participation

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in the research was voluntary, and that if they chose not to participate, they would not be
penalised in any way. Children were presented with verbal and written information on several
occasions that was sequenced to enable time for consideration.

In child-focused research methods, assent processes ensure the researcher obtains the express
agreement of children to participate in the study, considering their age and understanding. An
assent process recognises that, while children are unable to provide formal consent as they
are under the age of 18 years, they are still able to understand the research aims, benefits and
possible risks of participation. In this study, the assent process was carefully planned with
multiple opportunities for children to receive information and ask questions. A Child Assent
Form was developed by the Local Advisory Group and underwent a process of translation
and back translation. In addition, Bahay Tuluyan acted as guardian to the child participants
and provided written consent for participation. This was deemed necessary as the participants
were children aged between 11 and 18 years who were under the care of Bahay Tuluyan,
having been assessed by the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development as
Children in Need of Special Protection.

In recognition that this was a vulnerable population group, multiple opportunities for
information and questions were provided for children to learn about the project. The assent
process began with the Children’s Assemblies which took place in August 2017 at each of the
Bahay Tuluyan sites at Malate, Laguna and Quezon. During these forums children learnt
about the study and were provided with a Child Participant Information Sheet which they
could take with them to enable further deliberation. Several children had questions and asked
about when the study would begin and how they could register their interest. After the
session, children were invited to self-select into the study by approaching their social worker.

During the Children’s Assembles participants were provided with an opportunity to deepen
their understanding of “adversity” and “doing well” in an art activity. At the conclusion of
this activity children were invited to leave the drawing with the researcher if they were
willing for it to be used as part of data collection. The researcher stated in English “Please
place your drawings in this box if you are willing for them to be used in the study.” This
instruction was translated by the interpreter into Tagalog. Several children dissented from this
process, taking their drawings with them, and not sharing them with the researcher. Other
children brought their pictures with them to their subsequent meetings with the researcher.

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Based on the selection criteria, a Bahay Tuluyan staff member approached each child with an
invitation to participate several days after self-selection indicated at the Children’s Assembly.
A Child Participant Information Sheet was provided again to facilitate discussion, which the
child could take away if required, thus enabling further deliberation and decision making
(Appendix 2). The Child Participant Information Sheet introduced the researcher and
included information about the project’s aims, proposed benefits, a summary of the risks, and
details of the confidentiality and privacy provisions in simple, jargon-free language in order
to enable informed decision making by child participants. The Information Sheet was
developed via a process of translation and back translation and was available in Tagalog and
English. The Information Sheet invited the child to ask further questions and provided contact
details to get further information. The drawings completed during the Children’s Assembly
by children who did not complete the Child Assent Form were not used in the study and were
stored securely in line with the Data Management Plan.

The researcher, with assistance from the interpreter, went through the Child Assent Form
(Appendix 1) with each child in detail, prior to data collection. The researcher and the
interpreter undertook this activity at a location and time that suited the child. At the first
meeting with the researcher, the Assent Form was read out loud by the interpreter to the
child. The child was invited to ask questions and sign if they agreed to the terms. For the
purposes of this study, all child participants aged between 11 and 18 years completed an
Assent Form as recognition of children’s competency as decision makers in their own lives.
Figure 3.4 shows the interpreter reading through the Assent Form. In this case, the Assent
Form was signed under a mango tree at the Laguna Bahay Tuluyan site.

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 Figure 3.4: Interpreter Reading Assent Form to Child

3.4.2 Confidentiality

The Republic of the Philippines Act no. 10173, the “Data Privacy Act of 2012”, requires that
consent of the data subject is obtained in a way that is freely given by the subject who is
informed of the collection and processing of personal information relating to themselves. The
Act stipulates that consent shall be evidenced by written, electronic or recorded means
(Section 3b). The Act also requires compliance in and outside the Philippines if the
information pertains to a Philippines resident (Section 6a). General data privacy principles
include that data must be collected for specific purposes and that data recording should be
accurate and relevant, and retained only as long as necessary (Section 11).

In order to manage the complex confidentiality and informed consent challenges associated
with this study, a Confidentiality Protocol that augmented the MOU was developed
(Appendix 4). This protocol addresses the challenges associated with undertaking qualitative
research in a relatively small service with few participants. The protocol outlines steps taken
to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of children within the confines of the project and
in accordance with the Philippines Ethical Guidelines for Health Research. This protocol was
submitted as part of the Flinders University ethical approval processes and was subsequently
approved.

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The protocol documents the following procedures:

• The process by which managers apply the selection criteria to the participant
population will remain confidential.
• The process by which the verbal invitation for the children to participate in the study
will be delivered by the Bahay Tuluyan staff member at a time that is private and
allows for discrete discussion.
• Agreement on under what circumstances the child’s confidentiality may need to be
violated.
• Anonymity of children’s data during the data collection process including de-
identification of children’s data via numbering systems and pseudonyms.
• Agreements regarding data retention and storage at Bahay Tuluyan.
• Details of the interpreter and transcriber confidentiality agreements.

The protocol also documented the management and storage of all hard copy and electronic
files including security during transportation. Social workers were supported to understand
and comply with the protocol in staff meetings and in day-to-day contact with the researcher
and Bahay Tuluyan management.

The Child’s Assent Form and Information Sheet include an explanation of the limits of
confidentiality and anonymity provisions (Appendix 1 and 2). During the data transcription
and analysis process all children were allocated a substitute name that was randomly selected
from a publicly available list of popular names in the Philippines. Similarly, the emblematic
case studies presented in this thesis do not use the real names of the children in order to
protect their anonymity.

3.4.3 Ethical Challenges

The study of street-involved children has long been understood as ethically and
methodologically complex, with such children living lives that are difficult for researchers to
access (Young & Barrett 2001). Power differentials experienced by all children in adult-
centred societies can be further exacerbated for street children who are often excluded from
political participation due to their presumed deviancy and homeless status. Street children
often occupy spaces reserved for economic activity and are considered “out of place” in the
streetscape, suffering exploitation by adults and harassment by the police (Ennew & Swart-

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Kruger 2003). Researching this population group requires that the researcher undertakes
deliberate strategies in order to reduce the power discrepancy between the researcher and the
street-involved child and manage any potential physical and psychological risks to the child.
Researchers who investigate the experiences of street-involved children must think beyond
traditional research methods that are not necessarily appropriate for this population group
who often lead transient and complex lives (Bemak 1996). Ethical complexities when
conducting research with street-involved children include addressing potential issues of
coercion, establishing informed consent and observing confidentiality in children and young
people whose safety is precarious.

In order to manage the complex ethical issues associated with this study, a MOU was MOU
devised by the researcher and the Local Advisory Group. The MOU included a risk analysis
and mitigation plan that identified, assessed and addressed potential ethical challenges to
children, staff and bystanders present during the course of the research (Appendix 4). Risks
and burdens identified included psychological and physical safety concerns. Bahay Tuluyan,
the researcher and Flinders University attached this plan to the MOU that was signed prior to
data collection. These documents also formed part of the ethics application and approval
process. The risk analysis and mitigation plan was drawn on several times during data
collection in order to guide the navigation of complex ethical issues that arose.

Negotiating access to children required a long relationship-building phase with Bahay

Tuluyan to establish trust and a transparent working relationship. The development of the
MOU and risk analysis and mitigation plan was time consuming for both the researcher and
Bahay Tuluyan and required a significant input of resources. It was appreciated during the
data collection phase, however, as it assisted the researcher and Bahay Tuluyan to work
together in order to manage difficult issues that emerged.

A significant risk was the potential for children to feel coerced to participate, which would
compromise the integrity of the research. In order to manage this, children were provided
with multiple forms of verbal and written information about the study in English and Tagalog
prior to participation. Children could self-select into the study, and after agreeing to
participate had a one-on-one discussion with their social worker about the benefits and risks
of participation. In the first introduction meeting with the researcher, children were provided
with written information regarding voluntary participation and their ability to withdraw from

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the study at any time via the Child Participant Information Sheet and the Assent Form
(Appendix 1 and 2).

During this study, the researcher took steps to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of
the children within the confines of the project and in accordance with the Philippines Ethical
Guidelines for Health Research. In planning this study, the researcher and the Local Advisory
Group anticipated ethical challenges concerning maintaining confidentiality of children who
are exposed to extreme danger in their daily lives. Prior to research commencement, a robust
risk assessment was undertaken that included identifying mitigation strategies for this
eventuality. The MOU provided a framework for the resolution of these dilemmas that
stipulated the limitations of confidentiality and the priority of child safety over the research
process. The Child Assent Form, discussed with the child at the beginning of the research
process, also specified the limitations to confidentiality based on child safety concerns and
risk of harm to the child.

As expected during the research process, complex confidentiality dilemmas emerged. Three
children during their data collection activities made disclosures regarding ongoing exposure
to circumstances of extreme violence, extra-judicial killings and engagement in illegal
activities that presented imminent risk of harm to themselves or other children. One young
man revealed that he sometimes used small children to help him transport drugs in and
around Bahay Tuluyan. In another interview, a child revealed that she had been trafficked by
her father and remains fearful of him. In another instance, a participant revealed that he had
witnessed extra-judicial killings and he became distressed, leaving the interview prematurely.
These disclosures suggested ongoing exposure of risk to the child and therefore required
extra-ordinary management by the researcher, Bahay Tuluyan management and the study
supervisors.

In response to these situations the stipulations in the Confidentiality Protocol that augmented
the MOU provided a guide for the researcher’s response that sought to prioritise the safety of
the child over the research process. Abiding by the stipulations in the MOU meant breaking
confidentiality and discussing disclosures of children with Bahay Tuluyan management and
the study supervisor. The researcher advised the Director of Bahay Tuluyan who worked with
allocated social workers with existing relationships with the children, in order to undertake a
risk and safety planning process that addressed the physical and psychological safety of the
child and other children at Bahay Tuluyan. Of note, these risks are familiar to the staff who

99
are skilled in working with children who live in high-risk situations. The risk assessment and
safety planning process at Bahay Tuluyan includes working with the child to identify risks
from their perspective, as well as protective factors that mitigate safety and wellbeing
concerns.

In two instances, the researcher was required to break confidentiality of a child and inform
her thesis supervisors and the Flinders University Social Behavioural Research Ethics
Committee via a memorandum in November 2017. This memorandum is included in this
thesis (Appendix 11).

Another challenge involved children wanting favours from the researcher. This included
requests for transport to “the city”, and requests for candy after the data collection meetings
had ended. In child-centred research, providing incentives and rewards for participating
research projects is a controversial issue (Fargas-Malet et al. 2011, Hill 2005). Some
researchers argue that compensation is a recognition of time committed by the child and is an
appropriate acknowledgement of their contribution to the research project (Fargas-Malet et al.
2011). Conversely, others suggest that payments of incentives and rewards have the potential
to unduly influence study findings and pressure children to participate (Hill 2005). In
research with street-involved children, additional ethical issues concern the extreme
conditions of deprivation that characterise their lives, as well as a perceived threat of coercion
when research is conducted at the site on which the child is dependent for survival (Young &
Barrett 2001).

In this study, prior to commencement, the researcher, the management of Bahay Tuluyan and
the Local Advisory Group discussed the issue of incentives for participation as part of the
MOU negotiation process. Bahay Tuluyan management had the strong view that incentives
such as a small cash payment or voucher to secure participation were potentially exploitative
in the participant group who experience such extreme deprivation. The provision of such
incentives may be perceived by children as coercive and put undue pressure on children to
participate. Furthermore, the provision of gift vouchers to supermarkets or department stores
would also be inappropriate when street-involved children are actively discouraged from
entering shopping centres by police and security guards who are known to use violence
against them. To mitigate this challenge, the Local Advisory Group suggested participants
should be encouraged to access a meal, watch TV and play games with other children after
participating in data collection. In addition, they advised that the data collection activities

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should be planned to be a fun and engaging experience for children with opportunities for
debriefing with their social worker afterwards.

During data collection there were two instances in which children asked for rewards for
participation. In one instance, after her semi-structured interview Jasmine asked the
researcher to drive her to “the city”. As described in Section 4.3 of this thesis, Jasmine is well
known for leaving Bahay Tuluyan for several days to visit her friends on the streets, which
she had just described. In this conversation, Jasmine had told the researcher that, although the
staff discourage her from “running away” from Bahay Tuluyan as it exposed her to danger,
she wanted to visit her “like family” who remain on the streets. As such, the researcher
smiled and laughed in response to her request, laughing with her about her intention in a
light-hearted way. Jasmine also laughed and smiled, appearing to be aware that her request
would not be supported by the researcher. In another instance, Reylin asked the researcher for
candy at the end of her child-led tour. When the researcher indicated that she did not have
any, Reylin suggested they go to the kitchen and eat a meal together. During the meal, the
researcher sat with Reylin and the other children, talking and laughing as they ate. This
circumstance did not appear to disrupt the relationship with Reylin who saw the researcher at
other times and talked with her.

3.5 Data Collection

Child-focused research assumes a process of mutual learning, with the researcher taking care
to build a relationship with the child. Working in this way requires the researcher to plan
strategies that build trust and provide children with the maximum opportunity to demonstrate
their competence and knowledge (Crump & Phipps 2013). Throughout the data collection
phase, the researcher adopted a position of inquiry and positioned the child as an expert in his
or her own life. Children were given choices to participate in different methods of data
collection based on their own interests and comfort.

The planning of multiple data collection activities is based on the principles of “facet
methodology”. This approach draws on the visual metaphor of a cut gemstone, which
describes how multiple data collection methods can be employed in order to uncover
different perspectives and critical associations in participants’ experiences (Mason 2011). In
facet methodology, the researcher can undertake multiple “mini” studies, drawing on a cluster
of methods that are artfully put together in order to better understand the research question.

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Facet methodology encourages the researcher to take a pluralist position, seeking out a range
of data and methods in order to understand the lived experience of participants (Mason 2011).

In conjunction with the Local Advisory Group, the process of data collection was divided
into three components: introduction to the study at the Children’s Assembly, the child-led
tours, and semi-structured interviews. These phases were planned in order to enable multiple
opportunities for the researcher and the child to build rapport, overcome apprehension, and
establish cooperation that enabled the co-construction of knowledge (Whiting 2008).

3.5.1 Phase One: Children’s Assembly and the “Draw and Talk” Art Activity

The first data collection activity took place in the Children’s Assembly. As a group the
children were asked to engage in a “draw and talk activity”. This activity aimed to reveal how
children constructed resilience by uncovering how they conceptualised “adversity” and
“doing well” in the context of their lives and was an important part of data collection. The
researcher provided blank paper and a range of drawing materials including crayons, markers
and pencils. Children were asked to draw two pictures or brainstorm some words in response
to the following questions:

DRAWING 1: “Can you draw a picture or write some words about the risks and
challenges that children experience around here?”

DRAWING 2: “Can you draw a picture or write some words that describe what it
means to you to ‘do well’ in life?”

The children were given 40 minutes to draw and write. While they were undertaking the
activity, the researcher walked around the room and talked with the children about their
pictures and words, making notes on post-it notes regarding the children’s interpretations of
the images and words on the page. The researcher’s notes regarding what the children had
said were stuck on the page. The interpreter consulted with the children who wrote in
Tagalog and wrote a translation in English on post-it notes that were adhered to the drawing
(Figure 3.5). Of note, this “draw and talk” activity took place prior to the completion of the
Child Assent Form that was explained in Tagalog by the researcher and the interpreter prior
to the child-led tour and semi-structured interview. For this reason, a verbal assent process
was devised by the Local Advisory Group and undertaken at the conclusion of Children’s
Assemblies. At the end of the discussion about the research project and the “draw and talk”

102
activity the children were advised they could hand their drawings to the researcher as they
left the room if they were happy for their drawings to be used in the study. As children left
the room, some of them gave the researcher their drawing while other children took their
drawings with them. A number of these drawings of children who signed the Child Assent
Form have been used in the study findings and are referred to in later chapters.

Figure 3.5: “Talk and Draw” Activity in Children’s Assembly

3.5.2 Phase Two: Walk and Talk Child-Led Tours

After assent forms were signed and collected, the children met with the researcher at a
designated time in order to undertake the child-led walk and talk tour. The intention of this
process was to investigate the personal, relational, community and cultural resources that
street-involved children draw on in their social ecology in order to facilitate resilience. The
child-led tour was designed to enable children to demonstrate competence and provide
spontaneous insights into their day-to-day lives in the context of the street environment.
While walking, the children were asked to respond to a range of questions while holding a
digital recording device. During these walks the researcher was guided by the child as to the
course of the journey. In some instances, children walked through the neighbourhood for
several hours, pointing out the people and places that were important to them including the
local parks, schools and churches. Some children spent much of the tour in Bahay Tuluyan,

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showing the researcher the school rooms, the drop-in centre, as well as the showers, kitchen
and dining rooms.

At the conclusion of the data-collection, all data collection of the tour was transcribed by a
Tagalog speaking transcriber including sounds from the environment that gave context to the
tour. In addition, the researcher recorded details of the tour in the reflexivity journal that has
been used as a basis for Section 4.2 Introduction to each child that participated in the study.

Some children elected not to undertake the tour. In these instances, the researcher asked the
child why they made this choice and recorded the answer for data collection. Not all the
children gave a reason. Some children seemed embarrassed, not answering the researchers’
question. Others stated that they feared for their own safety or the safety of the researcher. In
other instances, the weather was very rainy or very hot and so the child led tour was not
practical. In these instances, the researcher asked the children if they would prefer to
undertake the semi-structured interview in a private place away from the street which became
the primary source of data collection. In total 16 children undertook child-led tours while 9
elected not to.

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 Figure 3.6: Child Participant-Led Tour 3 (Malate)

3.5.3 Phase Three: Semi-Structured Interviews

At the conclusion of the tour, each child was offered the opportunity to have a semi-
structured interview in the privacy of the research site. The semi-structured interviews aimed
to uncover insights into how the children used personal, relational, community and cultural
resources in order to attain resilience in their social ecology. The semi-structured interviews
provided the opportunity for a confidential conversation that could take place in addition to
the child-led tour. The data collection protocol consisted of descriptive, explanatory and
exploratory questions and was devised and tested by the Local Advisory Group (Appendix 6).
The protocol included questions about personal qualities, relationships, community resources
and cultural values that were likely to contribute to the child being able to overcome
experiences of adversity. The protocol also asked children about their perceptions of “doing
well” including their hopes and dreams for their future.

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During the interview, flash cards were available that described specific Tagalog concepts
such as “pakikiramdam”, “pagtittis” and “pakikisama”. The flash cards were used during the
course of the interviews to aid discussion about Filipino cultural values. The Local Advisory
Group identified these terms as important cultural values that enable Filipinos to overcome
adversity. All interviews were digitally recorded. The transcripts underwent a process of
translation and back translation. The data collection protocol is attached to this thesis as
Appendix 6.

3.6 Cultural Considerations

The researcher was guided by the Local Advisory Group to ensure the study was culturally
accountable and responsive. The Local Advisory Group advised the researcher regarding
Filipino traditions and customs regarding interpersonal relationships that she was likely to
encounter during the interviews. For example, the group advised that children were likely to
observe age-based deference in keeping with Filipino cultural norms. The researcher found
this to be true in some instances, for example where the child prayed for the researcher’s
health prior to the interview beginning.

Culturally appropriate research methods as discussed in the Filipino resilience literature were
also discussed and planned. This included establishing a two-way relationship between the
researcher and the child prior to interview (Bautista 2000). The Local Advisory Group
provided cultural advice about how data collection should be undertaken. For example, they
advised the researcher that wherever possible interactions should be fun and light-hearted.
The researcher also allowed for silences during the interview, taking care not to interrupt the
child when discussing sensitive issues.

The Local Advisory Group provided advice regarding the data collection protocol
development and assisted in translating the document into written form to be available to
those children who could read. The Local Advisory Group also participated in the ongoing
monitoring of the data collection and assisted in formulating amendments where required to
increase cultural relevance. For example, after several “walk and talk” interviews were
undertaken, the researcher worked with the interpreter and the Local Advisory Group to
develop “flash cards” that articulated Filipino values. These flash cards were created in order
to facilitate conversations with the children regarding cultural values that are specific to the
Philippines and for which there is no English translation. They included “pagtitiis”, translated

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as “seeing things in perspective”, “utang na loob”, a debt of gratitude owed by children to
their parents, “pakikiramdam”, being sensitive to others’ needs, and “pakikisama”, which can
be translated to mean patience and fortitude.

The Local Advisory Group also commented on the research findings. This included the
interpretation of Indigenous concepts that the children referred to during the interviews. In
total the Local Advisory Group met formally six times during the course of the study. The
group convened again at the end of 2018 to hear and comment on the initial study findings.

Figure 3.7: Local Advisory Group

During the study, the researcher took care to ensure the children and the researcher could
communicate with each other. This included consideration and planning for language
competence. The Philippines is a culturally diverse nation of 105 million people with an
estimated 14–17 million Indigenous peoples who belong to 100 ethno-linguistic groups. It is
estimated that there are over 171 languages are spoken in the Philippines. The Philippines
Constitution (1987) states that English and Tagalog are the joint official languages of the
Philippines. The researcher is unable to speak Tagalog, while most children who participated
were able to communicate in both English and Tagalog. During the research it became

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evident that, even though many of the children were proficient in English, they often
switched to Tagalog, particularly when discussing sensitive topics. The researcher
encouraged this to ensure children were confident and comfortable expressing themselves
during the interview. Children were also encouraged to draw and write during the meetings if
that aided communication and made them feel more comfortable.

3.6.1 Role of the Interpreter and Transcriber

During this study the researcher engaged an interpreter for the duration of the data collection
activities due to the researcher’s lack of competence in Tagalog. Although most children who
participated in the study spoke English, the availability of a Tagalog-speaking interpreter
ensured children had a choice of language and could move between English and Tagalog as
they chose. Prior to data collection the researcher and the interpreter met and discussed how
they would work together. These meetings resulted in an agreement regarding the process by
which interviews would be conducted including dates and locations of meetings and
behaviour during the interviews that facilitated the best possible outcomes for the research.
Bahay Tuluyan, which had used the interpreter on previous occasions, provided training in
child protection and occupational health and safety prior to contact with children. Bahay
Tuluyan also assisted the interpreter to undertake a police check. The interpreter also signed a
Confidentiality Agreement (Appendix 7).

The data collection protocol was available in Tagalog in written form during the interview to
aid in understanding and consistency. This document underwent a process of translation and
back translation procedures during development as assisted by the translator.

During the research the interpreter acted as an informal two-way cultural guide and occupied
a special position in the research process. In some instances, child participants asked the
interpreter questions about the researcher, or asked the interpreter to explain a Filipino
concept on their behalf. For example, when the researcher asked a child about the rules of a
Filipino game she liked to play in her neighbourhood, the child asked the interpreter to
explain on her behalf. After each data collection session the researcher and the interpreter
debriefed to ensure synergy in understandings and to continuously improve the research
process (Temple and Young 2004). For example, this included addressing instances in which
children disclosed criminal activities such as drug use that made it difficult for the interpreter
to remain impartial and non-judgemental.

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 Figure 3.8: Interpreter and Child on Child-Led Tour

All data was transcribed by a professional and experienced transcriber who spoke Tagalog
and English. Prior to transcription, the researcher met with the transcriber and agreed the
protocols for de-identifying client names and use of pseudonyms, location, time of day and
duration of interview. The transcriber signed a Confidentiality Contract that documented
these agreements (Appendix 7). Transcriptions included interaction data including
documenting when the child participant laughed, cried as well as noises recorded in the street
environment. File names and processes for confidential data storage were discussed and
agreed in accordance with the data management plan that guided the study. Transcriptions
were undertaken in MS Word and included line by line numbering. Transcription occurred
from December 2017 to March 2018. At the conclusion of the study all audio files were
uploaded onto the Flinders University One Drive system and all other records destroyed.

3.7 Data Analysis

In this study, the researcher undertook both a thematic and narrative analysis in order to
understand children’s perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in the context of their
social ecology. Thematic analysis is a strategy for organising qualitative information and
enables the researcher to identify patterns within the data and thus create an understanding

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that is drawn from the participants’ subjective experiences (Crowe, Inder et al. 2015).
Themes are patterns in data sets that contribute to the description of a phenomenon and are
relevant to the research question (Crowe, Inder et al. 2015). Thematic analysis in this study
was inductive, allowing for categories to emerge from the raw data from the child-led tours,
the “draw and talk” art activities and the semi-structured interviews via a process of coding
and the creation of a “node hierarchy” titled “children’s perception of resilience”. A code
hierarchy and workbook were devised that identified the parameters of each node of data. A
“node” represented a cluster of data around a common theme. The draw and talk art activities
revealed important insights into children’s perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” and
have been drawn on in this thesis to support the study’s findings.

The node hierarchy was organised into three major categories. The first category was
children’s perceptions of “adversity” and included themes such as “broken family”,
“extended family inability to offer security”, “child and family have inadequate resources by
which to survive” and “living in a community that fails to uphold children’s rights”. The
second category was children’s perceptions of “doing well”. Themes included “family is safe
and united”, “family has access to basic resources”, “children observe dominant standards of
morality and absence of delinquency” and “children are able to attend school”. The third
category was children’s perceptions of resources that enabled them to overcome adversity in
their social ecology. Major themes included “personal resources” (such as upholding
standards of morality), “relational resources” (such as observing mutual obligations),
“community resources” (such as being able to pursue an education) and “cultural resources”
(such as a strong relationship with God). This process enabled the researcher to identify new
themes that may have been overlooked in the existing body of knowledge regarding
resilience. This included being a gang member and crime as resources that children identified
in helping them overcome adversity. Children also identified knowledge of child rights as a
resource that helped them “do well”.

In order to ensure cultural sensitively in the data analysis, the researcher undertook a
narrative approach to understanding children’s stories and the meaning they attributed to their
experiences (Connelly & Clandinin 1990). A narrative approach has been identified as
culturally appropriate in the context of researching children in the Philippines (Bautista
2000). Narrative research uses stories as the primary source of the investigative focus
(Czarniawska 2004). The approach is based on the belief that, via the examination of the

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story, the researcher can uncover the belief systems that are specific to that time and place,
culture and context (Bell 2002). The approach accepts that stories are socially constructed,
the result of human beings selecting components that they consider important (Bell 2002).

3.7.1 Emblematic Case Study Selection and Presentation

The narratives offered by the children who participated in this study were developed into
emblematic case studies that represented themes identified in the complete study sample and
form the basis of the study findings.

Yin (1981, p. 59) defines a case study as a research strategy that “attempts to examine: (a) a
contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context, especially when (b) the boundaries
between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin 1981). Stake (1995) suggests
that a case study is a “specific, complex, functioning thing” that is bounded by time and place
and enables important insights into the research question (Stake 1995). Case study analysis
involves description of events as described by the participants, as well as analysis of themes
that illustrate the key issues that “transcend” the cases that are being examined (Creswell
2013). The selection of multiple case studies can offer multiple insights that are usually set
out with a detailed description of the cases, and a cross-case analysis that is followed by an
interpretation of the cases’ meaning and significance in relation to the study findings
(Creswell 2013). Seawright and Gerring (2008) suggest that researchers should select a range
of cases in order to demonstrate an array of perspectives in their research findings.

In this study, in order to demonstrate the range of children’s perceptions of “adversity” and
“doing well”, and their highly diverse use of personal, relational, community and cultural
resources, the researcher selected and presented anonymised case studies. The emblematic
case studies were selected based on thematic analysis nodes identified in the broader sample
of children who participated in the study. A synopsis of children’s perceptions of resilience is
provided in Table 3.3. The table is divided into three panels, presenting the nodes identified
in analysis that articulate “Children’s Perceptions of Adversity”, “Children’s Perceptions of
Doing Well” and “Resources used to Facilitate Resilience”. Within each of these panels, the
table lists concepts described by children in the broader study sample to describe their
conceptions of resilience. The columns entitled “Angelica”, “Jasmine”, “Gabriel” and “Kyla”
highlight corresponding themes that they exemplify and are presented as emblematic case
studies.

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Table 3.3 Summary of Children’s Perceptions of “Adversity” and “Doing Well”

Table 3.3 suggests that Angelica, Kyla, Jasmine and Gabriel all perceive “adversity” to be
associated with families having insufficient resources to meet the needs of their children. All
four emphasised their and their siblings’ inability to attend school as an important
“adversity”. Furthermore, all children in the case studies identified “adversity” when adults in
the community failed to provide food, shelter and safety in the community. As discussed in
Chapters 4 and 5 and exemplified in the case study of “Kyla”, children in this study who had
been exposed to child rights training at Bahay Tuluyan understood these concepts to be
related to a denial of human rights. This finding is significant in that it suggests street-
involved children are aware of their status as “Other” from mainstream Filipino society who
are denied the basic resources by which to survive (Lister 2004, Jensen 2011). This finding
suggests a political dimension to resilience that is underexplored in the current body of
literature and is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5.

Table 3.3 suggests that commonalities in conceptions of “doing well” across the case studies
include an emphasis on families. Children defined “doing well” when their families had
adequate resources and they were able to contribute to their family’s wellbeing now and in
the future. Children emphasised the importance of observing mutual obligations with their
families and the pursuit of education for themselves and their siblings as important resources
needed in order to “do well”. All children in the study identified God as an important

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resource in overcoming “adversity”, suggesting an important theme regarding children’s
perceptions of resilience.

In this thesis, the four emblematic case studies of Angelica, Jasmine, Gabriel and Kyla will
be discussed in light of Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency and Ungar’s social-ecological
approach to resilience, in order to illustrate the diverse actions that children undertake in
order to overcome “adversity” and “do well”. Lister’s taxonomy draws on Hoggett’s
discussion of agency to identify expressions of strategic agency when people make choices
that have long-term consequences for them as individuals or their community, and she
contrasts this with short-term everyday coping mechanisms employed to juggle the effects of
poverty. Lister’s (2004) approach categorises actions, rather than actors, recognising the
complexity of human experiences and ways of living. In this study the complete sample of
children presented perceptions and actions that represent a diverse use of personal, relational,
community and cultural resources that overlap with Lister’s categories of agency.

Angelica illustrates how children undertake personal, but strategic action when they act to
“get out” of poverty by going to school as a means of reunifying her family and lifting them
out of poverty. Jasmine takes day-to-day actions when she “gets by” by drawing on multiple
relationships including her relationship with God as opportunity structures that enable her to
manage the effects of poverty. Gabriel “gets back at” oppressive government policy by
engaging in day-to-day criminal activity in response to being “Othered” by mainstream
Filipino society. Kyla “gets organised” when she engages in political activities that challenge
the marginalisation and oppression of street children. In doing so, this thesis will suggest, she
seeks to disrupt the social order and bring radical change to social structures that are
dominant in Filipino society.

These case studies will be drawn on to suggest that children’s perceptions of resilience
include personal expressions of agency that focus on the individual, as well as political
expressions that can be understood as acts of resistance to being “Othered”. This thesis will
support Lister’s (2004) argument that agency is a pluralist construct and suggest that this is
also true of resilience. Lister’s taxonomy categorises actions, rather than actors, with the
potential for one person to simultaneously express multiple forms of agency on both the
everyday–strategic and personal–political axes. Similarly, this thesis argues that children
perceive resilience to be diverse, expressed in multiple ways in the context of complex lives
that are marked by political oppression and “Othering” from mainstream society.

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3.8 Study Dissemination and Impact

This study has been designed in the tradition of anti-oppressive research that emphasises the
role of research in addressing oppression and promoting social justice. Bemark (1996), who
investigate the lives of street-involved children, suggests that researchers are social change
agents who need to make sure their findings are used to promote political, economic and
social change. In this way, anti-oppressive research should have practical implications that
serve to improve the lives of the participants.

In this project, the researcher was committed to ensure that this project was used to assist
with advocacy activities in multiple ways. The study findings have been used by Bahay
Tuluyan to develop a local, contextually specific resilience measure based on the
International Resilience Project Child and Youth Resilience Measure (Cameron, Ungar et al.
2007). At the time of writing, Bahay Tuluyan is proposing to develop this tool and
disseminate it among other non-government agencies working with street-involved children
in Manila.

Several of the children who participated in the study had follow-up meetings with the
researcher one year after data collection. In these meetings the researcher advised the children
of the study findings and showed them how their stories were included in the case study
format. Children were able to provide feedback regarding key themes in the study. After
completion of this project, a copy of the thesis will be made available to Bahay Tuluyan and
the children who participated.

3.9 Methodological Challenges

This study presented multiple methodological challenges associated with undertaking child-
centred research and providing multiple data collection methods that maximised children’s
choice during the research process. This section will discuss these challenges and mitigation
strategies identified and managed by the researcher with the Local Advisory Group.

The nature of child-centred research means following the child’s lead and sharing authority
over the data collection process (Crump & Phipps 2013). In practice, this meant that the
researcher needed to be flexible in how the data collection activities proceeded. At times
children chose not to engage in activities or answer questions. In the child-led tour it meant
following a path through the streets that sometimes felt dangerous and uncomfortable for the

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researcher. Working in this way required the researcher to develop a two-way trusting
relationship with the study participants and assessing the safety of people and places in the
environment.

3.9.1 Child-Centred Research and Multiple Data Collection Activities

Drawing on multiple data collection methods presented the researcher with significant
methodological challenges. In keeping with child-centred research methods, the researcher
met children multiple times and presented various data collection activities which they could
choose to undertake. As a result, child participants relayed complex experiences and
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” via a combination of sources conveyed in the
“draw and talk” activity, child-led tours and semi-structured interviews. Children expressed
their perceptions via drawings, as well as verbal and non-verbal communication, often
conveyed over multiple meetings. Moreover, in some instances children relayed information
in both English and Tagalog, often in the same sentence. In the child-led tours, children used
hand gestures to point out particular streets or landmarks in response to the researcher’s
questions.

The complex data collection methods presented challenges in presenting the data in this
thesis. To address this challenge, in Chapter 4 a summary is provided for each child that
highlights key themes relevant to the research question and specifies the child preferences for
data collection. This summary includes an explanation of how the child conveyed their
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” and the use of personal, relational, community
and cultural resources in the context of their social ecology (Ungar 2016). In addition, the
summary highlights children’s use of hand gestures and other non-verbal communication
methods if relevant. Wherever possible quotations or artwork provided by the children have
been drawn on as a direct source of evidence to support the study’s findings. In some
instances, this has required including the researcher’s questions and responses by the children
in both English and Tagalog.

Children’s preferences for some data collection activities over others presented other
methodological challenges. In many instances, children were selective in their data collection
activities. Eight children participated in the “draw and talk” art activity in response to the
researcher’s questions, while seventeen declined. Children who declined to undertake the
activity appeared to be self-conscious, or disinterested, preferring to verbally answer the

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researcher’s questions. Of note, younger participants seemed more willing to undertake this
activity, with one older child noting that the activity suited “the little ones”. Some children
referred to the drawing they had undertaken in the Children’s Assembly rather than
completing another drawing at the beginning of a semi-structured interview. This required a
specific assent process at the Children’s Assembly or relied on the child providing the
drawing to the researcher at the time of interview. A summary of each child’s preferences
with respect to engagement in data collection is provided in Section 4.2.

Of the complete participant sample twelve children undertook the child-led tour. Some of
these children confined their tour to the grounds of Bahay Tuluyan, while others took the
researcher further afield to nearby streets. Many of the children appeared to enjoy the tour,
talking with their friends, neighbours and staff at Bahay Tuluyan as they moved around the
environment. In the emblematic case studies presented in Section 4.3, quotations from
children’s conversations with their friends and neighbours have been included in this thesis.
Children who undertook the tour provided important data that contributed to answering the
research question, including detailed perceptions of environmental factors that they self-
identified as “adverse” as well as resources they described as helping them to “do well”.
Child participants were able to spontaneously interact with people and places in the
environment, sparking conversations that may otherwise not have occurred. Walking and
talking revealed surprising environmental resources that were important to children including
the vegetable gardens, farm animals and play equipment where children played with their
siblings. Some children appeared to prefer talking while walking, revealing more about their
lives on the child-led tours than in the semi-structured interviews. As the research progressed,
the researcher began to offer the tour as a method for encouraging children to relax if they
appeared uncomfortable, disinterested or self-conscious during a one-to-one interview.

Thirteen children declined to undertake the child-led tour. In some instances children
provided an explanation for refusing to undertake the tour such as bad weather or concerns
about the safety of the researcher due to gang-related activity and “territories” in the
neighbourhood surrounding Bahay Tuluyan. Other children did not provide an explanation or
did not turn up at the designated time to undertake the tour. While it is difficult to determine
why these children did not take the tour it is interesting to observe that most were residents of
the Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan. Malate is in the heart of the Manila entertainment district
and is closely located to Tondo, a densely populated area of Manila that is renowned for

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crime and gang-related activity. Most children access Bahay Tuluyan via the Malate site
which acts as a “triage” service to the other service sites. For this reason, children there may
be newer to Bahay Tuluyan with more recent experience of living on the streets. The
researcher surmised that children who refused the tour had a range of valid reasons for not
wanting to participate that they did not always choose to share with the researcher.

In instances where the child did not undertake the tour, the data collected at the semi-
structured interview was relied upon to contribute towards the study findings. The
implications for this include a reliance on verbal communication methods and the role of the
interpreter in relaying information to the researcher. In some instances, including “Kyla” who
is presented as an emblematic case study in this thesis, the reliance on verbal information
resulted in an extensive interview that provided rich information that informed the study
findings. Conversely, in some instances children’s reluctance to talk in an interview was
overcome via participation in the child-led tour that provided the opportunity to “walk and
talk”. Thus, the range of data collection activities offered the researcher the opportunity to
tailor the research method in response to the child’s preferences and thus yield richer data to
inform the study findings.

The diverse data collection methods also presented a challenge for data analysis. The “art and
draw” activity proved useful during the semi-structured interview as a point of discussion
regarding children’s conceptions of “doing well”. The use of drawing and images meant that
the researcher was required to ask about their meaning to ensure clarity and understanding.
As the research progressed, the researcher began each interview with the opportunity for the
child to talk about their drawing in detail, explaining the meaning of images and words which
the interpreter recorded on yellow sticky notes. During each meeting between the child
participants and the researcher a digital recording device was used that captured all
background noises, pauses in conversation and sounds made by the child, researcher and
interpreter. Sounds such as laughter were recorded and transcribed in data transcripts and
included in data analysis. In addition, after each interview the researcher recorded the child’s
non-verbal communication such as pointing or leaving a meeting prematurely in her
reflexivity journal. Further challenges to the research process are discussed in Section 6.4.

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3.9.2 Environmental Challenges

At times, bystanders wishing to participate in the child-led tours compromised the

confidentiality of participants. Over the course of the data collection, the community became
aware of the researcher undertaking child-led tours. At times, this resulted in community
members responding to the questions by the researcher. The researcher encouraging the
participant to hold and speak into the digital voice recorder and directing questions to them
addressed this challenge. At times, the researcher gently encouraged the child to move away
from bystanders to prevent confidential discussions being overheard.

During the process of this study, environmental conditions presented challenges to the
researcher and child participants. On several occasions it was very hot, and the children were
reluctant to undertake child-led tours. On one day there was a significant typhoon and so a
child-led tour had to be abandoned due to the heavy rain. Traffic was a significant hazard,
with the researcher and interpreter guiding the children to safety when required. At other
times, children would become distracted, choosing to follow a stray dog, take advantage of a
free meal offer by a community member or take a swim in Manila Bay. While this presented
challenges to the researcher, observing these distractions was considered critical for
developing a deeper understanding of the child’s environment.

3.9.3 Language and Interpretation

A significant challenge for the data collection activities was the researcher’s limited
comprehension of Tagalog. During the data collection meetings, the children often began in
English but switched to Tagalog when discussing sensitive issues at the encouragement of the
researcher and the interpreter. At times, language comprehension issues interrupted the flow
of the conversation. Moreover, there are some Tagalog words that have no English
translation. These words primarily described cultural values such as “pakikisama”,
“pakikiramdam” and “pagtitiis”. In these instances, the interpreter was required to explain
Tagalog words and meanings to the researcher in detail. Over time, via a reflexive process,
the researcher and the interpreter devised several written “flash cards” with Tagalog words to
facilitate knowledge translation.

The process of finding a single, appropriately qualified interpreter who was able to work in a
child-centred way during data collection was difficult but ultimately successful. A single
interpreter was recommended by the Philippines Social Service Association, a qualified

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teacher who was trained in Montessori education pedagogy and who was undertaking an
additional degree in psychology. The researcher and the interpreter worked together in a
reflexive process that included the clarification of their roles during data collection. The
interpreter was skilled in building rapport with the children and was an asset when trying to
establish trust. On some occasions, the interpreter struggled to be objective when children
were engaged in illegal or potentially dangerous activities. For example, early in the data
collection activities, a child revealed that he regularly used illegal drugs in order to manage
strong feelings. The interpreter spontaneously asked the child, “You know that isn’t right?”
The researcher managed this issue by talking with the interpreter after each interview to
debrief and to establish impartiality for future interviews.

3.9.4 Familiarity with the Researcher

This research was enabled by the long-standing relationship between the researcher and
Bahay Tuluyan, which acted as the gatekeeper to study participants. Prior to the study’s
commencement, the researcher had met many of the children who would go on to participate
in the study. The familiarly of the researcher to the children prior to the study’s
commencement was advantageous, with children readily volunteering to take part, and many
enthusiastically indicating their willingness at the Children’s Assemblies. During data
collection children familiar to the researcher appeared to feel comfortable to talk about their
lives, thus yielding rich data that informed the study’s findings. For example, “Jasmine” was
well known to the researcher and thus felt comfortable to undertake extensive child-led tours
that yielded rich information that informed the study’s findings.

On the other hand, this familiarity also presented a methodological challenge, with the
researcher’s prior knowledge regarding children’s experiences having the potential to unduly
influence the study’s findings. To manage this challenge, the researcher took care to avoid
influencing the sample group of children who self-selected into the study. During data
collection, the researcher followed the data collection protocol as consistently as possible,
asking all twenty-five participants similar questions regarding their use of personal,
relational, community and cultural resources to facilitate resilience in their local context. All
interview transcripts were de-identified and then transcribed by an independent transcriber
and remained anonymous during data analysis and coding of themes.

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Despite being an experienced social worker with significant experience in the Philippines, an
important challenge for the researcher was hearing about distressing events and experiences
in the children’s lives. The transition from the role of a social worker to the role of a
researcher was unfamiliar and required analysis and consideration as part of the reflexivity
process.

3.10 Chapter Summary

This chapter has provided a summary of the research design and method employed during
this study in order to address the research question: how do street-involved children construct
resilience in the context of their social ecology? This chapter has described the research
method by which the researcher engaged 25 street-involved children between 11 and 18 years
of age who were under the care of Bahay Tuluyan. Child participants self-selected into the
study and were offered a range of child-focused qualitative research methods in order to
explore the question.

The chapter has outlined the study emphasis on child rights and the use of methods that
enabled children to exercise choice, demonstrate competence and share power during the data
collection process. During data collection children were given the opportunity to engage in a
“talk and draw” art activity, a “child-led tour” and a semi-structured interview based on their
personal preference (Crump & Phipps 2013). These activities were sequenced over several
months, with the researcher meeting each child on multiple occasions (Darbyshire,
MacDougall et al. 2005).

The chapter has also described efforts to overcome language and cultural comprehension
issues, including the use of a trained interpreter who accompanied the researcher throughout
data collection activities, and obtaining guidance from the Local Advisory Group. The raw
interview data was transcribed by a Tagalog-speaking transcriber and underwent a process of
narrative and thematic analysis in which key themes were identified and analysed. Emerging
themes in the data analysis diverge from Minority World definitions of resilience that
emphasise notions of healthy functioning in children that are reflective of Western notions of
growth and development in children. Key themes in this study data include children’s diverse
conceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”, which also deviate from dominant themes in the
current body of Filipino resilience literature. The research findings were disseminated to
child participants, with children having the opportunity to comment on them. In order to

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manage the complex ethical and methodological challenges encountered during the data
collection a range of documentation was developed to support the study. These documents
are attached as appendices to this thesis.

This chapter has described the methods employed as the researcher sought to uncover how
children draw on personal, relational and community resources in order to facilitate
resilience. In the next chapter, will begin by introducing the complete sample of children who
participated in the study, before introducing four anonymised emblematic case studies that
exemplify key themes and form the basis of the study findings. The emblematic case studies
will suggest that Filipino street-involved children perceive resilience in ways that in part
conform with, and in part transgress, culturally ascribed notions of “healthy functioning”
including engaging in acts of resistance against experiences of oppression and
marginalisation. As such, each case study will detail the child’s perception of “adversity” and
“doing well” and the personal, relational, community and cultural resources they engage with
to facilitate resilience in the context of their social ecology.

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 CHAPTER 4: CHILDREN’S DIVERSE PERCEPTIONS OF
“ADVERSITY” AND “DOING WELL”

4.1 Introduction

This thesis suggests that street-involved children perceive resilience as a highly pluralist
construct, as they overcome self-identified conditions of “adversity” in pursuit of highly
nuanced conceptions of “doing well”. As suggested in Chapter 2, the dominant construct of
resilience in the discipline of psychology has been primarily produced by expert researchers
in Minority World contexts, who have identified children as resilient when they demonstrate
healthy functioning despite threats to normative development (Ungar &Thomas 2013).
Analysis of the construct of resilience in the Filipino literature suggests that street-involved
children have been defined as resilient when they achieve culturally normative growth and
development despite their street involvement (Banaag 1997, Bautista & Rolder 2001, Sta.
Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017). The Filipino construction of
resilience draws on the dominant Minority World conceptualisation, but is nuanced, informed
by culturally and socially normative conceptions of healthy functioning in children in the
Filipino context. Drawing on the social-ecological approach, this thesis proposes that street-
involved children in Manila perceive “adversity” and “doing well” in ways that both conform
to and contravene normative expectations of children in the Philippines (Ungar 2016).
Supporting Ungar’s approach, I will suggest that children perceive themselves to be “doing
well” by drawing on personal, relational, community and cultural resources in complex, non-
linear ways that enable them to overcome “adversity”.

The primary contribution of this thesis will suggest that many children in the study
experienced adversity as an overtly political concept, acknowledging the collective
experience of marginalisation and oppression for children who are street involved and their
families. Furthermore, I will argue that study participants perceived themselves to be resilient
when they managed the effects of poverty in ways that in part conformed to and in part
contradicted dominant cultural norms associated with healthy functioning in children
(Eggerman & Panter-Brick 2010). Most children who participated in this study considered
themselves to be resilient when they demonstrated behaviour and outcomes that are seen as
desirable in children in the Philippines. However, some also considered themselves to be
resilient when they engaged in personal and collective acts of resistance against political

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oppression. This political dimension to resilience is not inherent in either dominant Minority
World or Filipino conceptions of resilience.

This chapter will begin by introducing twenty-one of the children who participated in the
study as per Table 4.1, and then present in more detail the narratives of Angelica, Jasmine,
Gabriel and Kyla which comprise the emblematic case studies that exemplify key themes
identified in the complete study sample. The narratives of the 21 children in the complete
study sample are drawn on to show how they fit with the narratives of the four emblematic
case study children. As per Lister’s (2004) approach, which categorises actions rather than
actors, while the emblematic case studies are broadly representative of themes expressed by
children in the broader study sample, at times their narratives overlap and thus support more
than one of Lister’s categories of agency. Table 4.1 provides a summary of the child
participants and what appeared to the researcher the most significant types of agency
expressed via the corresponding emblematic case study, noting that some children’s actions
are relevant in multiple categories of agency.

Table 4.1 Summary of Child Participants and Corresponding Emblematic Case Study via
Major Themes in Perceptions of “Adversity” and “Doing Well”

Emblematic case Major themes re Major themes re Other child

study perceptions of perceptions of “doing participants who are
adversity well” in accordance represented via
with Lister’s (2004) emblematic case
taxonomy of agency study
Angelica Broken family “Getting out” of Miguel
poverty via education Mary Anne
(strategic/personal
Dianne
agency)
Lyn
Jose
Jasmine Inadequate resources “Getting by” via Andreas
by which to survive relationships Reylin
(everyday/personal
Bong-Bong
agency)
Joshua
Jean
Joyce
Jonus
Gabriel Dangers of the streets “Getting back at” in Marcos
response to poverty Charles
and oppression
Jezz
(everyday/political
agency) Jean

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 Alfredo
Kyla Denial of rights and “Getting organised” in Nicole
oppressive response to Daniel
government government
Justine
oppression
(political/strategic) Miguel
Jess

Table 4.1 provides a summary of the four emblematic case studies and the children in the
broader study sample whose data supports key themes in relation to children’s perceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well”. The emblematic case studies will serve as a foundation for
discussing the children’s perceptions of “adversity” and the personal, relational, community
and cultural resources they engaged to facilitate resilience in the context of their social
ecology (Ungar 2016). Each case study will also include a summary of the significance of the
case with respect to the research question. In Chapter 5, the four emblematic case studies will
be applied to Lister’s taxonomy of agency as a basis for illustrating the diverse actions that
children undertake in order to overcome “adversity” and “do well”.

This will lay the groundwork for the study findings, which suggest that children in this study
constructed resilience in highly nuanced ways, managing the shared experience of oppression
and the denial of their rights by drawing on both internal and external resources to manage
the effects of marginalisation and oppression. The case studies, supported by the narratives of
all child participants, exemplify children’s perceptions of adversity as an experience they
shared with other street-involved children and their families, reflecting an awareness of their
status as “Other” and distinct from the mainstream Filipino society (Lister 2004). In some
instances, children defined resilience in political terms that included personal and collective
acts of resistance against deprivation of basic resources for survival, and oppressive
government policy. As such, the children’s stories suggest that they conceptualise resilience
in highly diverse ways and utilise unorthodox resources to manage the shared experience of
marginalisation and oppression in ways that are currently underexplored in discourses on
resilience.

4.2 The Complete Sample of Children who Participated in the Study

In this section, the complete sample of children who participated in the study is introduced in
the order in which they volunteered to participate in the study. Each short pen picture

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includes a description of their engagement with the researcher and their preferences in
undertaking the data collection activities. In seeking to answer the research question, each
pen picture will also provide a brief description of their perceptions of “adversity” and “doing
well”, drawing on the words, images and reflections shared by children during the various
data collection activities.

Themes raised by these children are represented in the four emblematic case studies
presented in Section 4.3. In Section 4.4 “adversity” will be further discussed, with findings
suggesting most children in the study perceive adversity to be associated with a “broken
family”, exemplified by Angelica and seventeen other children who participated in the study.
All the children explained that street-involved children face adversity when they have
inadequate resources to survive, providing examples of being hungry, not having a safe home
or place to sleep, or being unable to access school or health services. All the children also
discussed that, once on the streets, children are exposed to a variety of dangers including
gang-related activity, drug use, exposure to bad weather, traffic and unscrupulous adults.
Kyla and sixteen other children who participated in the study discussed these issues in
relation to children’s rights, identifying that the provision of basic resources is a human right
that street children are denied.

Their stories will be drawn on in Chapter 5 to highlight the varied efforts children engage in
to manage the effects of poverty in the context of marginalisation and oppression. The
narratives from the broader study sample will be brought together with the emblematic case
studies and theoretically framed by Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency in Chapter 5. The
case studies will suggest that children draw on diverse resources to which they have access in
order to facilitate resilience in the context of their social ecology (Ungar 2016). Angelica
takes personal but strategic actions to “get out” of poverty, drawing on personal, relational
and community resources that are available to her. She seeks to “get out” of poverty and
reunify her family by studying hard at school with a long-term goal to get a well-paid job.
Jasmine demonstrates everyday agency when she “gets by”, developing a network of “like
family” relationships that enable her to cope with the difficulties of her day-to-day life.
Gabriel seeks to “get back at” oppressive government policies and “Othering” from
mainstream Filipino society when he uses criminal and transgressive mechanisms to manage
the effects of poverty. Kyla “gets organised” when she takes political action to challenge the
oppression of street-involved children. The findings of this study suggest children hold

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perceptions of resilience that include a political dimension, thus extending Bottrell’s (2002,
2007, 2009b) critique of Ungar’s (2016) social-ecological approach, arguing that it largely
overlooks the socio-political context of children’s lives.

4.2.1 “Miguel”

Miguel is 11 years old, slight in stature with hair that covers her face when she speaks. The
younger sister of Angelica, she arrived early for each of her three meetings with the
researcher, which included a child-led tour, waiting patiently under the shade of a mango tree
in the gardens of Bahay Tuluyan. Miguel completed a drawing at the Children’s Assembly
regarding the adversities faced by street-involved children and brought it with her to her one-
to-one interview. She explained that the stick figures in the drawing are depictions of her
experience of sleeping beside a road and begging at the mall while caring for her younger
brother. Miguel seemed to take her participation in the study very seriously, talking earnestly
about her experiences. During her semi-structured interview, she talked quietly about her
perceptions of “adversity” including her separation from her mother and fear of her father
who is a “bad man” and a threat to her safety.

Figure 4.1: Miguel’s Child-Led Tour

During her child-led tour, Miguel walked quietly but determinedly around the grounds of
Bahay Tuluyan and surrounding neighbourhood, not answering the other children who called
out or followed her. On her child-led tour she also took the researcher outside the locked
gates of the local elementary school. Miguel shared with the researcher that her perception of

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“doing well” included being reunited with her family and being able to go to school. She also
showed the researcher the recreation room at Bahay Tuluyan where she attends Children’s
Assemblies and has learnt about child rights. At the end of her child-led tour, she smiled and
said “Salamat Tita” (Goodbye Aunt) to the researcher, walking back towards her room where
her friends were waiting for her.

4.2.2 “Mary Anne”

Mary Anne is twelve years old and wears prominent glasses that she pushes back as she
speaks. She volunteered to participate in the research after she saw her friend Miguel leading
the researcher on a child-led tour. Mary Anne spoke in English during her meetings with the
researcher, answering questions with one-word responses. Mary Anne undertook the “talk
and draw” activity in her first meeting with the researcher but chose to write rather than draw.
In various coloured markers, she carefully wrote a detailed list about her perceptions of
“doing well” suggesting God “is our father” and “my elder sister looks after me when my
parents are not around”. Mary Anne met with the researcher on three occasions for short
semi-structured interviews that often finished prematurely when she grew restless, wanting to
join her friends who were playing nearby.

During her child-led tour, Mary Anne showed the researcher the library at Bahay Tuluyan
where she “learns to read”. She also took the researcher to the social work office where she
pointed out the plush toys that she likes to play with while talking with the social workers
whom she described as “the nanays”. Mary Anne also took the researcher outside on the busy
road. Here, she explained how, prior to living at Bahay Tuluyan, she would beg for money
from strangers to raise money for her family. She explained her “perception” of doing well
included being able to “study” and for her family “be safe”. At the conclusion of the child-led
tour Mary Anne rushed off to join her friends.

4.2.3 “Nicole”

Nicole is 13 years old. She holds her hands over her mouth when she speaks, hiding her teeth
which are badly decayed. Although Nicole waited with other children for her turn to
participate in the study, once she met with the researcher she seemed shy, giving short, stilted
answers in response to questions, and did not make eye contact. To engage her and ensure she
felt comfortable, the researcher suggested they undertake a child-led tour. The following day,

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Nicole turned up at the appointed time and took the researcher on a child-led tour of the
grounds of Bahay Tuluyan. While walking she shared her perception of “adversity” as being
“away from mamma”. She showed the researcher the slippery dip and cubby house where she
said she likes to play with her younger brother. While walking the grounds of Bahay
Tuluyan, she pointed to her brother from afar, but did not speak with him as he passed by.
While on the tour she pointed out a small hut where her mother stays overnight when she
visits Bahay Tuluyan. Nicole identified this as an important place for her that “makes me
strong”. At the end of the child-led tour Nicole wandered away in the direction where her
brother had been playing.

4.2.4 “Lyn”

Lyn is 12 years old and met the researcher on only one occasion, seeming to lose interest in
the study after her initial curiosity was satisfied. Lyn arrived barefoot at the first meeting and
was holding a small dog which she held throughout her meeting, which took place outside
under the shade of a large mango tree. In Tagalog, Lyn explained that overnight the
neighbour had thrown the puppy over the fence. She explained that now he was here, the
“nanays” would “look after him” and that now he would live at Bahay Tuluyan. Via the
interpreter, Lyn explained that she did not want to engage in the “talk and draw” activity and
would give verbal answers via a semi-structured interview. However, when the interview
began, Lyn appeared to be impatient with the questions, preferring to play with the dog. To
garner her interest, the researcher suggested they “walk and talk” and undertake the child-led
tour.

Lyn’s tour began at the gates where she referred to the “beautiful surrounds” of Bahay
Tuluyan. As she walked into the grounds, she explained that she likes the “trees”, “grass” and
“flowers” and being “away from the traffic”. She explained her perception of “adversity” by
talking about her own experience of living under the bridge at Manila Bay where “you are
always hungry and no place to sleep”. Now she lives at Bahay Tuluyan she “walks along to
road” to collect rubbish that gathers along the fence line of Bahay Tuluyan to “keep the
gardens tidy”. She explained that for her “doing well” would be “my family come here to live
at Bahay Tuluyan”. At the end of the child-led tour Lyn left the researcher to join the other
children for lunch in the kitchen, still holding the puppy under her arm.

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4.2.5 “Reylin”

Reylin is a 14-year-old young women who has resided at the Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan
for several years. Reylin took an authoritative position with the other children during the
research project, explaining she was “helping” with the study to those whom she passed by.
Prior to the study being undertaken, Reylin was on familiar terms with the researcher, having
met her several times at the Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan and during the Children’s
Assembly where she regularly led discussions regarding matters of importance to herself and
other children. Reylin met with the researcher on three occasions, each time arriving
promptly for the meeting at the nominated time and place.

Reylin was confident during her three meetings with the researcher, giving long narratives of
her experiences in Tagalog. Reylin declined to undertake the “talk and draw activity”, instead
beginning her semi-structured interview with a long narrative that told the story of her birth
“on the streets” and her family’s experience of intergenerational homelessness and poverty,
which is discussed in this thesis in Section 4.4. Reylin readily identified her family members
as her role models as they had overcome adversity by trusting in God.

During her child-led tour Reylin showed the researcher the offices of Bahay Tuluyan and
explained that she hopes to become a social worker and “help the children” who “do not have
families”. She introduced the researcher to staff at Bahay Tuluyan, whom she described as
“like a family” because they “care for me and give me what I need”. At the end of her child-
led tour, Reylin suggested the researcher and interpreter eat lunch with her in the kitchens of
Bahay Tuluyan. After eating together, Reylin offered to wash the dishes, which she did,
talking and laughing with the other children and staff as she worked.

4.2.6 “Marcos”

Marcos is 15 years old. He arrived neatly dressed and on time for both meetings scheduled
with the researcher at the Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan. Meeting in the social work office,
Marcos spoke willingly about his experiences in Tagalog during the semi-structured
interview. He declined to participate in the “talk and draw” activity, asking if he could just
“talk instead”. Marcos talked about his experiences of “adversity” when he explained how he
came to live at Bahay Tuluyan after the breakdown of his family. He described the many
dangers he faced on the streets including being involved with the “frat” (gang). Marcos’

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conception of “doing well” included the reunification of his family and his relationships with
children and staff at Bahay Tuluyan, whom he described as “like family.”

Marcos did not want to do the child-led tour initially after the interview but joined the
researcher and the interpreter in the kitchen for lunch. Marcos was lighthearted during the
meal, talking and laughing with the other children who were also eating. After lunch he
washed his dishes in the sink before saying “goodbye Tita” (Aunt) to the researcher.

4.2.7 “Jean”

Jean is a 12-year-old girl who is well known to the researcher as she is a resident of the
Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan. When the researcher visited, Jean was often at the drop-in
centre where she sat with the other girls her age, watching the TV and dancing to music.
During her two meetings with the researcher, Jean spoke confidentiality about her life,
switching between English and Tagalog in response to the questions. At the first meeting she
brought with her a copy of the Child Participant Information Sheet which she had received
during the Children’s Assembly, at the top of which she had had carefully written her name.
She signed the Children’s Assent Form neatly and with great concentration before handing it
to the researcher and beginning to talk about her life. Jean began her participation in the study
with the “talk and draw” activity, which is included in this thesis in Section 5.3.

In the semi-structured interview, Jean talked sadly about the difficulties that brought her to
Bahay Tuluyan, including “my mother and father fighting” and having “no house”. She
recounted these events with her eyes down and looking at her hands in her lap. During her
child-led tour Jean walked through the offices and drop-in centre at Bahay Tuluyan,
enthusiastically introducing the researcher to the staff and other children. At the drop-in
centre she showed the researcher the showers, TV and the kitchen were street children can
shower, have their clothes washed, eat and watch TV. She explained her perception of “doing
well” included being “safe to come here to eat”. Once outside Bahay Tuluyan, she took the
researcher to a local shopping mall, pointing to the steps where she likes to sit with her
friends. She finished her child-led tour by saying goodbye to the researcher at the mall,
preferring to spend the afternoon with her friends.

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4.2.8 “Joe”

Joe is 15 years old and, although he lives at the Quezon site of Bahay Tuluyan, he first met
the researcher at the Malate site where he attended the Children’s Assembly and skilfully
drew a picture in response to the researcher’s question regarding the adversities faced by
street-involved children. Joe’s picture is discussed in this thesis in Section 4.7, and depicts a
young woman smoking marijuana in response to the researcher’s questions regarding the
adversities faced by street children. Several weeks after he completed this drawing, he met
with the researcher at the Quezon site and spoke about his drawing.

Speaking in Tagalog with earnestness, he spoke about his own experiences of “adversity”
when he explained that when he was a street child he had engaged in drug use, but now that
he resided at Bahay Tuluyan he wanted to change his ways. He described how he sometimes
goes to church to “ask for forgiveness” for his activities prior to living at Bahay Tuluyan
when he lived on the streets, was part of a “frat” (gang) and “had my vices”. For him, “doing
well” involved living at Bahay Tuluyan where he can improve his life by learning farm skills.
He explained that working on the farm was “hard work” and “sometimes tiring” but offered
him a “place to live and a future”. Joe told the researcher that he now holds ambitions to
“become a teacher and be able to help street children”.

Joe explained that now when he saw street children he identified with them and their
hardships. He explained that they were “like they’re my family” and “are kind even if they
are just begging”. He was grateful to the staff at Bahay Tuluyan, whom he also considers to
be his family. He called the staff “nanay” and tried to “make them happy” by doing chores
and helping with the animals on the farm. At the end of his one meeting with the researcher,
he declined to undertake a child-led tour, instead leaving the interview, and walking away to
be with his friends.

4.2.9 “Jose”

Jose is 13 years old. He has an easy smile and sense of humour that makes him popular with
the other children, and well known to the researcher. Although small in stature, he is an
attractive child with white, even teeth, and often wears a distinctive T-shirt that is a “strip” of
an English soccer team. Jose indicated his interest in participating in the study at the Malate
Children’s Assembly, where he talked and laughed with the other children while he

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completed his drawing in response to the researcher’s questions regarding the circumstances
of adversity faced by street-involved children. However, Jose had taken his drawing away
with him after the Children’s Assembly and during the interview ran to get it from his room
to discuss it with the researcher. Jose did not draw an image but rather wrote a list that
described the adversities faced by street-involved children including “when my parents are
fighting, I try to stop them because they might separate”.

Jose only undertook one semi-structured interview as part of the study. During this
conversation, Jose spoke in Tagalog and answered the researcher’s questions in short
sentences. He described his own experiences of adversity as “beatings” from his mother and
father who “did not have a proper home”. Jose became restless during his semi-structured
interview and said, “I am done”, indicating that he wished to finish the conversation. He told
the researcher he would come back later to take the child-led tour.

Later that month, during the child-led tour with Jasmine, Jose asked the researcher to walk
with him to Manila Bay where a Filipino movie star was making a public appearance. The
researcher agreed to meet Jose a short time later, but Jose did not turn up. In subsequent
encounters, Jose talked with the researcher but he did not pursue any further data collection
activities.

4.2.10 “Daniel”

Daniel is 12 years old. He has a serious demeanour, not smiling or laughing, even when Jose
made funny faces at him through the window of the Bahay Tuluyan social work office.
Daniel met the researcher on one occasion at the Malate site, after agreeing to participate in
the study after attending the Children’s Assembly. Daniel took his participation in the study
seriously, carefully listening while the interpreter read him the Child Participant Information
Sheet in Tagalog. Before signing the Child Assent Form, Daniel asked if he could go and
wash his face. He declined to undertake the “talk and draw” art activity, preferring to talk to
the researcher about his own experiences. He also declined to undertake the child-led tour, his
decision influenced by the heavy seasonal rain that was flooding the nearby streets.

Daniel shared that his perception of “adversity” revolved around the death of his mother and
becoming “lost” from his extended family. He explained that Bahay Tuluyan are trying to
help him find his extended family, but “they are far away, I don’t know where”. Daniel has

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attended child rights training at Bahay Tuluyan and hopes to become a Youth Facilitator
teaching other children about their rights with the mobile unit on the streets of Manila. Daniel
was animated in his responses to the researcher’s questions about the government and how
they might help street children, which are included in this thesis in Chapter 5. He explained
that his ambition is to “study” and become “police or a social worker” to help other street-
involved children. Daniel ended his meeting with the researcher by saying goodbye and
taking the researcher’s hand and touching it to his head, a mark of respect in Filipino society.

4.2.11 “Alfredo”

Alfredo is 15 years old, and wears his hair shaved, revealing several deep scars on his head
that suggest a serious injury. He has a serious manner, listening carefully to the researcher
and the interpreter, attempting to speak in English but often switching to Tagalog. Alfredo
first learnt about the study at the Children’s Assembly at Malate, where he attended and sat
with the other young men his age. Alfredo agreed to meet with the researcher on one
occasion during which he undertook a one-on-one interview. Alfredo carefully read the Child
Assent Form and asked prior to signing, “What if I don’t say anything?” After being
reassured by the researcher about the voluntary nature of the questions, Alfredo spoke
formally to the researcher addressing her as “Po” (like “Sir”, a formal term that indicates
respect.)

Albert resided at the Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan where he has trained as a Youth
Facilitator and learnt about the UNCRC. Once trained, he often accompanied the mobile unit
of social workers who teach street-involved children about their rights on the streets of
Manila. He valued this role, explaining that he wanted to “help the children learn”. Prior to
his involvement with Bahay Tuluyan, Alfredo told the researcher that he was a member of a
gang which he referred to as a “frat” (fraternity). He said, “I went here [Bahay Tuluyan] to
change” and was thankful to the staff at Bahay Tuluyan for giving him the opportunity to do
a traineeship. He explained his perception of “doing well” involved “leaving the frat” and
undertaking his traineeship at Bahay Tuluyan. At the end of the meeting, Albert declined to
go on a child-led tour, telling the researcher that the streets around Bahay Tuluyan are “not so
bad, but there is bad language”. He said goodbye to the researcher and left the room, asking if
he should shut the door behind him.

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4.2.12 “Dianne”

Dianne is a 15-year-old young women who is neatly groomed, wearing the uniform of the
Makabarta Guest House, a social enterprise run by Bahay Tuluyan where children can
undertake hospitality traineeships. At the first meeting Dianne seemed keen to participate in
the study, arriving promptly at her appointed meeting time and freely talking about her life.
Dianne described herself as “talkative” and “happy” and said that she had learnt about the
study at the Children’s Assembly at the Malate site of Bahay Tuluyan.

Dianne indicated that it was her preference to only participate in the one-to-one interview and
she ended up meeting with the researcher on two occasions. She asked to speak in English as
she wished “to practise” her language skills. In her first interview she talked freely about her
own personal experiences and her perceptions of the adversities faced by street-involved
children.

Figure 4.2: Dianne at Her Traineeship at Bahay Tuluyan

While Dianne did not wish to undertake a child-led tour, she did take the researcher to the
guest house where she works, where she proudly demonstrated her barista skills. While
making a coffee she explained that at Bahay Tuluyan she had obtained a birth certificate and
so would be able to enrol in school. Dianne’s perception of “adversity” included living on the
streets with “no school” and “no future”. She explained that her perception of “doing well”
included “having a complete family. Going to school, having a house. Eating well and being

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happy.” Dianne explained that her traineeship may one day lead to employment and generate
an income that will help her have a “good future”. Dianne ended her last meeting with the
researcher by re-joining the other trainees working behind the reception counter at the guest
house.

4.2.13 “Jessance”

Jessance is a fourteen-year-old young man who appeared nervous when he first met with the
researcher, sitting on the edge of his seat for their only meeting. Jessance was a new arrival,
taking up residence at the Malate site of Bahay Tulyan several weeks before his engagement
with the study. Jessance had learnt about the study at the Malate Children’s Assembly and
was encouraged to take part by his friends Gabriel and Alfredo, who had also participated.

Jessance had an allocated social worker, whom he explained is “like a mother” in that she
“cares for me”. Jessance did not wish to undertake the “talk and draw” activity, saying, “I
don’t like to draw”. Instead, he carefully wrote several words on the page including “gangs
who kill people” and “police” in response to the researcher’s questions about the adversities
faced by street children.

In a long monologue, Jessance talked about his experience of witnessing an extra-judicial

killing during a drug inspection by police in his neighbourhood. After this discussion, the
researcher assessed that disclosure of this incident presented a risk of emotional and physical
harm to the child and so ceased the interview and enacted the protocol as per the
Memorandum of Understanding. The researcher explained to Jessance that social workers at
Bahay Tuluyan would talk with him about this experience to ensure he was safe. Jessance
nodded his head to indicate his understanding and left the interview room, re-joining his
friends at the drop-in centre.

The researcher immediately sought out the Deputy Director of Bahay Tuluyan and explained
the disclosure, enacting the Memorandum of Understanding agreed at the beginning of the
research process. Although Jessance said he would come back later to conduct the child-led
tour, he did not return to meet with the researcher at the designated time. The researcher did
see him several times at Bahay Tuluyan during which he greeted her happily.

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4.2.14 “Charles”

Charles is 16 years old and was the first young man scheduled to meet with the researcher at
the Quezon site at Bahay Tuluyan. Charles is enrolled in a traineeship at the Quezon farm,
learning skills in managing livestock and rice farming that will enable him to “get a job to
support my family” in the future. Due to the remote location in relation to Metro Manila
where the researcher was based, and the busy schedule of young men working on the farm,
the researcher prearranged appointments with the participants over multiple Sundays. On the
first Sunday, the researcher arrived late, held up by traffic in Metro Manila, and arrived to
find Charles patiently waiting in the recreation hall with drinks and snacks set out in
anticipation of the meeting.

After signing the Children’s Assent Form, Charles readily completed a “draw and talk” art
activity in response to the researcher’s questions. He drew a stick figure of a child and beside
this image wrote a numbered list that identified “riots”, “trouble”, “killed” and “police” as the
“adversities” faced by street children.

Charles explained that he hopes to “finish studies” and become a social worker at Bahay
Tuluyan so that he could “help the poor”. He described his strong relationship with “Papa
Jesus” to whom he prayed every day to help him solve problems and stay on a “good path in
life”. He declined to undertake a child-led tour and ended the meeting by thanking the
researcher, leaving the room, and shutting the door behind him. Over subsequent Sundays,
the researcher interacted with Charles who talked and ate with her on several occasions at
lunch time in the kitchen.

4.2.15 “Joyce”

Joyce is fifteen years old and lives at the Quezon site of Bahay Tuluyan. Joyce had heard
about the study at the Children’s Assembly at Malate which he attended while he was visiting
his parents in Metro Manila. Joyce’s cousin Jasmine, who lives in Malate, had also
undertaken several child-led tours in Manila, and told him about the experience. Joyce met
with the researcher on a Sunday in a small office located away from the view of the other
young people on the farm. He was curious about the study, asking questions such as “Where
is Flinders University?” He carefully read the Tagalog version of the Children’s Information
Sheet and Child Assent Form, asking “should I sign in cursive?” before signing.

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During his interview, Joyce talked frankly about his life, writing a statement regarding the
adversities faced by street-involved children rather than undertaking the “talk and draw”
activity. In his semi-structured interview, he described the adversities faced by street-
involved children by talking about his own experiences of “being beaten” by his mother.
Joyce described how at Bahay Tuluyan he had friends and “nanays” who were now his
family because “they feed me and help me go to school”. He described his perception of
“doing well” as living in “a house with electricity”. Joyce described how he loved to play
basketball with the other residents of Bahay Tuluyan. He said playing basketball helped him
cope with difficulties in his life because he “can pour out all the emotions”.

Figure 4.3: Basketball Court at Bahay Tuluyan Quezon

After the one-to-one interview was over, Joyce ate lunch with the researcher, sitting on the
side of the basketball court watching the other young men playing. After he finished eating,
he “high fived” the researcher and walked over to join in the game. On subsequent Sundays,
Joyce was friendly with the researcher, smiling and saying hello as he passed by.

4.2.16 “Jezz”

Jezz lives at Quezon. He is 16 years old and was over an hour late for his first and only
appointment with the researcher. On arrival at Quezon staff directed the researcher to wait in
the social work office located at the back of the farm and near the recreation area. When Jezz
finally arrived for his appointment he was flustered, sweaty and apologetic after running back

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from the nearby rice fields. At first, he appeared tired, hard to engage and gave short answers
to the researcher’s questions. He signed the Tagalog version of the Child Assent Form
quickly, without reading it, and did not wish to undertake the “draw and talk” art activity.

As the one-to-one interview progressed, Jezz began to relax and talk about his life in
Tagalog. He explained how he is inspired by Manny Pacquiao, a Filipino boxing champion,
who had experienced adversity as he “used to be poor and sell balut [Filipino delicacy and
snack] on the streets” but “now is a boxing champion and an important person for the
government”. Jezz explained that his conception of adversity included being separated from
his parents and family. He explained that his perception of “doing well” included “study” and
“going to church”. He discussed his commitment to change his life by “learning new things”
at Bahay Tuluyan “like learning how to live, and how to treat children”. He explained that at
Bahay Tuluyan he avoids “my vices, like cigarettes”. Jezz declined to undertake a child-led
tour but after the interview walked with the researcher to the basketball court and introduced
the researcher to another young man who had expressed an interest in participating in the
study. While there, he mentioned that in his spare time he enjoys playing basketball with the
other young men at Bahay Tuluyan, calling them “kuya” (brother) as they played.

4.2.17 “Bong-Bong”

Bong-Bong is 15 years old and spoke softly about his life, providing short answers in
Tagalog to the researcher’s questions. In answer to the researcher’s question about the
adversities experienced by street children Bong-Bong explained, “they don’t have any
parents” and “they wander around on the streets”. Bong-Bong did not wish to undertake the
“talk and draw” art activity but spoke about his own experiences in the one-to-one interview.
Over the course of a single interview, Bong-Bong explained that he ran away from home for
reasons that he did not want to discuss. He was found on a street by a social worker who took
him to Bahay Tuluyan so that he “could have a future”. Bong-Bong earns a small income
from his farm traineeship and uses his money to visit a local dentist and pay for braces on his
teeth. He explained that his conception of “doing well” was having a future where he can
“earn money and feed my family … I want us to be together.”

During the child-led tour Bong-Bong took the researcher to a small creek behind the farm. He
explained that this is a quiet place where he sits and thinks about his family. Bong-Bong

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finished his tour by taking the researcher back to her car that was waiting on the road. Bong-
Bong thanked the researcher and said “Salamat Po” (Thankyou Ma’am or Sir).

4.2.18 “Justine”

Justine is 17 years old, a serious young man who has a tanned face and strong body that is
suggestive of hard physical labour. Justine was playing basketball on the court at Bahay
Tuluyan prior to his meeting with the researcher, and at the prearranged time he left the court
and came into the kitchen where the researcher was waiting. He suggested they talk inside the
social work office where it was cool and air-conditioned.

Initially, Justine was very quiet during his meeting with the researcher, switching between
English and Tagalog as the conversation progressed. He declined to undertake the “draw and
talk” activity and child-led tour, preferring “just to talk … it is too hot”. Once comfortable,
however, Justine spoke in detail about the lives of street-involved children by reflecting on
his own experiences. He talked about his experiences of being part of a “frat” (gang) and
engaging in “riots”, a term he used to describe violence between rival gangs. He revealed that
his conception of “doing well” included being reunited with his family and joining the
military to “see other places, see how they live” and earn an income by which he can
“support my family”. At the end of the semi-structured interview, Justine walked with the
researcher and introduced her to the next young man scheduled to meet with her.

4.2.19 “Jonus”

Jonus is a 15-year-old young man who had self-selected into the study after learning about it
at the Children’s Assembly, but when the appointed meeting time with the researcher arrived,
he seemed reluctant to participate, preferring to continue his game of basketball. With the
encouragement of the other young men, he eventually met the social worker in the recreation
room. He signed the Child Assent Form without reading it and did not appear to be following
the interpreter as she read the Child Participant Information Sheet in Tagalog. The researcher
reiterated the voluntary nature of the study and Jonus nodded his head to indicate his
understanding.

To engage him in conversation, the researcher suggested they go for a short walk and talk
along the way. Under a shady pergola, Jonus explained his conception of “adversity”. He
explained that he came from a family who had lived on the streets “since the time of my

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grandfather”. In response to the researcher’s question, Jonus identified that he was inspired
by his family as “even if we’re having difficulties, we just push through”. He explained that
he most admired his mother as “even if we don’t have food, she still looks for anything to eat
so we can survive”. He identified that his mother was “my inspiration – she does everything
she can so we can be together”.

Jonus and the researcher walked a little further for a short while, stopping outside a small hut
where the young men are encouraged to read and study. Jonus explained his conception of
“doing well” when he described how his ambition is to “study hard so the family can
reunite”. He said, “My dream is to have my family complete, and so us to have a good life.”
Jonus ended the tour by joining the other children at the basketball court and did not speak
with the researcher again throughout the study.

4.2.20 “Joshua”

Joshua is 15 years old, a finely featured young man, who expresses himself using hand
gestures and speaking animatedly about his experiences. From the researcher’s first visit at
the Quezon site, Joshua indicated his enthusiasm to participate in the study, although he
failed to attend two of his pre-arranged meeting times. Joshua eventually met with the
researcher on two occasions spontaneously, when the researcher had finished meeting with
other study participants.

Joshua spoke primarily in English, although he switched to Tagalog when he chose. At his
first meeting, he suggested they sit inside the social work office in the air conditioning and
away from the other residents of Bahay Tuluyan. He did not wish to undertake the “talk and
draw” activity, but verbally explained that the adversities faced by street-involved children
were the result of their own “bad habits” and “not wanting to change their ways”. Joshua’s
narrative is interesting as he appeared to blame street-involved children for their behaviours
and implied that they can change if they choose. Joshua’s perceptions of “adversity” are
discussed in this thesis in Section 4.4.

In his second meeting, Joshua described his personal adversities by explaining the
circumstances of his illegitimate birth and conflict with his stepfather. He explained how he
ran away from his family and lived at the police station, becoming an errand boy before
leaving to live with a prisoner with whom he formed a friendship. They lived together for

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several months before the prisoner took him to Bahay Tuluyan so that he could study and
have a better life.

Joshua took the researcher on a child-led tour. As they walked past the pigs and chickens, he
revealed that he did not enjoy farm work because it “is hot and tiring”.

Figure 4.4: Josh’s Child-Led Tour

He described his conception of “doing well” when he described his hope to one day “go to
school and finish my studies”. He described his close relationships with the staff and other
children at Bahay Tuluyan who are “like my family because we are now siblings”. At the end
of this tour, Joshua told the researcher that they would meet again and talk further. Although
the researcher spoke with Joshua again several times, there were no further opportunities for
formal data collection.

4.2.21 “Andreas”

Andreas is a seventeen-year-old young man who has a small moustache, which makes him
look older than the other young men at Bahay Tuluyan in Quezon. Andreas agreed to
participate in the study after his friend Bong-Bong took part and told him about the
experience. He told the researcher that he wanted to participate in the study as he wanted
“people like you” to “know about the lives of street-involved children”. He initially declined
to undertake the “draw and talk” activity but then, as he was speaking, drew small images
using a paper and pen to describe his perception of “adversity”. Andreas’ drawings included

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illustrations of discrimination that suggest an awareness of the political context of street-
involved children’s lives and are featured in this thesis in Section 4.4.

Andreas took the researcher on a lengthy tour of the farm at Bahay Tuluyan. He showed the
researcher the pigs, which he enjoys caring for “because we will not be hungry”. Andreas
also works in the chicken house and helps farm the rice paddies, which he described as
“tiring and hard”. In answer to the researcher’s question about his perception of “doing well”
he explained that “at the farm I can earn money that I send for my siblings”. On the final part
of the tour, he took researcher to a “very special place” beside a small creek. He told the
researcher that he comes by himself to sit and think about his family.

Figure 4.5: Andreas’ Child-Led Tour

He is also able to catch fish that he and his friends can eat. Andreas ended the tour by
walking the researcher back to the office and holding her hand to his head, a sign of respect
in Filipino culture.

4.3 Emblematic Case Studies

This chapter will now introduce the narratives of Angelica, Jasmine, Gabriel and Kyla, which
comprise the emblematic case studies that exemplify key themes identified in the complete
study sample. The emblematic case studies will serve as a foundation for discussing the
children’s perceptions of “adversity” and the personal, relational, community and cultural

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resources they engaged to facilitate resilience in the context of their social ecology (Ungar
2004). Each case study will also include a summary of the significance of the case with
respect to the research question and provide a summary of how they engaged in the research
activities.

These cases will lay the groundwork for the study findings, which suggest that children in
this study constructed resilience in highly nuanced ways, managing the shared experience of
oppression and the denial of their rights by drawing on both internal and external resources.
The case studies, supported by the narratives of all child participants, exemplify children’s
perceptions of adversity as an experience they shared with other street-involved children and
their families, reflecting an awareness of their status as “Other” and distinct from the
mainstream Filipino society (Lister 2004). Drawing on Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency,
these case studies will suggest that children take diverse actions to manage circumstances of
poverty and oppression as they seek to “get out”, “get by”, “get back at” and “get organised”.
The findings of this study will suggest that, in some instances informed by the child rights
training at Bahay Tuluyan, children defined resilience in political terms that included
personal and collective acts of resistance against deprivation of basic resources by which to
survive, and oppressive government policies. As such, the children’s stories suggest that they
conceptualise resilience in highly diverse ways and utilise unorthodox resources to manage
the shared experience of marginalisation and oppression in ways that are currently
underexplored in discourses on resilience.

4.3.1 “Angelica”

This section will introduce the emblematic case study of Angelica, beginning with a summary
of her life story and engagement in the research process before presenting her empirical
evidence regarding her perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”. Angelica is 13 years of
age, a softly spoken young woman; she smiles easily and is carefully presented, her school
uniform clean and pressed and her hair pulled away from her face in a neat ponytail. Angelica
seemed to be eager to participate in the study, arriving early to the designated meetings and
waiting with her sister for the researcher to arrive. Angelica undertook the “talk and draw”
activity, drawing detailed pictures of her perceptions of “adversity” and what it is to “do
well”, which are included in Section 4.4.1. Via this activity Angelica revealed her
understanding of “adversity” to be related to “broken family” and deprivation of resources by
which to survive as well as oppressive public policy including the detention of children. She

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shared her dreams of “doing well”, which included completing her studies and getting a well-
paid job that would enable her to honour her familial obligations and reunify her family.
Angelica also revealed that “doing well” includes a close relationship with God, whom she
can ask for help and seek comfort in times of stress and danger.

Angelica also accompanied the researcher on two child-led tours on separate occasions,
walking around Bahay Tuluyan at Laguna and the nearby streets. She appeared to enjoy
walking through the environment, regularly calling out to her friends as the tour proceeded:

I am here Kuya (brother) with Tita (Aunt) from Australia.

During the child-led tour, Angelica pointed out the kitchens and bathrooms where she cares
for her siblings while they live at Bahay Tuluyan. Outside on the street, she took the
researcher to her school. which she described as an important place for her:

They say I am a good student. Especially at maths and English.

She showed the researcher the road that she takes to the local church, explaining that she goes
every Sunday to pray and listen to the priest:

He shows me how we should live and have a good life.

During her one-to-one interviews, Angelica talked freely about her life, lowering her voice
when she described situations that were painful for her to recall. At the conclusion of her last
child-led tour Angelica thanked the researcher for listening to her story and caring about the
lives of street-involved children:

God bless you and thank you for caring about me other children here … at Bahay
Tuluyan.

In a one-to-one interview, Angelica explained how she grew up in Tondo, one of the most
densely populated regions in Metro Manila, which is characterised by temporary dwellings
along the Pasig River. Angelica’s parents had migrated from a nearby province to seek a
means of earning an income. As the eldest daughter, Angelica was responsible for domestic
chores including providing care for her younger siblings while her parents worked.

I care for them. I feed them and help them do chores as I am the elder.

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In her early years, Angelica’s school attendance was interrupted by her family’s inability to
pay school expenses and by relocations as her parents searched for work. Angelica described
a series of catastrophic events that plunged her family into homelessness:

My house got burned, and also my mother and father divorced. So I had no father,
then my grandfather and grandmother died, the parents of my mother … Then the
only one to look after me and my siblings is my mother and the parents of my father.
Then my other grandfather died. The father of my father. Then there is only my
mother who will take care of us and we don’t have a house, so she brings us here.

Angelica’s perceptions of “doing well” includes emphasis on reunifying her family and this is
also a strong theme in the narratives provided by other child participants in the study.
Angelica desires a house to live in with her family, which is “big and safe for children”. She
defined a “good life” as:

A good life is you have a job, comfortable life and family. You have a family and a
house. Your family can stay together. The children at school. You can eat food when
you need. That’s a good, simple life.

When talking about her aspirations for her future, Angelica described her desire to fulfil her
responsibilities of mutual obligation to her family members. She dreams of getting a job and
being able to generate enough money to enable her family to live together, eat and send her
siblings to school. Thus, Angelica is making a long term, strategic plan to “get out” of
poverty that is reminiscent of Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency. For Lister (2004), “getting
out” of poverty describes personal, strategic decisions and actions that are encouraged by
policy and society as approved means of overcoming poverty.

She describes how when she first arrived at Bahay Tuluyan she was distressed at being
separated from her mother.

I cried and prayed but when I told my mother she said that would not change
anything. She said I should study hard so we can be together.

Thus, Angelica decided to reconcile herself to living away from her mother so that she would
study, get a job and to reunify her family. Angelica described how Bahay Tuluyan enrolled
her in school and financially supported her ongoing attendance including extracurricular
activities such as dance class.

They pay for me to go to school. My books, everything. They find money … for me
to go to dance and enter the competition … They pay for me.

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In the Philippines, many poor families aspire to send children to school with the aim of lifting
the family out of poverty (Durbrow, Pen et al. 2001, Tuason and Teresa 2013). Angelica
concurred:

School to me is a key for a good life. If I study hard, I can be, I can reach my dreams.
I can be a doctor, anything and help my family.

Angelica draws on those resources that are available to her in Filipino society to plan her
escape from poverty. Angelica’s perceptions of resilience reflect her ability to meet culturally
normative expectations of healthy functioning associated with children who “do well” despite
exposure to adversity. Her accounts of her use of resources in her relationships, community
and culture are suggestive of an aspiration to change her circumstances and improve the lives
of her family via strategies that are culturally normative for Filipino children. In the
Philippines, researchers have suggested resilience is evident in populations of street-involved
children who comply with notions of healthy functioning in children, despite the vice and
temptations associated with street life (Banaag 1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista and Rolder
2001, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017). These researchers
have found resilience in street children who demonstrate culturally desirable personal
attributes, prioritise family relationships and uphold standards of morality and religiosity
(Banaag 1997, Caparas 1998, Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014,
Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017).

Angelica’s case is emblematic, in that seventeen other children who participated in this study
also described their perceptions of resilience to be associated with using socially approved
resources that are available to children in the Philippines in order reunify their families and
get out of poverty. Like Angelica, many of the children who participated in the study
described the importance of going to school and studying with the purpose of getting a well-
paid job and being able to provide for themselves and their family in the future. Miguel,
Angelica’s sister, in her child-led tour, took the researcher to her elementary school where
she explained the importance of Bahay Tuluyan in helping her go to school:

I will study hard so that one day I will get a job to support my family.

Similarly, other children also discussed attendance at school and making long-term plans for
family reunification, which they associated with “doing well”. Justine shared with the
researcher that one day he hopes to have his own family and that he aspires for them to
remain together and for his future children to attend school:

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 that won’t be like my family, that got separated, I won’t let that happen, the children
will go to school and have a good life.

Jose also explained that his conception of “doing well” was “Just simple, I want us to be
complete. Have a proper life, proper family always happy.”

The emphasis on study as a mechanism to earn money and achieve family reunification was
suggested in the child-led tour with Nicole who took the researcher to a small hut located on
the grounds at the Laguna site of Bahay Tuluyan. It is here, she explained, where she can
sleep overnight with her mother who visits her children at Bahay Tuluyan. Like Angelica, she
explained she lives at Bahay Tuluyan “so I can study hard and one day be together again”.

We stay there together until we can be together one day. I will finish my studies so we
can be together.

Thus, education as a means of achieving family reunification was an important theme in

children’s perceptions of “doing well”.

Angelica ‘s narrative is also suggestive of a desire to observe familial obligations. This was
an important part of doing well for many of the children who participated in the study. Seven
children described how they cared for their siblings at Bahay Tuluyan while they were
separated from parents. Mary Anne explained her perception of familial obligations during
her child-led tour when she took the researcher to the roadside and described how she would
beg to raise money to support her family prior to living at Bahay Tuluyan:

When I was with my family I would beg on the street, like this. I had no school, but I
helped my siblings and my mother.

Thus, in these cases, compliance with culturally dominant notions of familial obligations
were an important part of children’s conceptions of “doing well”. Like Angelica, other
children suggested that “doing well” was associated with compliance with culturally specific
modes of interpersonal relationships. Reylin described “pagtitiis” as “like a blessing” after
suffering. She said that suffering is an important part of “doing well”, as “When you endure
something, something good will happen.”

As will be elaborated in Chapter 5, Angelica’s perceptions of resilience concur with

definitions described in existing Filipino resilience literature (Banaag 1997, Banaag 2016). In
particular, she uses personal, relational and community resources to comply with notions of
“healthy functioning” in children that are normative in the Philippines. It will be argued that

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this perception of resilience is suggestive of Lister’s concept of agency in the context of
poverty as “getting out” – engaging in socially approved and individually focused strategies
to get out of poverty. For Angelica, like other children in this study, “getting out” involves
using education as a mechanism to get a well-paid job in future and achieve the reunification
of family. In this study, as exemplified in this case, “getting out” also has a cultural
dimension that includes faith in God as a means of making good moral choices in life. In
addition, Angelica like many other children in the study expressed a desire to observe
familial obligations and desire to lift her family out of poverty. Thus Angelica’s case is
emblematic of children who uses those resources that are available to get herself and her
family out of poverty.

4.3.2 “Jasmine”

This section will introduce the emblematic case study of Jasmine, beginning with a short
summary of her engagement in the research process before presenting her perceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well”. Jasmine is 15 years of age, a gregarious young woman whose
fun-loving manner makes her well-liked by children and adults in the community. Prior to the
study commencement, the researcher knew Jasmine, having met her many times at Bahay
Tuluyan. Jasmine also knew the researcher’s own children, regularly playing with them when
they visited Bahay Tuluyan. Jasmine was the first child to indicate her interest in
participating in the study after learning about the study at the Children’s Assembly in Malate,
regularly reminding the researcher of their allocated appointments as they neared.

In her first meeting, Jasmine completed the “talk and draw” activity, drawing images of
“drugs”, “no school”, “broken family” and the image of a jail she entitled “RAC” and the
words “Reception and Assessment” (Centre), which is the formal name of the institution
where street-involved children are taken when they are “rescued” from the streets by the
authorities. Jasmine explained her drawing represented her experiences of extreme
deprivation and exposure to danger when she was rejected by her immediate family and her
extended family refused to step in and support her in their place:

This happened to me, many times. No house. No food. No privacy. Because my

family don’t love me and don’t want me there.

Her drawing is discussed in this thesis in Section 4.4 to illustrate children’s perceptions of
adversity.

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In her one-to-one interview, Jasmine explained that, while she lives under the care and
protection of Bahay Tuluyan, she often runs away to be with her friends who still live on the
streets, returning when she is hungry and tired of sleeping on the sidewalk. She explained that
she considers her friends to be her family, in addition to the staff and other children at Bahay
Tuluyan:

I come here to eat, sleep in a bed, and see my family. They are like my family also.

Jasmine took the researcher on multiple child-led tours, with each tour being several hours in
duration where she pointed out those resources she draws on in order to cope with
circumstances of extreme deprivation. While walking the streets, Jasmine joked and laughed
with the researcher as well as other people who passed by in English and Tagalog:

I am here … cant ninoyo ako kausapin (you can’t talk to me) … I am abala (busy)
here with Tita (Aunt).

She often paused during the tours and told her friends and neighbours about her involvement
in this study and her friendly relationship with the researcher, whom she called Tita (Aunt).

In her one-to-one interview, Jasmine shared her life story, explaining how she grew up in the
slums of Tondo with her mother, father and siblings. Her large extended family lived close
by.

We live in a small house. It is not nice. Only made of wood and paper and other
things.

Jasmine’s mother and father are drug dependent and when she was a child there was very
little food or money available for the children:

They are always with drugs. They are not there at home. We are always asking for
food … “please can we have rice”, but it is not there.

Jasmine’s parents engaged in crime to support their addictions, frequently being incarcerated
for short periods of time. Jasmine explained how she spent many hours on the streets,
socialising with her friends, seeking out and sharing food:

We are laughing … playing with the others. We find food … we share it with each
other.

As a young child she was not sent to school due to the family’s financial position:

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 I didn’t go to school because there is no money and school is boring. Just there all the
time.

Later in her interview she revealed that at school poor children are subject to bullying,
suggesting an awareness of the discrimination experienced by street-involved children:

[at school] children experience bullying because they don’t have a family … where is
your mother, where is your father … something like that.

In this she was alluding to the discrimination that street-involved children experience in
mainstream Filipino society and suggested that her unwillingness to attend school was related
to these experiences.

Jasmine conceptualised “adversity” and “doing well” within the context of her relationships,
using the term “like family” to describe her relationship with people who helped her cope
with circumstances of adversity. For Jasmine, “like family” described a range of adults and
children who provide her with emotional, material and spiritual support including her friends,
neighbours and staff at Bahay Tuluyan. Jasmine described multiple relationships with other
children that helped her manage with the day-to-day difficulties of her life. She described
groups of children she called her “bakarda” (Tagalog street slang for a close group of friends)
who love each other when families fail to do so: “I don’t experience that love from my
family, I experienced it from other people. The bakarda.” She suggested that these
relationships were compensatory:

Their family doesn’t treat them as family. Even if they have a house, they go home,
but the support and love that the parents are supposed to give, it’s from the bakarda.

In accordance with Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency, Jasmine draws on her relationships
in order to “get by,” baring the many adversities she experiences in her day to day life via the
emotional resources her “like family” provides. She distinguishes a bakarda from a “gang” by
suggesting that relationships between children are non-hierarchical, are based on emotional
connection, and observe reciprocal obligations. Jasmine revealed that she had three bakardas:
one on the streets of Tondo where she grew up, another at Bahay Tuluyan, and another from
her early childhood days when she had a home. She spends her time visiting all of them,
including those who live far away.

They make me laugh. When I laugh I forget my problems.

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She also suggests that children on the streets look after each other. Sharing resources to
survive. While walking through a local park on her child-led tour, Jasmine explained that
when she was homeless, she regularly slept in small temporary structures that she built with
other children. When walking through the local park, she pointed out such a structure made
from plastic and cardboard and waved at the children who were gathered nearby who shouted
to her in Tagalog in response.

Look, see, the street children sleep there. We have a little house there.

Thus, Jasmine draws on her personal relationships to help her cope with the difficulties in her
life. Jasmine’s case is emblematic in the sense that she forms alternative “in-group”
relationships with children and adults who are not biologically related, to cope with the
demands of street life. She makes few long-term strategic plans, coping with day-to-day
challenges as they arise. Jasmine focuses her energy on her friends and those she considers
“like family.” In this sense, Jasmine’s agency in the context of poverty fits with Lister’s
concept of “getting by” when she uses relationships to manage her day to day experiences of
poverty and deprivation.

At Bahay Tuluyan, Jasmine has formed relationships with other children who are “like”
siblings. Jasmine suggested that they ate and prayed together and helped each other with
chores.

I feel like they are my siblings, because we are so noisy when we eat. It is so noisy it
is like at a market. We sleep in the same room. We help each other by cleaning
together and doing jobs.

Jasmine suggested that she had “sibling-like” relationships when she contributed to daily
rituals and chores in ways that echoed traditional sibling relationships in Filipino society.

Jasmine’s case study exemplifies themes dominant in the narratives of eighteen other children
who participated in the study. When children were unable to access warm, loving
relationships with family members they reported developing relationships with adults and
children in the community that were “like family”. These relationships did not replace birth
family relationships, but rather augmented them and provided access to physical and
emotional resources that enabled them to “do well”.

Other children in the study sample identified multiple relationships with children and adults
that enabled them to overcome adversity. Mary Anne’s illustration (Figure 4.6) exemplifies

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relationships which were important to her in managing the difficulties in her life. She
nominated her relationship with her immediate and extended family, her friends, professional
relationships at Bahay Tuluyan and God.

Figure 4.6: Mary Anne’s Drawing of Relationships that Help Her Overcome Adversity

Like Jasmine, Andreas reflected on the pain of being estranged from his family when he
explained that his perception of the adversities faced by street children are based on their
“separation from their families” and this causes them to be “sad and alone”. Like Jasmine, he
also found solace in relationships with children and staff at Bahay Tuluyan and, while he did
not want to describe his own circumstances of how he came to live there, he said that his
relationships enabled him to live from day to day.

Researcher: Can you tell me how you manage the pain of being separated from your
mother?
Andreas: Being with the others here.
Researcher: And how does this help you?
Andreas: It helps me bear the pain.
Researcher: What do you do with them that helps you?
Andreas: They comfort me, and I talk to them, play basketball, like that.

Other children who participated in the study called staff and children familial terms, such as
“nanay,”(mother) “tita” (aunt) and “kuya” (brother) that are suggestive of being “like
family.” On his child-led tour, Bong-Bong explained that for reasons he did not wish to
discuss he is estranged from his family, stating “they hate me”. He explained that Bahay
Tuluyan are now “my family who care for me when no one else is there”. He told the
researcher that he can tell they are family because the children “help each other with our
tasks. For example, tomorrow I’ll clean there, then next time, it’s your turn. We help each

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other.” Thus Bong-Bong suggested that staff and residents of Bahay Tuluyan are “like
family” as they help each other by providing emotional and physical help and support.

Children in the study negotiated relationships with teachers, social workers and helpful adults
in the community such as street vendors, sports coaches and religious leaders. The children
perceived professional relationships as important sources of emotional and physical support.
They described relationships with professional support workers, for example, social workers,
as more meaningful when they used personal resources to help a child. Mary Anne told the
story of seeing her teacher giving money to a child who was begging.

She gave them her own money because they are hungry. It was from her own bag.
She was like a mother to them.

Mary Anne perceived that the teacher’s use of personal resources was evidence of the teacher
having “family-like” relationships with children. Children valued social workers who helped
them access other resources such as school, recreational facilities and medical care. Jezz
supported this when he talked about the house parents at Bahay Tuluyan:

They are kind in the heart. They are like our parents, they feed us and help us eat,
even when they have nothing.

Similarly, Joshua described running from home and refuge at the local police station where
he built a relationship with a prisoner, eventually leaving the station under his care:

When a prisoner finished his sentence, I went away with him. Because I wasn’t
feeling safe with the policemen anymore. They were hitting and harassing most of the
prisoners. And they were treating me as a slave at the police station. That’s why I
went with the ex-con. We lived in Manila. I lived there for a long time.

Joshua perceived this relationship with the prisoner as familial when he “became like an older
brother.

He talks to me, told me things, and gave me advice.

Jasmine also used her relationship with God as an important resource when overcoming
adversity. On one of her child-led tours, Jasmine took the researcher to a small chapel located
away from the busy street. She explained that in the chapel she likes to pray to God, whom
she called “our father”. She explained her relationship with God was one of her most
important relationships, and that she can trust that God will help her with her problems.

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 I can say my problems to God. He is the most trust worth person that you will know.
He won’t tell others your problems.

As discussed in detail in Section 5.4, all the other children who participated in this study
discussed their relationship with God and identified this as an important resource that enabled
them to manage the difficulties of life in order to “do well”. Reylin explained that she
admires her family for their perseverance and faith.

Because no matter what happened, they didn’t give up. They trusted in the Lord that
they can get past it, that no matter what burdens they bear, they still carry it upwards
to rise above.

As discussed further in Chapter 5, Jasmine’s case exemplifies the use of relational resources
in a way that is not well articulated in the existing resilience literature in the Philippines. She
demonstrates the capacity to cope with the challenges of street life by moving between her
relationships as she manages her immediate needs. Jasmine’s use of relationships makes the
challenges of living in conditions of extreme poverty more bearable, including her
relationship with God. Her case exemplifies an important theme in the complete sample of
children who participated in the study who draw on relationships to manage the effects of
poverty. In accordance with Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency, this emblematic case will
be drawn upon to exemplify how children “get by” and cope with the circumstances of
adversity they experience day to day.

4.3.3 “Gabriel”

This section will introduce the emblematic case study of Gabriel, beginning with a short
summary of his life story and engagement in the research process before presenting his
perceptions of “aversity” and “doing well”. Gabriel is a physically imposing young man, tall
and powerfully built. He is 17 years of age, although he looks considerably older. Gabriel
learnt about the study from one of his friends and then attended the Children’s Assembly at
Malate where he indicated his interest in participating.

Gabriel was selective about his engagement in the research activities. He was disinterested in
the “talk and draw” activity, gesturing to the coloured pencils and paper and saying, “that is
for the little ones”. He also declined to take the researcher on a child-led tour, preferring to
undertake his semi-structured interview in the social work office at Bahay Tuluyan, away
from public view. During his interview, he explained his reasoning:

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 Leveriza down around … United Nations Ave … walking out there is not safe for
you, you don’t want to be with me on the street.

He explained how the streets of Malate are divided into “territories” occupied by rival gang
members who are his enemies. Gesturing with his hands he pointed out those streets around
Bahay Tuluyan which are most dangerous for himself and the researcher:

Since the time of our grandfathers we don’t go there unless there is a riot.

When talking with the researcher at Bahay Tuluyan, Gabriel spoke primarily in English,
switching to Tagalog when he found something difficult to explain. At the end of his
participation in the research, Gabriel thanked the researcher, saying “Salamat (Thank you)”
before walking out of the offices of Bahay Tuluyan. The researcher saw him several times
over the course of the rest of the research process, including during child-led tours with other
children in the neighbourhood. At these chance meetings, Gabriel did not acknowledge the
researcher.

During the one-to-one meetings, Gabriel spoke easily about his perceptions of adversity,
including exposure to extreme violence, reflecting on these experiences as difficult but
unexceptional within his peer group. In Gabriel’s first semi-structured interview, he
explained what he understands to be his story of how he came to live in Manila. He believes
that when he was an infant, his parents, who lived on a farm in a rural province, passed him
into the care of his aunt who lived in the slums of Tondo. Gabriel is unsure of the details, but
he believes his parents gave him away as they were unable to provide for him.

The are there in the province. I haven’t been there. They must have been poor and
have no money. But I don’t know. I don’t know them. My sister has been there. She
says they are poor with no food, no money.

When he arrived in Manila, he lived with his aunt and sisters in a dwelling along the Pasig
River. He described the conditions of his life with his aunt:

Those small houses there. There is no floor and no fan because my aunt has no
money. We are all just there and we have no food.

Gabriel explained that the dwelling was cramped and hot, and there was very little food.
After a time, his aunt could no longer afford to send him to school, and so Gabriel spent time
on the street playing, and finding ways to generate food and money:

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 So, we go outside. Sometimes we sleep there one time and another. We are with our
friends and get food because there is nothing in the house.

Gabriel explained that after a while he began to “sleep outside”, and eventually joined a local
gang. He explained that today the gang offers him attachment and protection that
compensates for the love he did not get from his family:

I get love from my friends. My family cannot be called a family. So, I get love from
them.

Gabriel acknowledged that gang activities are dangerous, describing many personal injuries:

In truth, I’ve been stabbed. A lot of times. I have a lot of wounds too.

Throughout his interviews Gabriel described multiple violent incidents with his peers, rival
gang members, the police and members of the public. Despite this, being a member of a gang
offers protection and collective power.

When we fight with our enemies together, we say, “We’re brave, we’re in your
territory. Don’t do anything, it might be your last.”

As a gang member, Gabriel is recognised for his size and skill in fighting. He explained that
he now earns an income by taking part in organised illegal fights around Manila. He said that
he is considered one of the best fighters and is thus able to generate income for those
gambling on him:

Wow. I feel like I won at a professional fight. Like, I have money! I’ve also beaten up
someone. I’m a man. They all respect me for what I can do. What I can earn.

His status as a winning fighter protects him within the gang and gives him a position of
privilege in the gang hierarchy. Gabriel also deals drugs to supplement his income, passing
his earnings to his nephews so that they can go to school. His success as a street fighter
makes him popular with the police, who overlook his drug-related activity if he wins his
fights and generates an income for those who gamble on his success. He recognised that these
activities are very dangerous but suggested that the gang members protect each other:

We keep each other safe. We have a safe house. The safe house is alive today. Even if
Duterte is president. There is still an operation.

He described his drug-dealing activities including how he outwits the police, whom he
considers corrupt and unjust:

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 We put the … drugs in the cans … like we have the rubbish. They don’t know it’s
there but it is always.

Gabriel also described using drugs to manage his strong feelings as well as to ease the
physical pain caused during his fights:

I smoke and it makes me feel comforted … I lean back … like, I can sleep. I let all the
pain go.

Gabriel’s construction of “doing well” can be achieved via the use of violence, a resource not
traditionally associated with resilience. Gabriel described being both a perpetrator and a
victim of violence in the street. He said that he often “picks fights” with people as a
mechanism to solve problems:

I beat them up if they annoy me or someone else. I can do that because I am the best.

Gabriel’s perception of “adversity” included a political narrative in which he was critical of

the government for failing to provide resources for poor children and their families. He
suggested that the government’s War on Drugs is not the real problem in the Philippines:

People in the Philippines are poor … parents cannot support their children … so the
children go on the street to earn money. Drugs are not the real problem.

In his interviews he revealed that his perception of adversities included the oppression by
police and public officials employed by the Barangay to enact the policy of rescue, which is
known to target street-involved children.

The police they are dangerous like that … They will kill you if they want … but not
me.

The Filipino resilience literature, as discussed in Chapter 2, defines resilient street-involved

children as those who demonstrate healthy functioning when they meet culturally normative
expectations of growth and development, despite their street involvement. Gabriel’s case
shows a different perception of a response to poverty and life on the street than either
Angelica or Jasmine. Unlike Angelica and Jasmine, Gabriel draws on dangerous internal and
external resources which threaten his safety but simultaneously enable him to demonstrate
outcomes and behaviours that he associates with resilience. He justifies these acts by calling
attention to the failure of politicians to adequately meet the needs of poor families and their
children.

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Gabriel’s critique of oppressive government policy suggests that he sees his criminal
activities as acts of resistance and demonstrations of political agency. Gabriel’s case disrupts
the Filipino understanding of resilience that privileges culturally normative perceptions of
growth and development in street-involved children. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, his
agency in the context of poverty can be categorised within Lister’s taxonomy as “getting back
at” – that is, a response to his circumstances on the streets that is at the same time personal,
political and irregular, having disregard to a range of laws and social norms.

Gabriel’s case exemplifies themes in the narratives of other children who participated in this
study. Many male children who participated in the study discussed gang membership as a
mechanism to achieve a powerful self-concept, protection and belonging. Jonus described
being a member of a gang and being required to “fight” at the behest of powerful gang
leaders whom he fears. Jonus described gang leaders as powerful figures whom he and his
friends would obey in exchange for protection and access to resources:

Researcher: Can you describe what you do with the frat?

Jonus: We fight with bottles and knives, when they tell us, we do it.
Researcher: Is it frightening?
Jonus: Yes … But then we get the nanays of those who are hurt. We can rest
and eat.

Similarly, Bong-Bong suggested that obeying gang leaders was a means of rising in the gang
hierarchy and having a greater share of power, status and resources. He explained that
fighting demonstrates loyalty and protects the territories of the gang leaders:

Researcher: Why would you fight?

Bong-Bong: It is only when needed. For territory. Or the frat leader has an insult,
those are the things.

Like Gabriel, other children in the study also used drugs as a mechanism for managing the
adversities associated with street life. Male and female children described using inhalants and
marijuana to manage hunger pains and strong emotions, and to build relationships with other
children. Justine described his perception of why street-involved children engage in drug-
related activity. He said that children “want to feel the love of their parents” and “to go to
school” but are unable to do so “as there is no money”. As a result, he explained that “the
children do the things that they do – like their vices”.

The researcher clarified this in the conversation below.

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 Researcher: What are the vices you mean?
Justine: They smoke cigarettes, marijuana, sometimes dice. I did that.
Researcher: What do you mean? Can you explain?
Justine: Before I didn’t have the love of my parents, I did those things. But now I
don’t because I am here [Bahay Tuluyan]. Here you can have a quiet life,
not having anyone abuse them, using drugs.

Gabriel’s case exemplifies that, just as conceptions of resilience vary between cultures,
conceptions also vary within cultures when marginalised children associate their engagement
in risky or transgressive behaviours with resilience. Specifically, Gabriel described these
culturally undesirable activities as political acts of resistance that challenge the existing
Filipino definitions of healthy functioning, as reviewed in Chapter 2. Furthermore, Gabriel
engages in these transgressive activities to improve his own personal circumstances,
exploiting the protection offered to him by the police who he sees as unjust and targeting
street children. Thus, Gabriel’s perspective of “doing well” is associated with “getting back
at” mainstream Filipino society from which he is excluded. This perception of resilience is
currently inadequately considered in the existing body of Filipino research, which privileges
culturally normative demonstrations of healthy functioning in children.

4.3.4 “Kyla”

This section will introduce the emblematic case study of Kyla, beginning with a short
summary of her engagement in the research process before presenting her perceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well”. Kyla is 17 years of age; she is a quietly spoken and thoughtful
young woman whose face bears several scars from years of living on the streets. Kyla first
learnt about the study in her role as a Youth Facilitator at Bahay Tuluyan, self-selecting into
the study after careful consideration.

I want the world to listen to the voices of street-involved children … about the
difficulties … I want to talk to people like you … Flinders University … it is
important to hear the voices of street children.

Kyla was selective in how she engaged in research activities, meeting with the researcher
formally on only one occasion for an interview that spanned several hours. During this
interview she spoke to the researcher quietly and seriously, often pausing to consider her
answers before speaking. She did not wish to undertake the “talk and draw” activity, shaking
her head to indicate her preference. She did not take the researcher on a child-led tour,
explaining that she was very busy and keen to get back to her daily activities. She ended her

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interview with the researcher by thanking her for listening to the voices of Filipino street
children:

Thank you for listening to the children here.

Over the course of the study, Kyla regularly spoke to the researcher and asked about how the
study was progressing. On several occasions she also encouraged other children to take part
in the study.

During her interview Kyla explained that she is the eldest daughter of four children who grew
up in the port area of Manila Bay, in a temporary dwelling built from disused refuse. When
Kyla was a small child, her mother and father separated. Kyla and her siblings were left in the
care of her father. One day, Kyla’s father left home and did not return.

We were there in the house. But he didn’t come one day and then another.

Alone, Kyla took her younger siblings to find their grandparents who lived in a neighbouring
barangay (Tagalog for local government area).

We went to my Lolo as we had no food and no money.

Her grandparents agreed to take them in, but Kyla was expected to leave school and earn
money. She described being sad to leave school but was motivated by the desire to contribute
to the care of her siblings.

School is the best but I have no way to go. I have to support my siblings. So I help
them so they can go to school.

Kyla found informal employment doing small jobs for street vendors, such as selling food to
commuters in cars at traffic lights. At night, she begged in shopping malls and parks.

I begged from strangers whoever was there who would give coins. In the traffic and
cars … I knock on windows and ask for coins … sometimes my siblings also … come
[with me].

Kyla described this work as tiring and hazardous due to traffic and bad weather. When she
begged, people in the community regarded her with disdain.

They look down on me and my siblings when we are there begging for coins. It is not
much, sometimes all day for one peso ... so we are hungry all the time.

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She described how begging yielded small amounts of money that were inadequate to support
her siblings.

Kyla’s perception of “doing well” changed after she was exposed to the concept of child
rights. She first learnt about children’s rights when she lived on the streets and met social
workers from the Child Asia Foundation. They offered her the opportunity to go into
sheltered accommodation:

At first I really didn’t want to go to a shelter, I was happy being there on the street.
Not really OK because there’s no proper place to sleep, I can’t go to school properly,
but it seemed to be that I can do it.

Kyla was inspired by the social workers who told her that at Bahay Tuluyan she would have
her basic human rights met.

I would have a place to live, be safe, food to eat and I can go to school.

At the Foundation, Kyla learnt about the United Nations and how children should be
protected and able to access resources needed for survival. She says that learning about her
rights changed her views about children.

I learn the basic rule of law … and how children should be treated.

She also learnt that children deserved to live free of abuse and violence. She was surprised to
learn about “duty bearers” and that the Filipino government had agreed to uphold the rights
of children.

The government has to hold up the rights of children to be safe, not to be abused, and
go to school.

Kyla explained that learning about children’s rights empowered her to protest when adults in
positions of authority abuse children. She illustrated her point by retelling an experience
when she stood up for a child who was being abused.

I did that once, the guard in front of Shakey’s [fast food franchise], he was kicking a
child. It happens often. Sometimes pouring water, but getting kicked in the head is
painful, especially with heavy shoes. And that time I felt so hurt, I approached. When
I approached, because I was a child, they didn’t listen to me. They won’t listen to a
soft voice, because I was just a child. So that time I yelled, “That’s not allowed!
That’s child abuse. We can file a case against you, you can get imprisoned, you can
lose your job, and you have no right to do that. You can just wake him up kindly.” I
yelled so that I can get everybody’s attention. That time I was so angry, and we really
complained against him. We went to the barangay and filled out the police blotter. It

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 is hard to complain, but we did complain. We did get someone in jail, but only for a
while. But at least it taught a lesson somehow.

This story contrasts with her experience prior to learning about her rights when she witnessed
the abuse of her brother in which she described herself as “powerless” and “weak”. When her
brother was assaulted by a guard, she was unable to protest and could not protect him.

I was powerless and weak … just there. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what
words to say.

The themes in Kyla’s case study are evident in the stories of other children in the study
sample, who described their vision of a “good life” as having their rights respected and
upheld. Nicole explained her conception of children’s rights:

A child should have a name, to be born, be safe, to live in a good community, to go to

school. They should also be able to live in a peaceful community.

Joshua identified his exposure to child rights as a stimulus to change the course of his life.

Being a child, I get to play, I get to sleep well, and they returned my childhood. I can
eat what I want, I can sleep, I can bathe.

He suggested that learning about child rights enabled him to:

Realise that I’m a human, I shouldn’t have to endure, especially since I’m a child, I
don’t have to endure that kind of hardships, illegal acts. I shouldn’t be mixed in those
illegal organisations, gangs. It made me realise the importance of the life of a person
and a child.

Kyla’s case study bears some similarities to those of Angelica, Jasmine, and Gabriel, but also
has important differences. In common with Angelica, Jasmine and Gabriel, Kyla perceives
the denial of human rights as a source of adversity for herself, her family and other street-
involved children. Kyla’s case diverges from other emblematic cases presented in this thesis
in that she also sees human rights as a critical component of “doing well” and draws on these
convictions as a basis by which to engage in personal and collective acts of resistance against
victimisation and political oppression. Kyla’s exposure to knowledge about the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) fuels her political awareness and
transforms her perception of what it is to “do well”. In common with Gabriel therefore,
Kyla’s agency in the context of poverty has a political character. Unlike Gabriel, her agency
is not simply focused on her own situation but on street-involved children more generally,

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whose rights she seeks to defend. Kyla’s agency therefore fits with “getting organised” in
Lister’s taxonomy of agency in the context of poverty.

4.4. Children’s Perceptions of “Adversity”

In this thesis, the narratives of Angelica, Jasmine, Gabriel and Kyla’s are presented as
emblematic case studies that exemplify the broader perceptions of resilience held by the
twenty-one other children who participated in this study. In answer to the research question,
this study sought to understand children’s self-identified perceptions of “adversity” and
“doing well” in order to understand their unique conception of resilience. All twenty-five
children who participated in the study identified that street-involved children face
“adversity” with themes emerging from within the data. All of the children also discussed
that, once on the streets, they are exposed to a variety of dangers including gang-related
activity, drug use, exposure to bad weather, traffic and unscrupulous adults. Angelica
identified a “broken family” as her primary circumstance of adversity, sharing this perception
with seventeen other children who participated in the study. Kyla and sixteen other children
who participated in the study discussed these issues in relation to children’s rights,
identifying that the provision of basic resources is a human right that street children are
denied.

As residents of Bahay Tuluyan, many of the children had been exposed to child rights
training and therefore perceived these “adversities” to be associated with the failure of duty
bearers such as the government to uphold the rights of children and discussed experiences of
being powerless in relation to the broader Filipino community. This section will explore the
key themes in the broader study sample regarding children’s perceptions of “adversity”:
“Broken Family” (Section 4.4.1); “Inadequate Resources by which to Survive” (4.4.2);
“Dangers of the Streets” (4.4.3); and “Denial of Rights” (4.4.4).

This section will therefore suggest that children hold perceptions of “adversity” related to
inadequate and oppressive government policy that unjustly targets street-involved children
and threatens their lives. These observations will form the basis of the study findings
discussed in Chapter 5, where it is argued that many children hold political conceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well” that are underexplored in dominant notions of resilience, as well
as in the Filipino literature regarding the resilience of street-involved children.

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4.4.1 “Broken Family”

Angelica, like many children who participated in this study, described her perception of
“adversity” within the context of her familial relationships. Angelica described herself as
coming from a “broken family”, a term she and other children used to describe the separation
of parents, siblings and extended families due to relationship breakdown, abandonment,
parental incarceration or death. In the context of a collectivist society where the family is the
primary unit of social organisation, a “broken family” represents significant risk for children:

Because sometimes, children don’t have family because sometimes, their parents
abandon them. Sometimes, their father … just abandon them because they have …
mistress. Maybe the mother can’t keep the family together. She has to work. The
family can’t be together.

In Figure 4.7, Angelica tells her own story via her illustration and expresses the cascading
effect when her father had an affair with a “mistress” that caused him to “abandon his own
family”. In her image, Angelica identifies that a “broken family” represents an important risk
for children, associated with vulnerability to deprivation of basic resources, violence and
oppressive government policy including detention in the “Reception and Action Centre”
(RAC).

Figure 4.7: Angelica’s Illustration of “Children’s Problems”

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For Angelica, “broken families” led to a series of adverse circumstances including
“starvation”, “abuse”, “drugs” and “no read, no write”. Similarly, other children in the
complete study sample described the risks a “broken family” presented to children. Jose
described the vulnerability of children when families break down and the effect that parental
separation was likely to have on his chance to access school and get a well-paid job in
adulthood. In his “talk and draw” activity, he wrote a list of adversities experienced by street-
involved children.

Translated from Tagalog, Jose wrote: “When my parents are fighting, I try to stop them
because they might separate.” He went on to describe the cascading effects that family
breakdown can cause when he wrote: “My problem is that I want to finish my studies because
if I do not get to finish my studies, I will be unable to get a job other than just a sidecar boy.”

Figure 4.8: Jose’s Talk and Draw Activity

In Filipino society, a “sidecar boy” is a person who rides a tricycle, transporting passengers
for a small fare. Tricycle riders are often very poor, living in their sidecar when they are not
working. Thus, Jose is suggesting that a well-paid job is dependent on his family remaining
together and his access to school.

Similarly, in Jonus’s “talk and draw” art activity he listed the catastrophic effects of the
abandonment of children by their parents and extended family. He listed number one as
“children abandoned by their parents”. His second risk was being “unable to access basic
resources by which to survive”. The third risk he identified is when “children are abandoned
by their relatives”. Thus, “broken families” or the inability of immediate and extended

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families to provide care for children was an important theme in the broader study sample’s
perceptions of “adversity”.

Like Angelica, Jasmine discussed the inability of her immediate and extended family to
provide emotional resources but elaborated to suggest this is a deliberate action rather than
the result of inadequate resources. Unlike Angelica who loves, and is loved by, her mother
and other family members, Jasmine suggested that her primary hardship relates to her mother
and father who do not love her. Jasmine suggested that it is the inability of her parents to
provide love that leads to her having inadequate resources by which to survive.

I love my mom more than everything. She never love me but I love her. She said
when I go to see her: “What are you doing here?”

Jasmine suggested that street-involved children face further adversities when they are not
afforded parental love and familial obligations are not observed:

Because their family doesn’t treat them as family, even if they have a house, they go
home but the support and love that the parents are supposed to give, it’s from the
bakarda, the streets, the support, the things they are supposed to learn about, it goes
elsewhere.

To Jasmine’s way of thinking, it is the lack of parental love that leads to the other dangers
that face street-involved children and force them to build relationships with their bakarda.

Other children in the complete sample discussed “adversity” regarding the emotional distress
caused by separation from their parents. Charles exemplified this when he described his
perception of “adversity” as related to his family with whom he has no contact. He described
his strong feelings when he meets other children at Bahay Tuluyan who have intact families:

I am jealous that they have a family. We are separated and my parents don’t know
where we are.

Similarly, Reylin expressed the longing she feels for her parents when she described her
dreams in which she is reunited with them:

Sometimes I dream about me waking up, and my parents are looking at me. I like that
dream. I always dream like that.

Kyla discussed the many difficulties faced by street children but suggested the emotional
anguish of not having a loving parental relationship is the hardest:

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 It’s very hard to be on the street, nowhere to sleep, often hungry. One of the hardest
and most painful things is not having your parents.

The emotional anguish of separation was also evident in the child-led tour. Nicole took the
researcher to a small hut where she sleeps with her mother when she can visit her children at
Bahay Tuluyan. Pointing to the hut she explained, when her mother visits “we do bonding”
and can “sleep together at night”. When the researcher asked her to describe “bonding” she
looked confused, and laughed, asking the interpreter to explain the concept to the researcher
in English. The interpreter explained “bonding” is “love between people”. Thus, Nicole
suggested that the emotional anguish caused by separation from parents is an important
source of adversity for street-involved children.

Many children also discussed “broken family” to describe circumstances of emotional,

physical and sexual abuse between family members. Jose expressed this when he explained
that he did not have a home due to the violence between his mother and father.

My mother and father, they always fight, and we aren’t cared for. Even on the streets,
they beat each other. They do not have a proper home.

Children described abuse directed at themselves, perpetrated by immediate and extended

family members including mothers, fathers, brothers, uncles, aunts and grandparents. They
also described violence at the hands of “step relatives”. Jean exemplified this when she
explained that, after her father died, her mother’s new partner beat her siblings:

My stepfather always beats her and my younger sibling. Of course, when I see that,
my father didn’t do that, so I talk back to him.

Other children in the complete study sample also described their perception of adversity as
family members being sexually, physically and emotionally abusive towards them. Joyce
explained that he came to live at Bahay Tuluyan after his parents “beat each other, my
siblings, every one of us”. He explained that his family “did not have a house” and lived in a
temporary dwelling that was “very hot as it had no fan” and was “owned by stepfather’s
friend” who “took pity on us”. In his “talk and draw” activity he chose to write a statement
that exemplified how some street-involved children do not have a safe home environment.

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 Transcription: First of all, I don’t want other children to get beaten by their parents.
They can just scold them without being physical. I just said this because I pity those
and I don’t want them to experience what my mother did to me. Thank you BT

Figure 4.9: Joyce’s Talk and Draw Activity

Angelica’s perception of “adversity” centres on the breakdown of her immediate family as

well as the subsequent failure of her extended adult family members to provide for her needs
and those of her siblings. Angelica pointed to the role of extended family in supporting
children when she described how her father abandoned his family. However her grandfather
observed his responsibilities of familial obligation. The death of her grandfather meant
Angelica’s mother and siblings no longer had the safety net that enabled them to live.
Angelica and her siblings went to live with an uncle in a province where she was subject to
abuse and neglect. She was forced to sell ice creams on the streets rather than attend school,
and when she was unable to generate an adequate income, her uncle beat her:

I did not sell enough to support my siblings so he raised his hand to me.

Angelica took her younger siblings and returned to Manila, living on the streets until she
located her mother. Like Angelica, other children’s circumstances were compromised when
extended family members were unable or unwilling to support them. Mary Anne explained
that inter-family disputes resulted in relocation to another province where she “lost” her
extended family. Unable to rely on their support, her mother brought her and her siblings to
Bahay Tuluyan so that they “can eat and study”.

Like Angelica, Jasmine described her perception of “adversity” as also related to the failure
of her extended family to act as a safety net. After she was abandoned by her parents,
Jasmine and her siblings went to live with an uncle who lived close by. Like Angelica, as an

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elder sister, her uncle expected Jasmine to “earn the money to feed my siblings”. Having no
means of earning an income, Jasmine resented “having to beg from strangers for coins”.
Jasmine left her siblings in the care of her uncle and went to live on the streets with her
friends. During her “walk and talk” child-led tour, Jasmine pointed to the street on which her
uncle lived and expressed resentment at his failure to support her when she most needed it.
She said that, although the extended family lives close by, they have an acrimonious
relationship.

They don’t want me to visit them. They hate me. And I hate them too. They always
said, “Where’s your money? Where’s your money?” If I don’t have money, they say,
“Go home.”

Jasmine’s strong feelings about her extended family suggest she believes that they value her
only when she can generate income for them. This circumstance results in Jasmine being
deprived of love, as well as unable to access the safety net of the extended family that is
normative in Filipino society. Thus, like other children who participated in the study, both
Jasmine and Angelica described their perception of adversity as a twofold process by which
they migrated to the streets. This process began with parental abandonment and was
compounded by the subsequent failure of the extended family to provide security in their
absence.

4.4.2 Inadequate Resources by which to Survive

All twenty-five children who participated in this study perceived “adversity” to be associated
with inadequate resources by which to survive. Children described being without food, clean
water, access to hygienic facilities or a safe place to sleep. When speaking of their own
experiences, children described being unable to go to school, or access medical care when
they are sick. In some instances, children’s narrative suggested an awareness of the social and
political context of their lives, suggesting that street-involved children experience lack of
essential resources due to political and economic issues in the Philippines.

In one of Jasmine’s child-led tours, she showed the researcher a small hut in a park where she
said she slept at night with other children. While walking through the streets, she also pointed
out street vendors who had fed her when she was hungry, explaining that sometimes she
would wash dishes to earn a meal. Similarly, Angelica described being unable to access basic
resources needed for survival when she ran away from her abusive uncle and lived on the

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streets while looking for her mother. As the eldest sibling, she described how she provided
food for her siblings by generating a small income via begging.

It is hard to do anything when you and your siblings are hungry, except try to find
food and money.

Likewise, Miguel, who is Angelica’s sister, depicted this circumstance in her “draw and talk”
art activity. She drew an image of a small child and an older child “sleeping by the road” and
“poking” (begging) at the mall to raise an income in order to eat.

Figure 4.10: Miguel’s Talk and Draw Activity

In some instances, children described that they were born into families who experienced
intergenerational homelessness with inadequate access to safe accommodation, food or health
care. Reylin also exemplified this theme when she told of her family’s experience, which
included unstable accommodation that was lost due to bad weather as well as habitual
strategies to manage when they had no food.

When my parents were still young, when my mother was still young, my grandmother
had no home. They only eat, they only beg from the eatery, only stale rice and salt
water, and sometimes when they don’t have anything to eat, they just sleep instead
…there was a storm. They lost their house, and my Tita (Aunt) died.

The extreme deprivation of this family is suggested by the fact that they were unable to afford
the costs of burying a deceased relative and by Reylin’s own birth, in which she was born on
the streets of Manila:

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 When my Tita died, they had more difficulties, they couldn’t bury her because they
had no money, no money for a casket. And then when I was born, my mother said I
was born on the street, and was just rushed to the hospital when I was already out.

Similarly, in Marcos’s semi-structured interview, he elaborated on this theme when he

identified his perception of “adversity” faced by street children. He associated this with
families being unable to meet the needs of their children:

That’s the problem with family, they can’t provide for their needs. So the find their
own way and they can’t eat. They do wrong things, like stealing. Sometimes they go
home but their parents are not safe for them.

Thus, Marcos elaborated on this theme to suggest that when families are unsafe, or not
adequately resourced, children migrate to the streets to find other ways to support themselves.

Many children also reported engaging in income-generating activities to support themselves

and their families and discussed this in the context of powerlessness and oppression. Charles
explained this: “I worked in a factory. They made me work. They treat me like a slave, so I
run away.”

Informal incoming-generating activities included running errands, guiding drivers into car
parks, calling for jeepneys (a public minibus service) and sorting rubbish for re-use. Many
children described begging or “poking”, in which they asked strangers for food. Like Kyla,
Jezz explained that the only course of action a child can take is “run away from parents”.
However, they need to earn money by any means they are able including “begging” or
“sometimes they sell their own bodies”.

At Bahay Tuluyan, children are exposed to training in child rights. As such, children in the
study sample discussed having inadequate resources by which to survive, which they
associated with a political narrative that suggested an awareness of the social, economic and
political context of their lives. Jasmine’s perception of “adversity” can be seen in her “draw
and talk” art activity which she entitled “Kids’ Problems”. She depicted a broad collection of
circumstances that affect the lives of street-involved children. In the centre of the picture,
Jasmine drew a house and wrote “homeless”, “broken family” and “a mother or father who
died”. The picture also includes a large mouse who has a label on its chest named
“Population” and underneath she wrote in English in capital letters “STARVATION”. She
also highlighted “poor education”, “drugs” and an image of a jail she labelled “RAC”.

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 Figure 4.11: Jasmine’s talk and draw activity

Jasmine’s drawing is suggestive of a political perception of “adversity” in which having

inadequate resources is linked to the broader social and political context of the Philippines.
Her depiction of the mouse labelled “population” and “STARVATION” suggests a
sophisticated understanding of the impact of population growth on the lives of poor people
and engagement in political discourse. Further, her depiction of child in “RAC” suggests a
political dimension that includes the targeting of street children via the policy of rescue that
removes children from the street and places them in detention.

Similarly, other children who participated in the study perceived “adversity” as associated
with inadequate resources by which to survive, which included a political narrative. Gabriel,
who is also featured as an emblematic case study, constructed adversity in a way that
reflected his own life story. In the neighbourhood where Gabriel grew up, many street
children did not have parents. He explained that these circumstances deprived children of
basic resources needed to survive:

The children sometimes don’t have parents. When you don’t have parents, you can’t
get to school, you don’t have a proper home, no clothes. And most of the children
here are from Tondo. From the houses made of garbage there. The actual problem the
Philippines has is poverty.

Other children in the sample described the effects of urban poverty and inadequate
government policy that supports poor families. Jezz perceives poverty to be related to why
children are required to work to support their families, rather than attend school:

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 The children want to go to school, but their parents need them to work instead. Maybe
because of poverty. There is no one to help them. Their parents can’t send to school
or support their daily needs.

In these circumstances, Alfredo also identified the responsibility of government to respond to

the needs of children when he calls for services to help street children:

The government should help the children on the street left by their parents, just
roaming the streets. I’ve been a street child. They need someone to take care of them.
They should get to a centre like Bahay Tuluyan.

In the Philippines, there is limited publicly funded social policy infrastructure that supports
children whose parents are unable to provide them with the means by which to survive (Son
2008). Thus, after being exposed to child rights education at Bahay Tuluyan, children in the
study sample included a political narrative about their circumstances that included an
awareness of their social and economic context.

4.4.3 Dangers of the Streets

In this study, participants in the complete study sample described “adversities” faced by
street-involved children including the dangers they associated with street life such as gang-
related violence, exploitation by unscrupulous adults and targeting by government officials.
Of note, children in this study included a political, social and economic analysis of their
situation, identifying alienation from mainstream Filipino society and being subject to
oppressive government policy including rescue and the war on drugs. In Kyla’s semi-
structured interview, she provided a general overview of the many dangers street children
experience when she told her story of migrating to the streets as a small child and sleeping
under the bridge at Manila Bay:

All the bad things that can happen to you will happen to you. Sleeping in a house
without a roof, getting wet because of the storm, or because of the rain, being starved
the whole day, being judged by other people, being physically abused by someone, or
being abused in any way they know how.

Children in the study sample reported other acts of violence at the hands of adults in the street
environment. Children described being “stomped on”, “thrown”, “dragged”, “pouring water
on their head” and “kicked on the head”. Children also described “riots” over gang territory
and to settle interpersonal conflicts that were potentially lethal, with children commonly
using weapons such as hammers, bottles, knives, rocks and broken glass with the potential to
result in death. Justine described how sometimes during these fights his friends are injured

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and he has to “run to get the nanay of the one that is hurt”. Justine described that riots are
frequent and take place “anytime and all over” the streets of Manila in response to the
demands of gang leaders.

Gabriel’s case study exemplifies the extreme physical dangers faced by street-involved
children. Gabriel’s engagement in an illegal fighting syndicate has resulted in many physical
injuries that are evident via the scars that are visible on his face, neck and hands. When asked
about how he heals his body he said, “I just bear it, I bear the pain.” Gabriel is a gang
member who uses violence to solve problems on behalf of others: “If someone fights with
them, I beat them up a bit. But I don’t kill them.” These activities endear him to gang leaders
and other powerful people in the community, including the police.

The lethal danger of gang-related violence and police brutality is exemplified in Charles’
“talk and draw” art activity. In Figure 4.12, Charles’ list of “adversities” experienced by
children emphasised violence. He listed “riots”, “trouble”, “killed” and “police”.

Figure 4.12: Charles’ Perception of Adversity

In his semi-structured interview, Charles explained that this list represented the difficulties he
faced as a street child when he was a member of a “frat” (gang) who regularly engaged in
“riots” with other gangs over territories. Like Gabriel, he also mentioned his perception that
drug use and exposure to drug-related activity, such as drug dealing, is an important danger
for street-involved children. He explained that since coming to Bahay Tuluyan he has realised
that “drugs make you insane” and that “you can’t have a good life” when you are a member

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of a gang. He explained that he is frightened of “police because they kill people, anyone who
use or sell drugs”.

Dianne talked about the lives of female street-involved children, naming drug use as a risk for
girls when she said “they also experience drugs. Like that, smoking, marijuana too. Because
they are just hanging around.” Andreas revealed that he believes, although these activities are
dangerous, street-involved children “do crime and drugs” to “escape poverty”. He explained
that, prior to coming to Bahay Tuluyan, he used drugs and alcohol to “lessen the pain” of
being a street child. For him however, coming to Bahay Tuluyan changed his life:

You can have problems because of alcohol, drugs and other things. You should avoid
those. I experience that too before, drinking, smoking, but I stopped when I came
here. I changed myself.

Figure 4.13: Joe’s Talk and Draw Activity

Joe drew a picture of a young women smoking in the Malate Children’s Assembly. In his
semi-structured interview several weeks later, he explained that drugs are a problem faced by
many street-involved children. He explained that “drugs do not help you, they do not let you
do things in your life …..they lead you down the wrong path.”

Gabriel’s case study exemplifies an important theme that emerged in the complete study
sample regarding the dangers that police present to street-involved children. He presented a

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political narrative when he explained that poor children like him are often targeted by
oppressive government policy that fails to solve the social problems of the Philippines:

It is on the government now. It is not a solution to wipe out the drug pushers. They
should give the children’s parents livelihoods. Or they should make a lot of
organisations to take in children. Because if you look at it now, there is a lot of
children involved in drugs. That is the government’s problem, from the poorer
communities. They should find a solution for that. Not make it up.

Thus, Gabriel suggested that the root cause of children living on the street is that their parents
are too poor to care for them. He is critical of the government’s war on drugs and he believes
this is a misrepresentation of the social problems of the Philippines.

Like Gabriel, other children in the sample highlighted oppressive government policy that
targets street children, often resulting in injury or death. Nicole referenced oppressive
government policy that targets children:

Sometimes they kill children because they get blamed as a drug runner. Even if the
child is a drug runner, they shouldn’t kill them. Because they still have rights.

Children who participated in the study also told of experiences of extreme danger that included
the death of children at the hands of the police. In Jessanth’s semi-structured interview he
explained how he had witnessed the extra-judicial killing of a young man whom the police
wanted to search:

They weren’t supposed to kill him, but he ran. He was chased by CSG until they
reached the end, but he fired, they shot him here. They were supposed to inspect him,
because he was hiding something. “Kuya, don’t go out because there’s CSG”, he was
told. But he really came out. Then he ran. They shot at him.

In Jessanth’s statement he named “CSG”, which is an acronym for the Police Civil Security
Group that includes volunteer “chapters” across the country, who are empowered by the
government to assist drug investigations.

Several other children who participated in the study had also witnessed extra-judicial killings
and human rights abuses at the hands of public officials. Bong-Bong’s “talk and draw:
activity suggests this in Figure 4.14 and illustrates this finding. This picture illustrates a
person holding a gun. The letters “EJK” (which stand for extra-judicial killings) appear over
a child’s face.

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 Figure 4.1: Bong-Bong’s Illustration of “Adversities” Faced by Street Children

Thus, the theme of extreme danger exemplified in Gabriel’s case study was an important
theme in the definition of “adversity” in the broader sample of children who participated in
the research. Children’s perceptions of these dangers included gang and drug-related activity
as well as exploitation and violence at the hands of adults who included police and public
officials empowered by the government. Importantly in this study and discussed in the study
findings in Chapter 5, children’s perceptions of “adversity” included a social and economic
analysis of their situation, identifying being “Othered” by mainstream Filipino society and
being subject to oppressive government policy.

4.4.4 Denial of Rights

At Bahay Tuluyan, children are exposed to child rights training that includes discussions
about the UNCRC. Drawing on the child-to-child approach to community advocacy, children
are regularly asked to express their opinions about what matters to them. Like other children
who participated in the study, Kyla’s perception of “adversity” identifies that street-involved
children are denied their basic human rights and subject to extreme violence and oppression
by adults in Filipino society. Kyla identified that not knowing about children’s rights is a
major factor in the vulnerability of street children:

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 It was hard. It’s hard if you don’t know anything. If you don’t know your rights, you
don’t know how to protect yourself. You wouldn’t know that there are limits to what
people can do to you.

On the streets, Kyla suggested that street children are also powerless to claim their rights due
the inequity in adult-centric societies:

And one of the things that hurt most in being a kid, is that no one wants to listen to
you, no-one would dare defend you, especially in the places that you’re just alone. A
lot of people will stay away from you, will be disgusted by you.

Thus, Kyla revealed a political narrative about the experiences of street-involved children,
suggesting they are disempowered and not protected by Filipino society. Furthermore, she
suggested that Filipino society alienates street-involved children, who are regarded as
unsavoury and distasteful.

Similarly, in Jasmine’s one-to-one interview, she also described circumstances in which the
basic rights of children are not upheld. She used the term “bullied” to describe the stigma and
discrimination street children experience:

I see problems in families, like drugs, drugs, so kids learn how to do drugs, they get
bullied, they go hungry, they lose their freedom, they lose their privacy, they have no
home even if they have a family … they don’t have any rights.

In talking about her own life, Jasmine described how problems in her family forced her onto
the streets where she experienced the loss of her rights including “their freedom”, “privacy”
and a “home”. She made the point that even if a street child has a family their rights are
denied.

When asked about her conception of “privacy” Jasmine explained that street-involved
children are removed from the streets without their permission:

Researcher: Can you explain what you mean … privacy …?

Jasmine: The police, they pull you into the truck and take you to RAC. You don’t
even want to go. That happened to me.

Later in her narrative, Jasmine went further to explain that street children are targeted and
mistreated by police for being dirty in public places such as shopping malls:

When they see the police, instead of approaching them when they need something
they run away. They are already traumatised. Like for example when they play around
SM [shopping mall] of course they are dirty, who wouldn’t be dirty if you live on the
street!

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Jasmine identified this experience as one of powerlessness.

Like those police. They just drag around the children wherever they want, they can do
what they want with them. They use their body as they want.

Thus, Jasmine suggested a political understanding of “adversity” that was also reflected in the
broader participant group who were critical of adults in positions of authority over children.

In her semi-structured interview, Angelica elaborated her political perception of adversity

when she described how street children who do not have their rights respected are vulnerable
to abuse and victimisation when they are “stomped on” and “can’t do anything”. She told the
story of her brother who was picked up off the streets under the policy of “rescue” and was
locked up in a “children’s prison” where he experienced physical abuse and was unable to go
to school:

The children don’t want to. Because in RAC, it’s so difficult and hard. I remember
my brother caught by RAC. They put him in RAC and then when he came back, he
told me that it’s so difficult in RAC because they don’t have much food. Then, they
don’t have clothes and sometimes, they … the guards there abuse them. They hurt
them. When I saw my brother, he had so many wounds. He had so many wounds.

Miguel described how at Bahay Tuluyan she learnt about child rights: “A child has the right
to education, a child has the right to play, a child has the right to learn, a child has the right to
feel love from a parent.”

In her semi-structured interview, Kyla told her story of how she migrated to the streets in the
context of being denied her human rights. She explained that she ran away at 8 years of age
after her grandfather regularly beat her. Although she was frightened of living alone
“outside”, she made this decision as she felt safer on streets than in her grandfather’s home:

I became a street child because I ran away. I ran away from my Lolo [Tagalog for
Grandfather], because I didn’t like how I was treated there, always getting hurt. I
ended up on the street and then I just stayed there.

Kyla shared this experience with other study participants including Angelia and Jasmine, who
described their experiences of abuse at the hands of adults and suggested this is a human
rights issue. Jezz spoke about how children “experience abuse, sometimes at the hands of
their parents” and referred to the difference of power between adults and children when he
said “if this happens you can’t do anything”.

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Children in the study sample identified that street-involved children experience stigma and
discrimination from mainstream Filipino society.

Figure 4.15: Andreas’s Talk and Draw Activity 1

In his semi-structured interview, Andreas penned a picture to describe his perception of

“adversity”. In the centre of his drawing in which he identified other adversities, including
romantic “heart breaks” between “boyfriends and girlfriends”, he also depicted a child and an
adult accompanied by the word “discrimination”. These images suggest that children’s
conception of “adversity” includes an awareness of their position of “Othering” from
mainstream Filipino society and their social and political context.

Kyla, like Jasmine and other children in the study, identified that street-involved children
face extreme danger at the hands of adults, some of whom are public officials, and articulated
that this is a human rights issue. Kyla identified these adversities as a collective experience
when she suggested that all street-involved children are powerless to protect themselves
against exploitation by adults who are in positions of authority.

In Kyla’s semi-structured interview, she described the policy of “rescue” that removes
children from the streets and puts them in a Reception and Assessment Centre (RAC). She
explained that children are taken to the RAC involuntarily as it is a “jail for street children”.
She explained how the police remove children from the street:

They were just quietly there. They are taken even though they didn’t do anything
wrong. They should help them. Not take them to jail.

She described one instance when her brother was abused by a police officer:

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 He was just picked on [by the police]. When I saw that, it was different when it’s your
brother. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth. I
felt very shocked. I was weak.

Like Kyla, other children identified oppressive government policy, in particular when the
police “rescue” children. Both Jasmine and Angelia discussed and drew images of RAC
during their data collection activities. In her semi-structured interview, Angelica related her
own experiences of RAC:

RAC is scary. They don’t feed you there. You don’t want to go there.

Similarly, in Jessenth’s “draw and talk” activity, he carefully wrote the words “I was poor” in
Tagalog in response to the researcher’s questions about the adversities faced by street-
involved children. He went on to talk about his own experiences and explained that he used
to sleep under the bridge at Manila Bay and spent his days begging with other children. He
explained that living under the bridge was “not safe” and exposed him to “bad weather”,
“traffic”, “police” and “gangs who kill people”.

Similarly, in the picture penned by Andreas in his semi-structured interview, he identified

that street-involved children experience adversity at the hands of “Gov. corrupt/abusing of
their power, or position”. Like Kyla, he explained that police and public officials are in
positions of power over street-involved children.

Figure 4.16: Andreas’s Talk and Draw Activity 2

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4.5 Chapter Summary

This chapter began with an introduction to Angelica, Jasmine, Gabriel and Kyla and their
stories as emblematic case studies that exemplify key themes identified in children’s
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in the broader study sample. The remaining
twenty-one children were also introduced, with data gathered during their child-led tours,
“draw and talk” art activities and semi-structured interviews contributing to the thematic
discussion of children’s perceptions of adversity in Section 4.4. This section suggests that
street-involved children hold conceptions of “adversity” that include a “broken family”,
“inadequate resources by which to survive”, “dangers of the streets” and the “denial of
rights”. Importantly for this study’s findings, the thematic analysis suggests children’s
positioning of their circumstances of “adversity” within their political, social and economic
circumstances whereby they were aware of themselves as rights holders under the UNCRC.
Exposed to child rights training, children expressed an awareness of being “Othered” by
mainstream Filipino society and exposed to oppressive government policy.

The findings reported in this chapter suggest that Angelica, Kyla, Jasmine and Gabriel all
perceive “adversity” to be associated with families having insufficient resources to meet the
needs of their children. All four emphasised their and their siblings’ inability to attend school
as an important “adversity”. Furthermore, all children in the case studies identified
“adversity” when adults in the community failed to uphold the rights of children, including
the provision of food, shelter and safety in the community. This finding is significant in that it
suggests street-involved children are aware of their status as “Other” from mainstream
Filipino society who are denied the basic resources by which to survive (Lister 2004, Jensen
2011). This finding suggests a political dimension to “adversity” that is underexplored in the
current body of literature and is the basis of this study’s findings discussed in Chapter 5.

Comparisons between the cases illustrate significant differences in how children

conceptualise “adversity” and “doing well” and the resources that facilitate their pathway to
resilience. Angelica identified conditions of “adversity” that are associated with her “broken
family” and the inability of her extended family to support her when she is in need. She drew
on internal and external resources that are considered normative in children in Filipino
society as defined in the Filipino resilience literature, demonstrating healthy functioning by
seeking to get out of poverty via resources that are available to her in Filipino society such as
education and having a close relationship with God. Jasmine’s perceptions of “adversity” also

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centred on her immediate and extended family’s inability to provide her with emotional
resources. Her notion of “doing well”, discussed in the next chapter, involved establishing
compensatory “like families” with children and adults who provide her with emotional and
material resources.

Both Angelica and Jasmine highlighted inadequate resources available to support street-
involved children and their families. This takes on a political element when children who
have been exposed to child rights at Bahay Tuluyan begin to understand these deprivations as
an infringement of their rights. Like some other children, Gabriel believes that the
government has a role in improving the lives of children. Furthermore, Gabriel’s case
exemplifies the dangers that face street-involved children including being subject to drug use,
criminal activity and gang membership. He further pointed out that street-involved children
are targeted by the police and other public officials who enact oppressive government policy.

Kyla’s case represents an important theme in the study in which children identified living in a
society that fails to uphold children’s rights as a condition of “adversity”. Kyla drew on child
rights as an essential resource in pursuit of “doing well”, which she defined as a life where
street children’s rights are respected and upheld. Learning about child rights is an important
resource that has enabled her to challenge adults in positions of authority in a way that
transgresses norms in children in the Philippines. Other children too described the processes
by which learning about child rights exposed them to new conceptions of a future in which
their rights are respected. Kyla’s case study demonstrates how knowledge of child rights can
be a powerful mechanism that empowers children to negotiate their safety in a way that
contravenes cultural expectations of child and adult relationships in Filipino society.

The findings presented in this chapter suggest that children in the study perceive “adversity”
and “doing well” in ways that conform to, overlap with, and in some instances contravene,
dominant cultural norms associated with healthy functioning in children who are exposed to
conditions of adversity as defined in the Filipino resilience literature. Children in the study
drew on culturally approved resources in order to demonstrate “healthy functioning” as
suggested in Chapter 2. Additionally, however, children perceived “doing well” in
unorthodox ways in response to resources available to them in their social ecology.

The narratives discussed in this chapter suggest that “adversity” from the perspective of
children is a highly dynamic construct, as suggested by Rutter (2012), but is also culturally

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and contextually nuanced (Rutter 2012, Ungar, Ghazinour & Richter 2013). The discussion in
the next chapter will suggest that resilience is a pluralist construction with multiple meanings
that are dependent on how children define “adversity” and “doing well” and the resources
they are prepared to use to get there. The case studies suggest that children are engaged in an
active process of navigation and negotiation, drawing on resources that are not usually
associated with normative concepts of resilience in Filipino society, or indeed with the
dominant Minority World concepts of resilience.

As I will argue in the next chapter, the Filipino street-involved children who contributed to
this study showed with their agency a political understanding of resilience that focuses on
collective responses to “Othering” and an emphasis on human rights. In applying Lister’s
taxonomy of agency in the context of extreme poverty, this thesis highlights heterogeneous
expressions of agency in children previously under-examined in the resilience discourse,
including day-to-day efforts to ensure survival as well as strategic acts that can be understood
as sometimes reflexive and sometimes non-reflexive efforts to enact change in Filipino
society (Giddens 1984, Hoggett 2001, Lister 2004). Further exploration of the case studies in
the next chapter will aim to demonstrate that children hold diverse conceptions of “doing
well” that both comply with and contravene culturally normative values associated with
“healthy functioning” in children in the Philippines. The next chapter will therefore propose
the need for a refined approach to understanding resilience based on children’s diverse
perceptions of “doing well”, which include expressions of political agency when children
take individual and collective action to improve their lives and the lives of others.

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 CHAPTER 5: PERCEPTIONS OF RESILIENCE IN THE
CONTEXT OF POLITICAL OPPRESSION AND
MARGINALISATION

5.1 Introduction

The discussion of street-involved children’s perspectives in Chapter 4 highlights that they

perceived their circumstances to be “adverse” when their family rejected or could not support
them, when they, their families or other street-involved children were deprived of resources
needed for survival or experienced exclusion from mainstream society, and when they were
subject to inadequate and oppressive government policies that contravened their rights under
the UNCRC. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that children of the street who are
marginalised from mainstream society often equate resilience with political action. This
includes recognising the collective nature of their oppression and resisting the effects of
oppression and deprivation in order to “do well”. This study highlights the diverse strategies
by which children seek to resist oppression and argues for a robust conception of resilience
that recognises their marginalisation from mainstream society.

This chapter will suggest that the children in this study understand adversity to be a collective
experience shared among those who are “Othered” in Filipino society (Said 1985,
DeBeauvior 1997, Canales 2000, Lister 2004). In the Philippines street-involved children
have been observed to be aware that society does not like them, identifying personal and
systemic experiences of victimisation and discrimination (Pomm 2005, Sta. Maria, Martinez
& Diestro 2014). “Othering” is a term devised by sociologists and feminist scholars to
describe processes by which power is applied to dominant and subordinate groups of people
in society in order to separate the self from those who are perceived as different (Said 1985,
DeBeauvior 1997, Canales 2000, Young 2005, Jensen 2011, Scharff 2011, Bleijenbergh,
Engen & Vinkenburg 2012). Lister (2004) uses the term to describe the social, political and
economic processes that those in positions of power and privilege mobilise in order to
demarcate themselves from those who are already marginalised. In this chapter, it is proposed
that, when children take action to overcome conditions of “adversity” and travel towards their
conception of “doing well”, they are engaging in personal or political action to resist the
effects of “Othering” as described by Lister (2004).

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In presenting these findings, this thesis will argue for a more robust approach to resilience
that adequately reflects the perceptions of children who demonstrate varying levels of
cognisance of their actions in the context of experiences of oppression (Giddens 1984,
Hoggett 2001). This thesis contests the notion that children are helpless and reliant on adults
in mainstream society in order to “do well”. Rather, it will argue instead that children have
the capacity to powerfully claim their rights.

To present this argument, this chapter is organised into the following sections. In Section 5.2,
Lister’s taxonomy of agency and “Othering” will be discussed in relation to Filipino street-
involved children. In Section 5.3, Angelica’s case study is discussed, highlighting her
personal and strategic actions to “get out” of poverty by demonstrating fidelity to Filipino
values while pursuing her notion of “doing well” via actions that are culturally normative in
children in the Philippines. Jasmine’s case is discussed in Section 5.4, with her day-to-day
efforts to “get by” when she establishes “like family” relationships that help her survive. In
Section 5.5, Gabriel’s dangerous behaviours are explored as mechanisms to “get back at”
oppressive government policy that deliberately targets street children. Kyla’s strategic and
political demonstrations of agency when she engages in collective acts of resistance,
protesting injustice and participating in community advocacy activities, are discussed in
Section 5.6. Section 5.7 summarises how this thesis has extended the social-ecological
approach to resilience by considering the diverse expressions of political agency in children.
The chapter will conclude by suggesting children perceive resilience to be an overtly political
concept when they take diverse actions to resist the effects of marginalisation.

5.2 The Political Agency of Children Who Are “Othered”

This thesis suggests that resilience, in the context of extreme oppression, involves highly
diverse expressions of agency including personal and collective actions that can be
understood as overt political protest as children strive to effect change for themselves and
their families. The social-ecological approach suggests resilience is a cultural construct but
overlooks the experiences of powerlessness in categories of young people who are
marginalised by mainstream society (Bottrell 2007, 2009a, 2009b). To explore a more
nuanced conception of resilience that includes an examination of diverse expressions of
agency in the lives of children, this thesis brings together Lister’s (2004) discussion of
“Othering” and her taxonomy of agency with Michael Ungar’s (2004) social-ecological
approach to resilience.

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Lister’s taxonomy identifies four categories of agency: “getting out”, “getting by”, “getting
back at” and “getting organised”, highlighting the diverse courses of action that people take
in the context of poverty and marginalisation. Figure 5.1 shows how the four emblematic case
studies fit into these categories. The vertical axis represents a continuum between “everyday”
and “strategic” actions, reflecting the choices that people make in order to manage
deprivation. The horizontal axis articulates “personal” versus “political/citizenship” choices
that people make in order to resist the effects of Othering, and effect change in their own
lives, or the lives of others. The application of this taxonomy will highlight the ways in which
children draw on resources in their environment to effect “first-order change” when children
manage the day-to-day effects of poverty, as well as “second-order change” when they seek
to alter the social order of the society in which they live (Hoggett 2001). In this context,
“first-order change” as defined by Hoggett (2001), refers to strategies people use to make do,
by complying with the social, cultural and economic structures to which they are subject.
“Second-order change” represents a more radical type of agency by which people engage in
reflexive and non-reflective actions in order to create changes in their lives and the lives of
others by transgressing social and cultural norms that govern society (Hoggett 2001).

Everyday

Jasmine Gabriel
“Getting by” “Getting
back at”

Personal Political/
Citizenship

Angelica Kyla
“Getting “Getting
out” organised”

Strategic

Figure 5.1: Lister’s Taxonomy and Emblematic Case Studies

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As demonstrated in Figure 5.1, Angelica takes personal but strategic actions to “get out” of
poverty by working hard at school with the intention of reunifying her family. Her reflexive
narrative suggests she plans to effect long-term change and improve her own life, and that of
her family. Jasmine demonstrates everyday agency when she “gets by”, developing a network
of “like family” relationships that enable access to emotional and physical resources. She
establishes habitual strategies to cope with the day-to-day challenges she faces in her
everyday life (Aderinto 2000, Hoggett 2001). Both Angelica and Jasmine demonstrate “first-
order” agency, as they attempt to improve their lives by operating within the social and
community structures that they can access (Hoggett 2001).

Gabriel identifies himself as resilient when he “gets back at” government oppression by
engaging in gang-related activities and drug dealing. These day-to-day activities are aimed at
managing the effects of deprivation, yet they also represent expressions of political rebellion
against a government that he does not support. Gabriel’s case study challenges Ungar’s
notion of “hidden resilience” in that he seeks alternative notions of “doing well” that do not
include outcomes associated with good health that are dominant in Filipino society. His
narrative demonstrates that he has a complex relationship with cultural values, in part striving
to adhere to these values, and in part rejecting dominant Filipino notions of “healthy
functioning” in children. His accounts of these seemingly contradictory conceptions of
“doing well” are suggestive of children’s complex lives and reflexive processes that are not
always straightforward (Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo 2017). Moreover, he demonstrates a
more radical approach to agency than Angelica or Jasmine, seeking “second-order” change
that radically challenges the social order of the Philippines (Hoggett 2001).

Kyla described how after being exposed to the concept of child rights she changed her
perception of what it is to “do well”. Supported by Bahay Tuluyan, she “gets organised” by
participating in collective action that seeks to challenge oppressive government policy that
targets street-involved children. Kyla engages in strategic activities of citizenship that aim to
effect long-term change in the lives of street-involved children and their families. Her case
study also demonstrates the capacity of children to exercise “second-order” agency, as
defined by Hoggett (2001), challenging the existing social order and instigating radical
change. In her narrative she presents herself as a knowledgeable and rational actor, making
decisions and taking action that she hopes will radically change her own life as well as those
of other street-involved children (Giddens 1984, Hoggett 2001). Her case study suggests a

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political approach to resilience as she engages in civic action as she pursues her conception of
“doing well”.

For Hoggett (2001) agency can be understood as a continuum that accommodates how
individuals use formal rules to create “first-order change”, described as alignment with the
change that one is expected to make (Hoggett 2001, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017).
“Second-order change” is defined as reflexive actions that rupture the current social and
political structures in society (Hoggett 2001). He suggests that people challenge existing
social, cultural and political institutions and structures with the intention of creating a new
social order. The children featured in the emblematic case studies demonstrate agency that
seeks both “first-order” and “second-order” change when they draw on the personal,
relational, community and cultural resources to which they have access in order to “do well”.

valentine (2011) points out that studies of children’s agency have primarily focused on
competence and rationality in order to progress the argument that children are entitled to civic
and political participation. Without contesting the sentiments of these studies, she argues that
they offer a limited view of agency that overlooks the complexity of children’s lives:
“Children’s agency must be carefully conceptualised to accommodate, first, the specificity of
different children’s lives, second, what is shared between children, and finally what is
universal to children and adults” (valentine 2011, p. 348).

valentine (2011) points out that children’s agency must be understood in the context of
diverse lives in adult-centric societies in which they are subject to the authority and power of
adults. Redmond (2008) observes that some expressions of children’s agency are sanctioned
by adults while others are seen as transgressing societal expectations of children’s behaviour.
His findings reflect similar themes to valentine when he suggests that children’s agency is
expressed within the social and political context of their lives:

Like poor adults, all children experience “othering” to a greater or lesser extent
simply because of their status as children. Moreover, they are for the most part
explicitly excluded from political processes, and while they may sometimes be
listened to regarding issues that directly affect them as children, they are not generally
considered to have a voice in big-picture politics or community activism. (Redmond
2008, p. 9)

In many societies, conceptions of childhood are based on the notion that children are
inherently vulnerable due to their incomplete development and supposed lack of capacity
(Mayall 2002, Prout & James 2015). Enshrined in domestic and international legislative

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instruments including the UNCRC, the notion of evolving capacities recognises that children
require a specific policy response in order to protect their rights (Mayall 2000). In the
Western world, perceptions of incomplete development and vulnerability have been
associated with an increasingly forensic approach to child protection, with interventions
designed to ensure normative development (Daniel 2010). Some categories of children who
are assessed at higher risk than others have been subject to restrictive policy interventions
(Bordonaro 2012). In both Minority World and Majority World countries such as the
Philippines, oppressive public policy measures are founded on both the perceived extreme
vulnerability and the criminality of street-involved children (Bar-On 1997, Republic of the
Philippines 2012, Bahay Tuluyan 2014).

“Othering” describes the processes used by those in positions of power and privilege to
separate themselves from those who are poor and marginalised (Lister 2004). The theoretical
foundations of “Othering” emerged from postcolonial, sociological and feminist studies that
have examined unequal power relationships in society (Said 1985, Spivak 1985, DeBeauvior
1997, Jensen 2011). In his landmark study of Orientalism, Said (1985) argued that “Othering”
is a multidimensional construct that accounts for processes of social differentialising based on
race, class and gender. He observed that Western discourse about the Orient is based on
European values and assumptions that serve to justify colonisation and imperialism (Said
1985). Subsequent studies in relation to ethnicity, race and identity have also examined the
construction of “self” and “other” and how they inform structures of power and oppression in
society (Jensen 2010, Scharff 2011). De Beauvoir (1997) first introduced the concept in
feminist discourse by suggesting that men occupy the position of the “self” in society, while
women are constructed as the “Other” and thus denied status and power. The
multidimensional nature of “Othering” has also been associated with the concept of
“intersectionality”, which explores interlocking systems of oppression in society (Hovorka
2012, Christensen & Jensen 2014).

The concept of “Othering” has been examined in relation to social, political and economic
processes by which people in poverty are demarcated from other people in mainstream
society (Lister 2004, Krumer-Nevo & Benjamin 2010, Chauhan & Foster 2014). Studies of
neoliberal ideology have emphasised the role of individual choice and responsibility,
informing public discourse that identifies a pathological and dysfunctional “underclass” as an
unintended consequence of the welfare state (Lister 2004, Martin 2004, Tyler 2013, Crossley

190
2016). In this context, studies of resilience have emphasised the creativity and agency of
individuals who are experiencing disadvantage. Conversely however, Othering has been
observed to be a basis for public policy approaches that “blame the victim” when they are
unable to succeed (Seccombe 2002, Hall & Lamont 2013).

“Othering” is a multi-systemic construct, including exclusionary experiences caused by

everyday social stigma, as well as oppressive government policy and legal processes that
stigmatise and stereotype people who live in poverty (Lister 2004). Postmodern analysis of
public policy highlights the discursive language and binaries that shape public discourse and
public policy problems (Bacchi 2009). Images of those who are “Othered” are pervasive in
language, attitudes and actions that present those who live in conditions of poverty as poor,
threatening, undesirable or objects of pity (Lister 2004). Skattebol et al. (2012) draw on
Lister to point out that, as exemplified in the works of Charles Dickens, “Othering” presents
images of rich and poor people living in separate communities with the poor having their own
habits and customs that threaten mainstream society.

When describing the concept, Lister (2004) describes how people who live in conditions of
poverty are often described as either helpless victims or lazy, unable or unwilling to change
their circumstances of depravation. In addition to being portrayed as threatening to society,
the poor can also be presented as “good” people who have fewer resources but are passive
and helpless (Lister 2004, Skattebol, Saunders et al. 2012). Both characterisations serve to
stigmatise and establish social distance between those who are poor and those who are not.
The process of “Othering” enables the exclusion of those who are blamed for social
problems.

Lister (2004, p. 116) notes that, in addition to the discursive construction of the “undeserving
poor”, those who live in conditions of poverty are alternatively portrayed as “deserving” or
“heroic survivors” which both serve to “Other” them from the mainstream population. Public
opinion, media outlets and policy can depict people living in conditions of poverty as
helpless, pathetic and in urgent need of rescue. As consumers of media and public opinion,
those who live in conditions of poverty may also experience stigma and shame that impacts
on their self-concept (Lister 2004). Redmond (2009) observes that children experience social
exclusion when they are unable to access resources available to other children due to the
economic circumstances of their parents. This study also suggests that children exclude

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themselves via mechanisms such as truancy and drug use, in order to manage shame and
stigma associated with poverty (Redmond 2008).

In both the Minority and Majority Worlds, children who live and work on the street are
categorised as “street children” and are distanced from the mainstream societies in which
they live (McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005). The differentiation from mainstream society
enables them to be subject to oppressive social policy that alternatively positions them as
“victims” who require rescue and criminals who require incarceration (Panter-Brick 2002,
Grugel & Ferreira 2012). Both conceptions serve to disregard the agency of children who live
and work on the streets, suggesting they require either protection or constraint (Bar-On
1997). The category of “street children” has been observed to be a powerful label that
stigmatises children and is an inadequate description of their lives, instead serving to
homogenise their experiences (Panter‐brick 2004). The term has been observed to fuel public
discourse that associates such children with criminality and positions them as a threat to civil
society (Ennew & Swart-Kruger 2003).

In this study, children identified the stigma associated with being a “street child” as a source
of shame as well as the basis of an emerging collective consciousness that motivates them to
engage in acts of resistance. In the Philippines, researchers who have undertaken qualitative
research have found that children are aware that society does not like them and that they are
unwelcome in public spaces (Pomm 2005, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014). Ribeiro and
Trench Ciampone (2001) have observed that children who live and work on the street are
subject to verbal, physical and sexual abuse by adults and other children, based on the public
perception that they are a social menace. Victimisation and exposure to violence in the street
environment at the hands of adults has been shown to be a common experience for such
children (Ali 2011, Reza 2017).

In the Philippines, street children are “Othered” when they are associated with criminality.
This legitimises extreme forms of government intervention. Multiple legislative provisions
criminalise street children via acts of violence that are explicitly sanctioned in the law, or by
empowering vigilante groups whose transgressions will be overlooked. “Curfew” is the
legislative provision that prohibits children who are unaccompanied by adults from being out
in public between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am (Bea 2017). “Rescue” is a policy that removes
children from the streets and places them in protective custody, ostensibly in their own best
interests (Bahay Tuluyan 2014). All children presented in the emblematic case studies in this

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thesis were aware of the policy of “rescue” and named it as one of the adverse conditions of
street life. Angelica spoke of an incident in which her brother was arrested and taken to a
“child’s jail”. Jasmine understands the physical removal of children from the streets as
indicative of children’s rights not being upheld when they are denied control over their own
bodies. The children featured in the emblematic case studies are aware of being “Othered”
via the broader policy response to street children.

Gabriel’s case study demonstrates his awareness of being “Othered” when he spoke about the
war on drugs and extra-judicial killings of street children. Street-involved children have been
noted to be both a target and “collateral damage” of the war on drugs, being victims of
accidental shootings as well as orphaned after the deaths of their parents (Holmes 2016).
Such policies criminalise the lives and day-to-day behaviours in which street children
regularly engage (Bar-On 1997). Thus, oppressive policies in the Philippines serve to
demarcate street-involved children from law-abiding citizens, who are encouraged to feel safe
due to the harsh law-and-order platform employed by the government (Reyes 2016).

To summarise, this thesis will argue that street-involved children in the Philippines are
marginalised from mainstream society and engage in individual and collective acts of agency
as they counteract this experience of “Othering”. The current body of resilience literature
mostly overlooks children’s collective acts of political agency and fails to account for their
shared social and political circumstances. The following sections will consider how each of
the children featured in the emblematic case studies resist the effects of “Othering” by
mainstream Filipino society. This chapter will argue that these represent diverse types of
political agency as expressions of resilience that are currently under-examined in the
resilience discourse.

5.3 Angelica: “Doing Well” via “Getting Out”: Facilitating Resilience via Compliance
with Filipino Constructions of Childhood

This thesis suggests that children consider themselves to be resilient when they manage
circumstances of “adversity” and travel towards their self-identified conception of “doing
well”. The study findings suggest children’s conceptions of “doing well” are diverse and
include both compliance with and transgression against culturally normative expectations of
children. Lister (2004, p. 144) defines “getting out” as “a mix of resistance and
accommodation” when people who live in situations of poverty comply with mainstream

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conceptions of success by using structural and cultural resources. Angelica perceives “doing
well” as meeting cultural norms associated with expectations of female children. In the
Philippines, women are traditionally assumed to be wives and mothers, responsible for
domestic duties and nurturance of children. Female children adhere to strong codes of moral
behaviour and spend the majority of their time at home or at school (Liwag, De la Cruz &
Macapagal 1998).

This section will demonstrate that Angelica’s conception of “doing well” includes
demonstrating personal attributes associated with resilient children in Filipino society. She
makes strategic plans to “get out” poverty via utilising those resources that are available to
her. Angelica’s conception of doing well was paralleled in themes raised by other children in
the sample. Children discussed “doing well” in the context of their in-group relationships
when they aspired to have adequate resources by which they themselves, and their families
could survive. Perceptions of a good life included access to education as a means of
achieving their dreams to reunite their families separated due to circumstances of extreme
poverty, as well as a mechanism by which to honour relationships of mutual obligation.

Figure 5.2 shows Jean’s drawing of a rainbow to indicate a “good life” in which she could
finish her studies. She wrote: “I want to finish my studies in BT [Bahay Tuluyan] and buy my
own house together with my family and to achieve my dreams. Thank you.”

Figure 5.2: Jean’s Illustration of “Doing Well”

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The actions of Angelica, Jean and some of the other children are reminiscent of Hoggett’s
(2001) notion of “first order” change when she seeks to change her life, and that of her
family, by drawing on resources that are available and appropriate for children in Filipino
society (Hoggett 2001).

Figure 5.1 shows that “getting out” falls within the personal/strategic quadrant, representing
personal and strategic decisions to overcome adversity and “do well” (Lister 2004). For Lister
(2004) “getting out” characterises actions that subscribe to conventional notions of success
and personal achievement (Lister 2004). Expressions of agency in this quadrant often involve
accessing structural resources in society that provide socially sanctioned pathways out of
poverty, including employment and education. As discussed in Chapter 4, Angelica was
marginalised when she was forced to become a street child after the breakdown of her
immediate family and the inability of her extended family to provide for her. Forced to live
away from her mother at Bahay Tuluyan, Angelica resolved to “get out” of poverty via the
strategic use of personal, relational and community resources that comply with culturally
normative expectations of “healthy functioning” in children. Her plan is to make use of the
resources available to her in order to reunify her family and observe her relationships of
mutual obligation. Angelica also draws on her relationship with God as a means of living a
life that is consistent with expectations of children in the Philippines.

5.3.1 Demonstrating Personal Attributes of a “Resilient Child”

According to Lister (2004), “getting out” of poverty depends on an interplay between

personal agency and the cultural and social structures afforded to individuals by the
mainstream society in which they live. Angelica perceives herself as resilient when she
demonstrates personal attributes that are associated with Filipino conceptions of “healthy
functioning” in children, as suggested in the Filipino resilience literature (Banaag 1997,
Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001, Banaag 2016). As demonstrated in Chapter 2, “healthy
functioning” in children is defined in the Filipino literature as managing to distance
themselves from dysfunctional behaviour by having a sense of morality, an observance of
relationships of mutual obligation, harmonious interpersonal relationships and religiosity.
Angelica demonstrates a commitment to her family and an observance of relationships of
mutual obligation which are highly valued in Filipino society. Angelica’s goal is to reunify

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her family, and this requires that she study hard and get a well-paid job. With a well-paid job,
Angelica can buy a house that is “big and safe for children” as well as a “Ford” or a “Pajero”,
foreign-made cars that are a mark of status and success. Angelica hopes that one day having a
well-paid job will be a means by which she can send her siblings to school. In her “talk and
draw” art activity, Angelica identifies that she would like to become a “teacher,” “doctor” or
“accountant” and writes “reach my dream house.”

In order to reach this goal, Angelica obeys her mother and lives at Bahay Tuluyan so that she
can go to school, demonstrating observance of age-based hierarchies that are dominant in
Filipino families (Alampay and Jocson 2011, Barrera 2017). Her prioritisation of her family’s
needs as well as her commitment to get them out of poverty is reflective of Filipino values in
which the wellbeing of the family is prioritised and children are economic contributors
(Banaag 1997, Alampay & Jocson 2011).

The Filipino literature suggests a culturally specific conception of agency via “adaptive
distancing” that describes the capacity of children to separate themselves from undesirable
environments and relationships that encourage delinquency. In Banaag’s study, resilient street
children devote energies towards “socially approved activities” and resist undesirable
behaviours such as “begging, stealing, lying, fighting, drug use, and prostitution” (Banaag
1997, p. 9). Similarly, Bautista, Roldan and Garces-Bacsal (2001a) echo this theme when
they suggest that resilient children solve problems via socially acceptable means such as
studying or seeking advice from friends (Bautista & Rolder 2001). In this study, managing to
retain a “good and wholesome character” was an important indicator of a resilient street child
(Bautista & Rolder 2001). Angelica equates “doing well” with observance of moral norms
that reflect traditional Filipino values. She rejects delinquent behaviour, perceiving criminal
activity, drug use and gang related activities as undesirable:

When I saw someone use drugs, I always tell myself, don’t do that because … it will
take away the better life that you can have. Drugs can ruin your mind, and also make
a defect of your life. It is a crime, and the police catch them and put them in jail.
Using drugs is a crime.

Similarly, other children in the study emphasised the importance of resisting crime and vice.
Joshua explained that unlike the street-involved children that he “sees outside”, engaging in
these behaviours, he has made a decision to “change his ways” and will not engage in these
activities in the future so that he can have a “good life”.

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Kyla, presented in detail in Section 5.6 described her commitment to upholding standards of
morality and to reject “vice” associated with street life. As a small child, she joined a group
of children living together under a pier, but carefully selected the children she befriended.
Unlike Jasmine, Kyla did not join a bakarda but chose to keep herself separate:

I didn’t always go with the bakarda. I like having friends. But I am picky since I was
a small child. I didn’t want a bakarda that keeps on drinking, smoking, those. The
other friends on the pier that does solvent, gambling, begging, I encourage them to go
to the places where the social worker teaches the children. I was encouraged and
inspired by them.

She perceived her ability to not engage in the vices and temptations of the street as a strength:
“I prevented myself not to lose direction, not to be one of my friends who are already
pregnant, doing drugs, imprisoned.”

Like Joshua and Kyla, Angelica considers herself resilient because she can observe behaviour
that is socially acceptable in children and resist engaging in crime and drug use associated
with street life. She ascribes importance to observing cultural norms of morality and
demonstrates “adaptive distancing” when she resists the temptations of drug use and other
undesirable activities, which she associates with poor life outcomes.

Angelica nominated her relationship with God as an important component of “doing well”
that helped her comply with cultural and religious norms. In the majority world, observance
of religion has been found to strengthen children’s resilience by offering a set of values on
which to base one’s life (Gunnestad & Thwala 2011). Angelica described how she enjoys
listening to the priest. She believes that the “lessons” provide her with a strong moral
foundation for a good life. In the Philippines, a strong faith is seen as providing a child with a
moral framework that guides both choices and behaviour (Bautista & Rolder 2001). This
includes ignoring the urge to seek retribution or revenge on people who have harmed them
and rejecting opportunities to commit crime and engage in illegal acts (Banaag 2016).

Several of the young men who participated in the study had previously been involved in gang
related activity and explained how they draw on God to help them behave in ways that are
more socially acceptable. Jezz explained that now he is a resident at Bahay Tuluyan he “goes
to church and prays” that he can “change his life”. He expressed regret regarding his previous
behaviour including his involvement in “riots” and “fights with bottles and knives”. He
explained that his faith in God helps him lead a “good life” that is free of violence.

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In the Philippines, street-involved children are considered by mainstream society to be
socially undesirable and are strongly associated with criminality and delinquent behaviour,
including acts of aggression (Banaag 2016). Angelica suggested that “doing well” includes
observing modes of harmonious personal interactions that are the essence of being a “good
Filipino”. Angelica draws on culturally normative modes of interpersonal relations that she
associates with having a “good life” and escaping poverty.

Angelica values smooth interpersonal relationships and the absence of conflict. The cultural
value of “pakikisama” describes prioritising the choices and needs of others (Lynch, cited in
Reyes 2015). The closely associated value of “pakikrandam” describes indirect
communication and “relational sensitivity”, which involves understanding another person’s
situation (Pe-Pua 2006)

Angelica demonstrated her use of relational sensitivity when she talked about her friends:

Before I think of myself, first I think of my friend if she’s ok. When I have a problem
and I cry, she always cry, she is like my family. When I have a fight with the other
kids, she help me. She also fight with that kid.

The Filipino psychological tradition emerged in response to the growing influence of the
Western psychological discipline that positioned traditional modes of interaction as negative
(Pe-Pua 2006). The Filipino psychological tradition has identified the unique cultural
attributes of Filipino people from the perspective of the Filipino. Important interpersonal
attributes include “pakikisama”, the Tagalog. term that describes the ability of an individual
to go along with the will of the group and avoid confrontations. (Pe-Pua 2006) The associated
value of “pakikrandam” emphasises the importance of indirect communication. It refers to
the important skill of reading and understanding another person’s situation and responding
appropriately (Pe-Pua 2006). “Utang na loob” is sometimes translated as a “debt of gratitude”
and describes the debt of goodwill that a person acquires when they are the recipients of
assistance given by another person (De Castro 1998).

Angelica identified these values as important mechanisms that enable her to do well in life.
She described how she demonstrates these values when she displays sympathy for her friends
and feels their pain deeply, as if it were her own. She can resolve conflicts by “putting her
pride down” and observing her debt of gratitude to people who have helped her. She also
prioritises the needs of her family above her own and upholds her “debt of gratitude” towards
her mother by caring for her siblings while she lives at Bahay Tuluyan.

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Similarly, other children in the study demonstrated compliance with unique Filipino values.
Nicole described her perception of “pakikisama”, when she was able to “just don’t worry”
when she gets into arguments with her roommates at Bahay Tuluyan. Similarly, Jasmine,
discussed in more detail in Section 5.4, described her perception of “Utang na loob” towards
the “nanays of Bahay Tuluyan” who are “like family” and provide her with food and a place
to sleep. Thus, Angelica and the other study participant demonstrates compliance with
cultural values regarding resilient children and draws on these values as resources that will
help her escape from the effects of marginalisation.

5.3.2 “Getting Out” via Compliance with the “Rules of the Game”

Angelica undertakes strategic decisions to facilitate her plan to “get out” of poverty within
the rules of behaviour and outcomes that are valued in children in Filipino society. Angelica
observes the “rules of the game” in order to achieve social mobility and “get out” of poverty.
Lareau (2015) highlights that understanding the “rules of the game” requires economic
resources as well as culturally specific knowledge and skills that enable the navigation of
institutions. Lareau (2015) suggests that by utilising cultural knowledge children and young
people can overcome obstacles and navigate social structures such as schools and educational
institutions in order to achieve social mobility and thus facilitate better life outcomes. Thus
compliance with the “rules of the game” can be a mechanism to “get out” of poverty by
drawing on those resources that are available.

Despite centuries of colonisation, and the more recent influence of globalisation, the
Philippines is a collectivist society (Church 1987, Banaag 2016). Collectivist societies are
characterised by close social relations in which people distinguish between in-groups and out-
groups, expecting their in-groups to provide care and material support in exchange for loyalty
(Hofstede 2003). In collectivist cultures the goals of the individual are subordinate to the
goals of the “in-group” (Triandis et al. 1988). This principle governs the actions of
individuals, even when commitment to the group goal appears to be excessively difficult and
requires personal sacrifice (Taras, Sarala et al. 2014). Angelica wishes she could live with her
mother, even if that means living on the streets. However, she resides at Bahay Tuluyan so
that she can go to school as part of her long-term plan to support her family. In this, she
prioritises the needs of her family over her own wishes and thus demonstrates compliance
with Filipino social and cultural norms (Hoggett 2001).

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Lister (2004) notes that “getting out” of poverty is difficult, with children and adults who live
in impoverished conditions encountering multiple barriers to success. Lister (2004) notes that
poor people can experience poor physical and mental health, which impacts on their ability to
access education and employment. Further, employment can be low paid or insecure and thus
not offer a sustainable pathway out of poverty. Filipino studies have identified multiple
barriers to street-involved children attending school (DeGraff, Bilsborrow et al. 1996,
Bautista & Rolder 2001, Hindin 2005, Bessell 2007). Economic barriers identified include
families needing to rely on the child to generate an income or being too poor to be able to pay
for school supplies and compulsory entrance tests. Social barriers identified include issues of
gender whereby girls who live in authoritarian households have been found to be less likely
to attend school (Hindin 2005).

Thus, as Lister (2004) suggests, “getting out” of poverty is difficult and relies on children
overcoming the odds that are stacked against them. Angelica presents herself as resilient
when she makes choices and personal sacrifices to overcome her barriers to school
attendance. Her choice to stay at Bahay Tuluyan is integral to overcoming barriers to
attending school and, to this end, she rationalises her choice and her behaviours. In the
Philippines, poor children face multiple barriers to attending school. Many children from
poor families undertake informal work rather than attending school in order to earn an
income for their families. Poor parents are often unable to pay the cost of school uniforms,
books and school supplies. Furthermore, school attendance is dependent on having a birth
certificate which, due to the expense of obtaining one at birth, many poor children do not
have. In addition to these barriers, schools vary in quality, with many lacking basic resources
such as electricity, desks and chairs and staffed by inexperienced and poorly renumerated
teachers (Florido 2006). These conditions that prohibit children from achieving a high-quality
education support Lister’s (2004) assertion that the rules of the game, designed by those in
positions of power, are often staked against those who are “Othered” by mainstream society.
Angelica relies on Bahay Tuluyan to help overcome these disadvantages by paying her
school fees and providing her with a safe place to live that enables her to study. The role of
community agencies in providing informal learning environments as pathways towards
formal education for poor children has been recognised in the literature (Bernard & Este
2005). Angelica’s case study suggests that some children strive to use the “rules of the game”
to overcome adversity and “do well”.

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5.3.3 A Reflexive Plan to “Get Out” of Poverty

Angelica perceives herself to be resilient as she has a well-considered plan by which to “get
out” of poverty. Angelica presents herself as a reflexive agent when she thinks deeply about
her strategy, which she discusses and agrees with her mother, and commits to actions that
will ultimately facilitate her social and economic mobility. Giddens (1984) argues that
individuals engage in a continuous flow of conduct and cognition that creates structures and
institutions that both enable and constrain agency. Structuration theory suggests that human
beings are reflexive agents who, via their choices and actions, demonstrate knowledge
regarding the rules of the society in which they live. Giddens (1984) argues that human
beings demonstrate both practical and discursive consciousness via their actions and their
capacity to explain those actions.

Giddens (1984) argues that the “acting self” involves rationalising actions and is the basis for
judging the competence of the individual. Angelica demonstrates practical consciousness
when she describes herself as a competent child and makes plans to “get out” of poverty by
drawing on the structural resources in society that are available to her. Angelica provides a
reasoned account of her dedication to her studies and academic success as a mechanism to get
a well-paid job and support her family (Giddens 1984). Angelica also demonstrates her
engagement in an interactive process, demonstrating a flow of reflexive monitoring,
rationalisation and motivation, as she also chooses to observe fidelity to cultural values that
prioritise family relationships and uphold standards of morality and religiosity (Giddens
1984). Angelica is a “typical” resilient child, as defined in the Filipino resilience literature,
who prioritises her family, personal morality and her relationship with God as mechanisms by
which she will overcome adversity and “do well”.

5.3.4 Seeking “First-Order” Change

Angelica perceives school and her future employment as mechanisms to facilitate “first-
order” change in her own life and the life of her family, within the social, economic and
political constraints that are available to her (Hoggett 2001).

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 Figure 5.3: Angelica’s Talk and Draw Activity

In her “talk and draw” activity, Angelica wrote “when I grow up” and nominated being a
“doctor”, “accountant” and “teacher”. She also drew a school at the edge of the page and
wrote in English “study here”, with an arrow. Thus, in her drawing, Angelica’s perception of
“doing well” is revealed to centre on studying as a means of getting a well-paid job to support
her family. Thus, Angelica seeks to radically alter the lives of herself and her family within
the resources which she is able to access. In the Filipino literature that has studied the
resilience of street-involved children, school attendance is emphasised as a mechanism to
facilitate strategic pathways away from the streets (Banaag 1997, Bautista, Roldan & Garces-
Bacsal 2001a, Banaag 2016). Angelica constructs herself as resilient when she describes
herself as a good student who works hard to attain good academic results.

In Philippine society, school is seen as a critical means of improving the long-term financial
position of families (Tuason 2010, Chaudhury, Okamura et al. 2012). For wealthy children,
this translates as high academic performance and admittance into prestigious international
universities. For poor children, completing primary school studies is critical to enabling the
child to find a well-paid job in the future (DeGraff, Bilsborrow et al. 1996). Poor parents hold
high aspirations for children, with school attendance considered a mark of status (Tuason &
Friedlander 2000). Many poor families make sacrifices to enable their children to attend

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school with the intention that they will find pathways out of poverty for the entire family
(Tuason & Teresa 2013).

Other participants in the study also shared Angelica’s perception, relating education with a
future job and the ability to support their family. Andreas explained to the researcher that he
is sad that he is separated from his family, however, when he sees them they “tell me to be
strong, that we will be together again, and that (at Bahay Tuluyan) I should finish my studies
so we can live in a house with electricity.” He suggests that school is an important
mechanism by which he can support his family in the future by providing a comfortable
home. Likewise, Kyla’s perception of “doing well” included studying and getting a job to be
able support her family. She revealed that she uses the small income she earns at her
traineeship at Bahay Tuluyan to enable her siblings to attend school so that they can have “a
better future.”

Kyla, who is discussed in more detail in Section 5.6, described her role model who had
managed to find a good life through accessing education:

My friend who was at Pier South. Like me. She was also a street child. Maybe since
she was born. And then, she had a Lolo that had a bad attitude. Her schooling was
halted a lot of times. She only got as far as grade five. Then she had a boyfriend. We
thought she was pregnant but thank God she didn’t get pregnant. Then we talked to
her, because her mom also had a problem, she was a [drug] user and stole.

“Bad attitude” is a euphemism for sexual abuse. Kyla described how her friend’s journey
towards a “good life” began when she accessed an outreach program and engaged in
education:

After one year at the Foundation, we both took our accelerated alternative learning
system and she passed. Then now she is in school. Her course is in education. She still
hasn’t graduated but she picked a decision that’s good for her, good for her family.

Thus, Kyla considers education to be intricately related to supporting her family.

Angelica perceives that without an education, street-involved children have “no hope” and
will be “unable to reach their dreams”. Her ability to access school however is dependent on
her residing at Bahay Tuluyan which pays for poor children to attend school.

Lister (2004) points out the “rules of the game” are not fair, with structural resources that
enable people to escape from poverty often inaccessible to those who are poor. Structural
resources such as education are better suited to middle-class families who have high levels of

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social, cultural and economic capital to navigate and negotiate the “rules of the game”
(Lareau, Adia Evans et al. 2016). The “rules of the game” are designed by those in power
who seek to maintain their advantage and privileged access to resources. In the Minority
World, school attendance and academic attainment have been noted to be important resources
that facilitate economic success for middle-class and poor children (Bernard & Este 2005).
Likewise in the Majority World, school has been identified as an important mechanism that
facilitates resilience in populations of street-involved children by providing access to
supportive relationships, safe environments and the facilitation of skill development (Brooks
2006, Malindi & Machenjedze 2012). However, studies of children in the Majority World
recognise the multiple barriers that inhibit poor children from attending school and therefore
prevent them from accessing school as a protective resource in the community (Gilligan
2000, Malindi & Machenjedze 2012).

5.3.5 “Getting Out” Summary

Angelica constructs her own perception of resilience when she employs the strategic use of
personal, relational and community resources in ways that comply with culturally normative
expectations of “healthy functioning” in children in order to “get out” of poverty. In Lister’s
(2004) taxonomy, “getting out” involves drawing on structural resources in society in order to
find pathways out of poverty in ways that are considered legitimate and desirable. Angelica is
using the rules of the game to pursue “first-order change” when she seeks to improve her own
life circumstances, and those of her family (Hoggett 2001). She does this by making long-
term strategic plans to study hard and get a well-paid job, as well as immediate plans to work
and earn money, which enables the family to reunify.

In Filipino society, socially approved structures that support children to escape poverty
include education and employment, as well as fidelity to cultural values that prioritise family
relationships of mutual obligation and standards of morality and religiosity. Angelica
demonstrates her capacity as a reflexive agent when she engages in personal and strategic
actions in order to support her family and resist the effects of poverty and marginalisation in
ways that are culturally normative in Filipino society. Angelica’s efforts demonstrate “first-
order” change as she seeks to make changes to her life circumstances and that of her family
by drawing on socially approved means of social mobility that are available to her. This
chapter suggests that children perceive the components of resilience – “adversity” and “doing
well” – in highly nuanced ways that are formed within complex social, economic, political

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and cultural contexts (Panter-Brick 2015). Angelica’s perceptions of “adversity” and “doing
well” are shared by other children who participated in this study including Andreas, Nicole,
Kyla and Jasmine, and are consistent with those in the Filipino resilience literature (Bautista,
Roldan et al. 2001, Banaag 2016).

5.4 Jasmine: “Doing Well” via “Getting By”: Facilitating Resilience via Relationships

Jasmine’s perception of “doing well” involves “getting by,” coping with self-identified
circumstances of adversity via habitual strategies that help her manage the effects of poverty
and marginalisation. Jasmine’s perception of “adversity” concerned inadequate resources by
which to survive and included her inability to access emotional and material resources due to
the rejection of her mother and her extended family. Her key mechanism for coping with this
adversity concerned her creation of an extensive network of “like family” relationships in the
community with both children and adults who provide her with love, friendship and
belonging to an “in group” in the context of a collectivist society. She also draws on her
relationship with God to manage the challenges in her life caused by extreme poverty and
deprivation.

In Lister’s (2004) taxonomy, “getting by” describes day-to-day expressions of resistance

against deprivation and marginalisation. “Getting by” falls in the personal/everyday quadrant
of Figure 5.1 and is described as the commonplace activities in which people engage as part
of a “fight to keep going” and manage the effects of poverty. Lister (2004) argues that people
who live in poverty have complex portfolios of assets which they can draw on in order to “get
by”. The mundane acts associated with “getting by” are often overlooked as acts of resistance
but, regardless, represent the creative capacity of marginalised individuals as they plan,
prioritise and make sacrifices in order to survive (Lister 2004).

Jasmine’s efforts to “get by” are barely remarkable as she goes around her daily life,
engaging in strategies and actions that are not overtly associated with resilience in children in
Filipino society. Redmond (2009) suggests children employ everyday strategies to assist their
families to manage the effects of poverty and that these are often overlooked as overt
expressions of agency. Children, he suggests, engage in a range of strategies to manage
circumstances of deprivation by saving pocket money, participating in domestic chores, or
engaging in free activities, as well as taking care not to ask their parents to provide resources
that cost money (Redmond 2009). In a study of how children manage chronic illness,

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Dedding et al. (2015) point out that children’s actions and decisions often take place outside
the view of adults, and as such children’s agency is “hidden” from their parents and
caregivers. Similarly, Jasmine’s case study highlights children’s day-to-day efforts to manage
the effects of marginalisation, which are often overlooked and remain unidentified as acts of
agency or acts associated with resilience.

5.4.1 Relationships as Opportunity Structures

To “get by” Jasmine establishes multiple and intergenerational “like family” relationships
with adults and children that enable her to access resources that she considers important to
“do well”. As discussed in Section 2.3, in Ungar’s social-ecological approach to resilience
“opportunity structures” are defined as resources that are available and accessible to the child,
within themselves, and in their relationships, community and culture (Ungar 2012, Ungar,
Ghazinour et al. 2013).

During the child-led tour, Jasmine pointed out multiple children and adults in the community
who helped her overcome difficulties by providing physical, emotional and spiritual care.
This included street venders who fed her when she was hungry and neighbours whom she
could ask for help if she needed it. Jasmine identified the staff at Bahay Tuluyan as helping
her when she needed it most. She named youth facilitators, house parents and social workers
who have become “like family”. These “like family” relationships were evident when
children and adults used familial names such as “nanay” (mother) and “ate” (sister). Jasmine
explained this: “I’m very comfortable here. Because we have lots of children. We have house
parent, mother, and when I first came here they said, call me ‘Ate’ (big sister). Oh call me
‘Nanay’ (mother).”

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Similarly, other children in the complete study sample talked about their “like family”
relationships at Bahay Tuluyan.

Figure 5.4: Mary Anne’s Drawing of “Doing Well”

Mary Anne completed this drawing and described it as “those who help me be strong and
endure”. She drew a smiling face that she named “me”, and identified “God”, “family”,
“friends”, “BT family”, “Taong Nakapaligig Sakin (people around me)” and “boyfriend”.
During her child-led tour, Mary Anne explained that the people at Bahay Tuluyan are “like
family”. She said the social workers “treat the children like their own children and they look
after us”. She showed the researcher the kitchen, sleeping quarters and recreation area that
includes a book collection where she reads and does her homework. It was in these homelike
domains where she explained she “felt the love a family”.

Likewise, on her child-led tour, Miguel described “being scared” when she first walked
through the gates of Bahay Tuluyan but was reassured when she realised the people “are nice
and kind … like a family”. Miguel said that at Bahay Tulyan she “is safe” and that the social
workers “love the children, I can see”. Similarly, Andreas revealed that he is thankful for the
staff at Bahay Tuluyan who are like “second parents” in that they “guide us and help us
where we want to go in life, they help us go to school, they take care of us, they give us
experience of working on the farm”. Marcos also described Bahay Tuluyan as “like a

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family”. He explained his perception of “like family” as being “in a house that is happy but
chaotic. We eat together and help each other.”

In the dominant construction of resilience, relationships with families, peer groups and in
schools have been observed to be key structures within societies that are protective and
enable children to achieve normative growth and development (Masten & Garmezy 1985,
Rutter 1985, Benard 1991, Werner 2000). For example, in a qualitative study conducted with
Chinese students, young people’s conceptions of resilience were interwoven with cultural
beliefs such as the importance of familial bonds in the context of an under-developed social
welfare system (Li, Bottrell et al. 2017).

Opportunity structures have been investigated in the lives of children and young people, with
formal and informal structures identified as important resources that support the health and
development of children (Cooper, Jackson et al. 1998, Borchorst 2009, Skattebol, Saunders et
al. 2012, Lehmann, Taylor et al. 2015).

Opportunity structures refer to the resources that exist: in the sphere of the
market, through labour market participation opportunities; in the sphere of
state, through benefits and redistribution (safety-nets and other state-provided
resources); and in the sphere of mutual support opportunities, through social
networks that might be available to and permit the integration of citizens.
(Skattebol et al. 2012, p. 50)

This approach suggests that opportunity structures are contextual and are impacted by
geographic location and the dynamics of social exclusion that operate within the social
ecology in which the child lives (Skattebol, Saunders et al. 2012, Skattebol, Redmond et al.
2017). This approach to opportunity structures overtly acknowledges inequality in the
distribution of resources and the importance of informal opportunity structures for poor
children and their families. In poor families, opportunity structures have been observed to be
less likely to be found in formal institutions, with parents encouraging their children to
demonstrate loyalty to local networks and family relationships (Skattebol, Saunders et al.
2012, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017).

Lister (2004) notes that the ability to build relationships is a critical skill in coping with the
effects of living with limited resources. In studies of street-involved children, relationships
with adults and children have been identified as opportunity structures that enable access to

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resources needed for survival when other resources are unavailable (McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar
& Kironyo 2005; Merrill et al. 2010). Some researchers suggest that street-involved children
cultivate relationships to replace immediate and extended family and to seek a source of love,
belonging, attachment and protection (Mizen and Ofosu-Kusi 2010, Ali 2011, Stablein 2011):
“When homeless street peers turn to one another for help, they do so as a supplement or
replacement to limited or rejected instrumental and emotional supports that exist off the
street, such as family, institutional, and community supports” (Stablein 2011, p. 293).

Jasmine’s “family-like” relationships include a cultural and contextual element that suggests
in part, compliance with cultural values in Filipino society. Jasmine suggested her bakarda is
“like family” in that they help her solve problems and find resources by which to survive:
“When I have a problem, they are the ones I can approach. Sometimes when I’m mad at
someone, when I’m mad at Nanay [mother] pinagbbabati nila kami”. Pinagbbabati nila kami
is a Tagalog term that has no direct English translation. It can be roughly defined as when a
third party influences conflicting parties, and encourages them to settle their differences, but
not necessarily explicitly resolve the problem.

Relationships are an important opportunity structure for Jasmine, enabling her to achieve
group membership and belonging in the context of a collectivist society. She described an
interaction with a friend in which she thanked them for their help in managing a difficult
situation:

“Don’t worry about that, I’m here for you”, she said to me. And I said, “Thank you
for everything.” She said, “Of course, you are my friend.” What help she does for me,
that’s what I also do for her.

Similarly, Lyn described how she was “lost” by her mothers and siblings, and not knowing
their whereabouts caused her to “feel sad and lonely.” Lyn describes her love for the staff and
the children at Bahay Tuluyan who are “like family” because they “feed me and help me with
what I need.”

Lyn described her hope that one day her family would “live at Bahay Tuluyan” as a “big
family”.

Like Lyn, Jasmine was grateful to her social worker as she credited her for helping her leave
the streets of Tondo and being able to reside at Bahay Tuluyan. For Jasmine, the social
worker’s actions equated to a maternal role:

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 I feel very comfortable with her, I really treat her like a mother, my mother, because
she’s also the reason why I’m here at Bahay Tuluyan. She was the one who got me
from Tondo, so I really respect her. That’s why when she’s here, I feel very
comfortable, say my problems, I’m not shy. I know she can help me. I feel light-
hearted with her, I consider her my mother.

Jasmine described being attached to her social worker whom she described as “like a mother”
who could help her solve problems and make her feel happy: “She always makes me laugh.
She makes me happy. And she cares for me, she always hugs me. What I didn’t see in my
mother, I see in her.”

Street-involved children have been observed to develop an informal economy of cooperation

and reciprocal arrangements with their peer groups for the purpose of protection and access to
income-generating activities (Mizen and Ofosu-Kusi 2013). Some studies have observed that
peer groups enable children to give and receive reciprocal supports by teaching each other
skills associated with survival in the streets (Aptekar and Stoecklin 2014).

An important opportunity structure for Jasmine is her “bakarda”. Jasmine has several
bakarda: the friends she has who live on the street, the other child residents at Bahay
Tuluyan, and other children she knows from her early childhood when she lived with her
parents.

Other children also discussed their bakarda as important opportunity structures that provide
them with emotional support as well as access to resources that they need to survive. Jean
described how her friends “keep her strong” and are “like family” because when she speaks
with them, she can “pour out her emotions.” During a child-led tour Jean took the researcher
to a local shopping mall where she likes to spend time with her friends. She explains that her
“bakarda” look after “each other and help” when faced with difficult circumstances. Pointing
to a street vendor, she gave an example of her bakarda “sharing food, running away from
those, like that”. In this, Jean suggests that children look out for each other, providing each
other with protection and resources by which they need to survive.

Social capital has been investigated in the lives of children and young people who are
marginalised from mainstream society (Stephenson 2001, Bottrell 2009a, Deuchar &
Holligan 2010, Moule, Decker & Pyrooz 2013). The concept of social capital typically refers
to the value of social networks established via group norms of behaviour and relationships of
trust that enable access to resources and a buffer against the effects of disadvantage (Bottrell

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2009a). In her study of girls who live in public housing in Sydney, Australia, Bottrell (2007)
found that, while peer groups were perceived by the community to be associated with
delinquency and anti-social behaviour, the girls described their relationships as enabling them
to “stick together” and provided an important source of emotional and practical support that
enabled them to cope with experiences of marginalisation. Jasmine described her bakarda as
important as they give each other love and emotional support as well as access to important
material resources that enable her to survive. Jasmine’s description of her bakarda is
reminiscent of international research regarding the peer groups of street children and social
capital (Bottrell 2009, Stablein 2011).

5.4.1.1 Relationship with God that Enables Coping.

Jasmine also used her relationship with God as an important resource when overcoming
adversity. The Philippines population is deeply religious with most people identifying as
Roman Catholic (Cukur, De Guzman et al. 2004). As identified in Section 2.5.1.3, religiosity
is a major theme in the Filipino resilience literature, with studies suggesting that street
involved children who have a strong relationship with God consider themselves, and are
considered by others, to be resilient. In the Filipino resilience literature faith in a benevolent
God is associated with street-involved children feeling that someone is watching over and
caring for them, despite the hardships they experience (Banaag 2016). A personal faith in
God is also associated with children feeling their lives have purpose, and that difficult events
are part of a coherent plan for their lives (Wartenweiler 2017).

On her child led tour, Jasmine took the researcher to a small chapel where she regularly goes
to pray. In the chapel explained how she prays for herself, her family and all the children of
the world. Jasmine preferred to pray in a church as she believed God is present inside the
church: “This is the place where I am going to pray for all of the world. I am going to pray
like, ‘Lord help the world to change. Help the children eat, to go to school.’”

Jasmine sought comfort from God in telling him her problems, knowing that these problems
would not be shared with others in the community. She used prayer as an opportunity to seek
his help and intervention in solving problems for her: “I have a problem like, ‘God can I have
a request? My mom is sick. Please God make her better.’” By attending church, Angelica is
inspired to persevere despite difficulties in life. She suggested that prayer offers her the
opportunity to contribute towards the safety of her mother and siblings.

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Jasmine’s relationship with God is differentiated from Angelica when she draws on her faith
as a personal support rather than guiding her behaviour to conform with normative
expectations of children in Filipino society. While Angelica draws on religious teaching to
help her make decisions that are associated with healthy functioning in children, Jasmine’s
relationship with God helps her cope with the difficulties of her life. Similarly, other children
who participated in the study identified that God helps them manage the hardship of life.
Charles described his relationship with “Pappa Jesus,” who is “always there” and “helps you
solve problems.” Kyla, discussed in more detail in Section 5.6, described prayer as: “When
you tell your problems to him (God), you will feel lighter, and you can cry your heart out to
him.”

In Mary Anne’s “talk and draw” activity, she wrote a numbered list of factors she associates
with “doing well” in which she nominates “1) the Lord is the one that gives me strength…2)
because he is our father.” In her third point she suggests that God is responsible for giving
children “nanay” (mother) without whom they would not exist. In this list, Mary Anne also
makes reference to trying help other children stop fighting as they are “all family.” Similarly,
Nicole suggests God important source of strength, regularly praying to God to ask for the
safety of her mother and her siblings:

When I go to church, I feel brave, I feel safe, because when I am in church, my

mind always think about God then it always come to my mind that don’t –
never give up, even though there are trials because God is always there to
make you feel strong and to guide you. I pray for my siblings and my mother. I
pray she is safe.

Thus, for Jasmine, and other children who participated in this study, a relationship with God
was an important coping mechanism that enabled them to manage the challenges associated
with poverty and marginalisation. In Lister’s taxonomy (2004), these actions are suggestive
of “getting by,” those mechanisms that represent individual and day to day efforts to manage
the effects of deprivation.

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5.4.2 Day-to-Day Strategies Seeking “First-Order” Change

In her narrative, Jasmine presents a repertoire of day-to-day strategies that enable her to
access emotional and physical resources. Her repertoire of strategies is “short term” and is
suggestive of Hoggett’s (2001) notion of “first-order” change. Jasmine’s actions are
suggestive of Hoggett’s (2001) “first-order agency” as she creates incremental changes to
improve her life by drawing on relationships as opportunities and other short-term strategies
to manage the challenges in her life. Examples of this include Jasmine’s engagement in
income-generating activities such as begging from strangers and washing dishes for street
vendors in exchange for a meal:

See those people, sometimes I wash the dishes … for food and they give me noodles
when they have some left. My friends … we do that sometimes.

Many of the children in the complete study sample described involvement in these activities
as a short-term strategy to improve their own lives and the lives of their families, and to
alleviate the effects of poverty (Hoggett 2001). Reylin described begging in traffic to
generate income and feed her family:

I tap on the window … in the traffic … I ask for coins from those in cars … to feed
my siblings.

Charles explained he did jobs for the police in exchange for food and shelter after running
away from his abusive parents:

I was an errand boy … I swept the cells and gave food to the inmates … they let me
sleep there.

As discussed in Chapter 2, street-involved children are known to engage in a wide range of

income-generating activities such as vending, scavenging, car washing and shoe shining in
order to support their family’s survival (Racelis et al. 2006). These activities are often
opportunistic and offer mechanisms by which they can access basic resources. This informal
work of poor children is characterised by long hours, limited remuneration and exploitation
(Racelis et al. 2006).

Engaging in informal work enabled Jasmine to contribute towards the short-term wellbeing of
her family, which enabled them to “cope” while living in impoverished conditions. Similarly,
other children talked about the importance of earning money by whatever means they were
able. Mary Anne explained: “I help my parents by earning money.” She explained how she

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would go to the local mall and “poke” (beg) passersby for coins. She explained however that
she wants to observe her obligations to support her family: “It is important to help my family
so that we can eat.” Engaging in informal work also enabled Jasmine and Mary Anne to meet
social and cultural expectations of competent children in the Philippines. Banaag (2016)
suggests that Filipino children are proud of contributing towards the family, particularly if
other family members value these activities. In a cross-cultural study that examined
characteristics of “competent” children, Filipino parents described competent children as
those who care for younger siblings and prioritise the needs of their families (Durbrow et al.
2001). Thus, engagement in work enabled Jasmine to improve her immediate life
circumstances and create short-term change in a way that is suggestive of “first-order”
change.

5.4.3 Ambivalent Relationships with Cultural Values and Discursive Power

Jasmine’s reflections on her life expressed her ambivalent relationship with the cultural
values that are dominant in Filipino society. She expressed dual aspirations to comply with
and contravene culturally nuanced notions of “healthy functioning” in children. While
residing at Bahay Tuluyan she described how she can access emotional and relational
resources as well as experience herself as lovable. Relationships also offer her the
opportunity to achieve group membership and belonging, which is highly valued in
collectivist societies. Despite this, Jasmine rejects the opportunity to access the school at
Bahay Tuluyan and often runs away for extended periods to be with her friends on the street.

In arguing for an approach to agency that extends the notion of the liberal, rational subject
Hoggett points out that human beings make decisions for reasons other than their own best
interests:

Choice, then, is not simply something which occurs after reasoned deliberation, most
choices we make are made on impulse in urgent and contingent encounters in which
we have to make on-the-spot decisions as our own and others’ needs, expectations,
phantasies and feelings press in on us. (Hoggett 2001, p. 40)

Skattebol, Redmond and Zizzo (2017) have argued that it is not always clear if children’s
actions and decisions are reflexive, instinctive, or collectively made. (Skattebol, Redmond et
al. 2017) In their study, young people expressed allegiance to the neoliberal notion of the
autonomous self while simultaneously taking action to protect their families and assist them
to manage the impacts of marginalisation and poverty: “Young people’s stories are

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embodied, layered, messy, deadpan, passionate and often biting. They are replete with the
inconsistencies that permeate any narrative of self that seeks to account for more than one
action and more than a single context” (Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo 2017, p. 315).

Jasmine’s reflections on her life are suggestive of Hoggett’s (2001) approach to agency,
which highlights the capacity of people to hold simultaneous explanations and thought
processes about themselves that are not unified:

To say that the self is subject to splitting and fragmentation is to say that we are
several selves, each characterised by a different voice and a different mood, some of
which we identify with and feel close to, some of which seem unfamiliar and alien.
Which self or part of us dominates at any moment in time and initiates action or
makes choices depends upon the social relations we engage in and the roles we take
up. It is because the self that acts or chooses may be unfamiliar to us that it impossible
to say that we do not always know why we do what we do. (Hoggett 2001, p. 41)

Jasmine’s cultivation of relationships is an expression of both discursive resistance and a

desire to comply with values that are dominant in Filipino society. She demonstrates
discursive resistance when she rejects the labels and stigma associated with being unwanted
by her family, as well as being rejected by mainstream Filipino society. Researchers have
pointed out that children express their political agency via micro-actions in everyday life
(Kallio 2009, Bartos 2012). In discussing agency in the lives of children, Kallio (2007, 2009)
observes that the micro-politics of children are often overlooked by adults, who typically only
identify children’s actions as political when they relate to public policy or to large-scale civil
conflicts. These studies discount acts of political agency in private spaces and overlook
children’s capacity for acts of resistance against the effects of marginalisation when they
engage in everyday activities (Kallio 2009).

For Jasmine, relationships represent an important mechanism by which she sees herself as
capable, and able to access resources that she would be otherwise be denied. Jasmine
identifies as a “street child” who is unwelcome in mainstream Filipino society. As a street
child, she described how she is subject to the abuse of adults and other children who deny her
human rights. However, during the child-led tour, other children and adults were observed to
seek out the company of Jasmine, talking and laughing with her as we walked by. Jasmine
described herself as a “funny girl” and uses humour and fun to build her relationships.

Jasmine’s use of relationships as a basis for her self-esteem is reminiscent of Ungar’s (2005a)
discussion of discursive power in the lives of children who are marginalised by mainstream

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society. Children who are labelled dangerous, delinquent, deviant or disordered by adults
who are in control of the health discourse will seek out opportunities to pursue a powerful
concept of self (Ungar 2007). In understanding processes that facilitate resilience in children,
Ungar (2004b) suggests relationships can offer children a powerful opportunity to “perform”
as competent persons who have the capacity to overcome adversity. Via a process of “self-
definition” a child can participate more equitably in social discourse about them. Thus,
Jasmine’s efforts to build relationships are in part an effort to establish a self-concept in
which she is powerful and competent.

However, Jasmine’s efforts extend beyond her self-concept, and are suggestive of efforts to
achieve group membership in the context of a collectivist society. Similar efforts have been
observed in Indonesian studies in which street-involved children were observed to suffer
stigma and social exclusion due to being abandoned by their families and loss of kinship ties
(Beazley 2000). Beazley (2000, p. 169) suggests that children who have lost family
connections are perceived as be “social pariahs infesting the city streets” and that their visible
presence in the street is seen to challenge “the ideological construction of the ideal family,
home, and child”. Beazley (2000) suggests children develop surrogate families to achieve
social inclusion and as a strategy to manage the shame associated with being abandoned by
family. As noted in Chapter 1, despite the centuries of colonisation, collective values and
relationships of reciprocity remain the foundation of social organisation and the core of
personhood in the Philippines (Lasquety-Reyes and Alvarez 2015). Children are expected to
observe family obligations with associated responsibilities superseding all individual interests
(Bautista, Roldan & Garces-Bacsal 2001b). Thus, Jasmine draws on relationships to achieve
belonging in the context of a collectivist society that highly values group membership.

5.4.4 “Getting By” Summary

Jasmine constructs herself as resilient when she overcomes the adverse experience of being
rejected by her family and creates an alternative construction of “doing well” with her “like
family” relationships. In Lister’s (2004) taxonomy, “getting by” includes drawing on social,
economic and political assets that are available to a person who is in poverty. Jasmine creates
“like family” relationships that serve as opportunity structures, enabling her to achieve “first-
order” change (Hoggett 2001).

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However, Jasmine’s conflicting and at times contradictory narrative reflects dual motivations
for her actions and decisions that are difficult to decipher. Jasmine, who is denied access to
important resources such as a supportive family, deliberately cultivates multiple relational
resources that offer her attachment and belonging. In the context of a collectivist society,
relationships also offer her compliance with cultural norms. In addition to this, however,
Jasmine often leaves the safety of Bahay Tuluyan to join her friends on the street. Jasmine’s
case study is suggestive of the ambivalent views that children can hold on the social and
cultural values that dominate in the society in which they live. However, as noted in Section
6.4 “Study Limitations”, children’s thought processes can be challenging to understand as
they may be unwilling, disinclined or disinterested in sharing their views with researchers.

Despite this, Jasmine’s case study is significant in that it provides insights into complex and
at times contradictory processes that facilitate resilience in the lives of street-involved
children in the Philippines. Like Angelica, Jasmine conceptualises the components of
resilience, “adversity” and “doing well” within the context of her family relationships and
dreams of being able to financially support her siblings. She understands the collective
experience of “adversity” of street children when she identifies their lack of human rights and
lack of resources by which to survive. In identifying resources that facilitate resilience,
Jasmine talked about her close relationship with God, which she described as important for
managing her personal difficulties. Thus, Jasmine’s case exemplifies relationships as
important coping mechanisms that enable street-involved children to manage conditions of
extreme deprivation and marginalisation.

5.5 Gabriel: “Doing Well” via “Getting Back At” Oppression and Marginalisation

Gabriel’s perceptions of “doing well” in part comply with, but also seriously transgress,
culturally desirable outcomes in children in Filipino society as defined in the Filipino
resilience literature and described in Chapter 2. In Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency,
Gabriel is “getting back at” mainstream society, which excludes him, and children like him,
from resources that would enable him to “do well”. This form of agency falls in the
everyday/political quadrant of Figure 5.1, suggesting that activities of this type are everyday
political protests and acts of civic resistance. “Getting back at” comprises activities that reject
bureaucratic, social and cultural norms that govern society (Redmond 2009). Typically, this
form of agency involves activities that pose danger to the individual and others in the
community, but nonetheless represent dynamic efforts to resist the effects of “Othering”

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(Lister 2004). Lister’s conception of “getting back at” joins other studies of children and
adults who use dangerous and self-injurious modes of agency (Gigengack 2008, Hine and
Welford 2012, Atkinson-Sheppard 2017). However, Gabriel’s narrative presented an added
political dimension when he explained these activities as acts of resistance against
oppression:

The government kills those like … me. But we sell drugs to earn money. We can do it
behind them … they don’t see.

The researcher asked: “So how does that make you feel when you do crime behind the
scenes?” Gabriel replied:

I am powerful and I earn money … anyway … even when it isn’t allowed.

Unlike Kyla, who engages in acts of political agency via organised advocacy activities,
Gabriel engages in personal acts of resistance, in part, to protest political oppression.
Gabriel’s engagement in criminal behaviours are transgressive of notions of “healthy
functioning” in Filipino society that emphasise compliance with morality and norms of
behaviour (Banaag 1997, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler 2017). His efforts to achieve a
powerful self-concept via criminal activities are suggestive of “hidden resilience”, which
Ungar (2006) defines as efforts of young people to achieve health-related outcomes via
unhealthy means. However, Gabriel’s case study challenges Ungar’s (2006) conception of
“hidden resilience” by highlighting children’s capacity to hold aspirations for their lives that
are not conducive to “good health” as defined by the culture and context in which the child
lives.

Gabriel demonstrates selective compliance with dominant cultural notions of healthy

functioning when he prioritises the wellbeing of his family and his close relationship with
God. Like Angelica, Gabriel demonstrates a desire to uphold mutual obligations. Gabriel
described that the most important thing he does with his income is support his sister’s
children to attend school. He said that he provides for his nephews so they can study and
grow up to have a good life. Like Jasmine, Gabriel explained that God is his “only confidant”
with whom he can share his problems. God helps him bear the burdens in his life:

He helps me, “Go on, and just let the day pass. Tomorrow, you’ll be better.” When I
pray that I have a problem and ask for help, there, I’ll just feel better and my day will
go better. And the following day, my problem won’t be as heavy.

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However, Gabriel’s perception of “doing well” also transgresses cultural norms associated
with the definition of “healthy functioning” in children in the Filipino resilience literature.
Gabriel holds an ambition to become a powerful underground figure whose successful
criminal activities will earn him respect and protection. Gabriel identified his role model as a
criminal who holds a powerful position in the community. He described his relationship with
his role model:

And my father, he’s a hoodlum. He came from a prison. And he did a lot of bad
things. He’s respected in our place, for that. I take a lot from him. He teaches me how.
He is not my birth father, but he is like my father.

Gabriel’s role model has status in the community due to his success in criminal endeavours.
Gabriel met him when he was “boss of the jail cell” and became like a father to him. This
man inspired Gabriel to pursue criminal activity as a mechanism by which to achieve respect.

Thus, Gabriel holds a complex conception of resilience. He described “doing well” in terms
that both comply with and transgress Filipino values about desirable outcomes and
behaviours for children. In Gabriel’s narrative he expressed a desire to contribute to the
wellbeing of his nephews as reflective of “doing well”. In this, he demonstrated compliance
with culturally specific notions of “healthy functioning” in children by hoping to uphold
relationships of mutual obligation:

I give my money to my sister’s children … so they go to school.

At the same time, however, Gabriel perceives himself to be resilient when he engages in
dangerous criminal activities as a means of achieving power and status in the community:

When I win a fight, I am powerful. I always win. They respect me … around here.

Thus, Gabriel’s conception of resilience is complex, drawing on a range of resources that are
available to him, including the use of illegal activities, as he is able to overcome adverse
circumstances and contribute to the lives of his nephews as well as gain status in the
community.

As suggested in Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency, Gabriel justifies these actions in his
overtly political analysis of “adversity”, suggesting that street-involved children are neglected
by Filipino society:

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 It’s not their fault … the street children … the crime is because they are hungry. The
government doesn’t help them.

Abandoned by his family who are too poor to care for him, Gabriel identified that the “true
problem” of the Philippines is poverty. He is angry with the government, suggesting policy
and programs fail to support poor families to care for their children. He suggested that current
government policies target poor children unfairly, resulting in death and a denial of their
basic human rights. Gabriel’s dual notions of compliance with and defiance of social and
cultural norms in the Philippines is suggestive of ambivalent forms of agency recognised in
children who are marginalised by mainstream societies (Bottrell 2009b, Skattebol, Redmond
& Zizzo 2017).

Gabriel’s narrative about his life suggests a political conception of “adversity” and “doing
well” that is currently under-examined in Ungar’s approach (Bottrell 2007, 2009a, 2009b).
Gabriel demonstrates a transgressive agency that aims to radically challenge the social and
political structures that exist in the Philippines for poor children. His actions are suggestive of
a more radical approach to agency as he seeks “second-order” change to improve his own life
by transgressing behavioural norms in children (Hoggett 2001). By drawing on scholars who
have examined agency, this section will provide an analysis of Gabriel’s case study and will
suggest alternative insights into children’s personal efforts to protest against political
oppression and marginalisation that they experience in their everyday lives (Hoggett 2001,
Lister 2004).

5.5.1 A Political Conception of Resilience

Gabriel holds a political conception of “adversity” that suggests an awareness of his social,
economic and political position in an adult-centric society in which street-involved children
and their families experience marginalisation and oppression (valentine 2011). Gabriel’s
political construction of “adversity” was evident when he identified his personal
circumstances with the collective category of “street children”, whom he believes are the
targets of extreme political oppression in the Philippines.

Ungar’s (2016) social-ecological approach suggests that resilience is dependent on internal

and external resources and he challenges the dominant construction of resilience that has
emerged from Western psychological literature as primarily an internal quality. Gabriel’s
case study, and his subsequent expression of political agency, challenges this understanding

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when he calls attention to social, economic and political resources that he is denied by
Filipino society and the government. Gabriel is denied relational resources because his
parents are too poor to care for him and is unable to go to school due to poverty. Significantly
for this study, Gabriel called attention to poor families being denied provision of basic
material resources and protection by the Filipino government.

Gabriel’s perceptions are reflective of the broader study sample, with children sharing a
politicalised view of resilience that includes resistance to government oppression. As
discussed in detail in Section 4.4.3 “Dangers of the Streets”, children identified police and
other government officials as a primary source of danger for street-involved children in the
Philippines. For example, Charles identified that police kill street-involved children if they
catch them with drugs:

They kill you for that [drugs]. They won’t let that go.

Other children, such as Jessanth, told of witnessing extra-judicial killings as the result of the
war on drugs:

They killed him there, he ran away because they wanted to search him. But he ran
anyway.

The war on drugs by the Filipino government has been observed by Reyes (2016) to “Other”
young men who use drugs by identifying them as “deviants” whose criminal actions make
them unworthy of human rights. Reyes (2016) has drawn on Foucault’s (2012) concept of the
spectacle of the scaffold to explain the use of the human body as an instrument of state
power. Foucault’s (2012) theory suggests that the public shaming of criminals is a political
act by which the sovereign exercises power. Reyes (2016) has suggested that the war on
drugs has increased the president’s power and popularity by spreading the message that
criminals can be humiliated and killed to protect the rest of the population. In Manila, lists of
suspected drug users, including both public officials and private individuals, have been
compiled, based on intelligence reports, and widely published in print and digital media.
These lists place drug dealers on notice that they should turn themselves in or else be
investigated by the police. Reyes (2016) suggests these actions humiliate drug users and that
human rights are seen only to apply to law-abiding citizens, with the lives of drug users
having no value. In this way, drug users are “Othered” from law-abiding citizens.

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Gabriel’s is aware that his success as a fighter protects him, to some degree, from the war on
drugs. He explained that when he wins a fight, he wins money for some members of the
police force, who bet on the outcome. For this reason, Gabriel suggested that that some police
officer overlook his drug dealing activities:

Today, it is dangerous now right? If they [the police] catch you they can kill you
immediately. They aren’t afraid of that. But even now there is an operation. But me,
even if I am charged. If the police see others. They point at them and say, “We will
bury you.” They don’t do that to me, I’m their highest. I have a lot of respect. They
respect me a lot.

Gabriel however is aware that, in some instances, members of the police force may not
recognise him and therefore may not be able to protect him. For this reason, despite the
income and status that drug dealing brings him in the community, he regards it as a
dangerous activity that may result in life-threatening consequences. He takes pride in
outwitting members of the police who may be a threat to him, inventing elaborate
mechanisms to avoid detection such as using rubbish bins to transfer drugs around the
neighbourhood.

Bottrell (2009b) suggests that the resilience literature remains consumed with understandings
of adversity that focus on the individual and overlook the collective experiences of
marginalisation in populations of young people. Gabriel is aware of his status of
powerlessness in Filipino society and the social, political, and economic disadvantages that
he faces in his day-to-day life. He is angry with the government for targeting street children.
His gang membership and illegal activities offer him the opportunity to resist the effects of
oppression. Bottrell argues that resilience in marginalised young people cannot be accurately
understood without considering the social and political context of their lives. In calling for a
social approach to resilience she suggests: “Their experiences represent not only individuals
negotiating their way but indicate consequences of economic and policy effects in structuring
individual experience and differentiating social conditions for identifiable groups” (Bottrell
2009b, p. 335).

In the Philippines, street-involved children are the targets of extreme government policy that
has resulted in the injury and death of adults and children (Simangan 2018). Gabriel feels the
war on drugs misrepresents the cause of social problems in the Philippines. He said: “the
main problem of the Philippines is poverty”. Gabriel believes that most children who migrate
to the streets do so as their families are too poor to care for them and that the consequences of

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being a street-involved child are life threatening. He suggests that the police, public officials
and vigilantes are sanctioned by the state to target street children and subject them to acts of
violence and even death. He recognises that such actions are an injustice and a violation of
human rights.

Other children in the study sample shared Gabriel’s perception that the injustices experienced
by street-involved children are the responsibility of the government. Jezz suggested that the
government fails to support poor children who then are exposed to dangers on the street:

It is on them [the government]. They don’t help the children. The government needs
to help the children with more places like this [Bahay Tuluyan]. And they need to …
help the parents who don’t send the children to school … no help is given now. So
children go to the streets.

Gabriel and other children in the study sample shared overt reflexive processes about the role
of the government in the lives of children that suggest that they are aware of the social,
political and economic constraints faced by children. Alfredo suggested this when he talked
about the police and the danger they present to street-involved children:

We are scared … of the police … they don’t help us like they should. They ask us to
move if we are sleeping. They don’t offer to help … They need to change … to help
the children.

Gabriel and several other children in the study expressed a desire to resist these constraints.
Alfredo suggested this when he talked about his own behaviour and that of other gang
members:

We have drugs, we smoke, we have riots. They [the police] don’t care so we do it.

In this comment, Alfredo implied that the police are representatives of the government but do
not care about street-involved children. In his mind, he suggested, this warrants illegal and
transgressive behaviour.

For Gabriel, engaging in these activities is both a mechanism to meet his need for basic
resources by which to survive, as well as an opportunity for him to express political
resistance. Thus, Gabriel’s conception of “doing well” includes resisting the effects of
marginalisation via engaging in illegal activities.

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5.5.2 Extending Ungar’s Notion of Hidden Resilience

Ungar, and scholars who have drawn on his approach, suggests that the dominant resilience
discourse has emerged from the Minority World and reflects ethnocentric values and
normative conceptions of child development (Boyden 2003, Cameron, Lau & Tapanya 2009,
Ungar 2011). Ungar’s (2004a, 2012) social ecology approach to resilience draws attention to
the complex processes between the child and the resources to which they have access within
their culture and context. Ungar (2005a) suggests that resilience is a cultural construct, with
resilient children being those who are able to demonstrate prescribed norms of successful
development in the culture and context in which they live. In his concept of “hidden
resilience” he observes that children who fail to conform to desirable behaviours are rarely
considered resilient, and instead are labelled “deviant” and dangerous by those who hold
positions of power over the health discourse (Ungar 2006). Ungar’s (2009) concept of hidden
resilience acknowledges the non-homogeneity of healthy behaviours and suggests that
unconventional and problematic behaviours can provide young people with experiences of
power, recreation and social acceptance.

At first glance, Gabriel’s case study exemplifies Ungar’s notion of hidden resilience but
offers new insights when he describes his hoped-for outcomes for his life, which are not
associated with dominant conceptions of good health in the Philippines. As per Ungar’s
conception, Gabriel draws on dangerous personal, relational and community resources that
threaten his personal safety, but simultaneously enable him to feel powerful and generate an
income by which to live. Gabriel could be said to be seeking “health-related outcomes” such
as a powerful self-concept via unhealthy means (Ungar 2006). However, in Gabriel’s
reflections on his life, he holds two options for his future. One option complies with
dominant notions of health-related outcomes in children in Filipino society when he desires
to become a police officer. On the other hand, he also aspires to be a powerful underworld
figure who can both evade and be protected by the police.

Gabriel demonstrated reflexivity when he discussed his use of crime as a means of accessing
material resources as well as resisting the effects of “Othering”. Gabriel’s reflexivity is
evident in how he manages his complex relationship with the police, being protected by
some, while attempting to avoid or outwit those whom he does not have a personal
relationship with. Gabriel’s case study highlights that children’s reflexive processes may
include deliberate engagement in actions that contravene norms associated with children in

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Filipino society. Gabriel’s desire to become a powerful criminal challenges Ungar’s (2005a,
2006, 2009) notion of hidden resilience, which suggests the ultimate motivation for such
behaviour is the achievement of positive health outcomes, via unhealthy means. In contrast,
Gabriel seems cognisant of his choices, making considered efforts to engage in crime as a
means of achieving goals for his life that contravene normative desirable life outcomes for
children in the Philippines.

Ungar’s notion of hidden resilience inadvertently makes normative judgements associated

with “good” outcomes in children’s lives. Gabriel’s aspirations for his life include those that
would not be considered “healthy” in Filipino society, namely being a powerful criminal.
Ungar’s normative assessments of what is considered “healthy functioning” can be seen in
Wartenweiler’s (2017) study of the “hidden resilience” of adults who were once street-
involved children in Manila. The adults who feature in this study reflected on their lives and
identified critical events that enabled them to achieve “resilience” in adulthood.
Characteristics of “resilience” in adulthood included an absence of pathology, law-abiding
means of generating an income and healthy functioning family relationships (Wartenweiler
2017). Wartenweiler’s study illustrates that, while Ungar’s conception of hidden resilience
acknowledges diverse pathways towards resilience, it assumes that the child will attain
desirable health-related outcomes that are consistent with those dominant in the culture and
context in which the child lives. Ungar’s emphasis on culturally normative functioning was
highlighted in the analysis of the CYRM-28 international resilience measure in Chapter 2.
The CYRM-28 breaks questions into subscales that seek to measure a child’s access to
personal, relational, community and cultural resources that enable growth and development
as defined by the culture and context in which they live. Questions that aim to measure
personal qualities such as persistence, emotional regulation and the ability to avoid drug and
alcohol use are suggestive of normative notions of growth and development that are
associated with normative conceptions of good health (Liebenberg 2011, Ungar &
Liebenberg 2013).

The application of Hoggett’s (2001) notion of agency to Gabriel’s case study suggests new
insights into Ungar’s concept of “hidden resilience”. In discussing reflexive processes that
result in actions, Hoggett proposes that agency must account for the “negative capacities” of
human beings such as engaging in behaviours and outcomes that generate violence and self-
harm. Hoggett highlights the capacity of human beings to hold multiple understandings about

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themselves, and simultaneously demonstrate a variety of different personas. Human beings,
he argues, can conflict with themselves, and be in “two minds” about a problem or issue in
their life (Hoggett 2001, p. 43). He warns that it is unhelpful to understand human agency as
exclusively related to “constructive coping”, as if “the two were synonymous” (Hoggett
2001, p. 43). He argues that researchers should be wary of normative judgements that assume
reflexivity is associated with good choices, while non-reflexivity is associated with a lack of
agency and “bad” choices and behaviours (Hoggett 2001).

Understanding children’s engagement in dangerous and risky behaviour means considering a

more complex view of reflexive choice making and considering the complex worlds in which
children live (valentine 2011). Gabriel’s competing aspirations for his future are suggestive
of a complex relationship with cultural and social norms that determine desirable outcomes
for children in Filipino society. Hoggett (2001) addresses the diverse choices of individuals
that cannot necessarily be understood within the confines of rationality. “Is it always true that
we know (even tacitly) why we are doing what we are doing when we do it or is a good deal
of reflexivity actually post hoc?” (Hoggett 2001, p. 39).

Hoggett (2001) points out that human beings live complex lives and have the capacity to
make choices that result in damage themselves and others. He argues that conceptions of
agency must consider the “negative capacities” of human beings when they engage in acts
that cause harm to themselves or others. To explain his approach, Hoggett (2001) draws on
studies of male violence and highlights findings that suggest men minimise, deny or justify
acts of violence and their consequences. He argues that human beings have the capacity to
engage in reflexive and non-reflexive actions that are dependent on social relations and roles
that they take up in each situation (Hoggett 2001).

Gabriel’s simultaneous aspirations to both comply with and contravene culturally normative
notions of “healthy functioning” in children is suggestive of a complex type of agency. His
case demonstrates that children have the capacity to hold complex relationships with social
norms including simultaneous ambitions to meet cultural expectations of behaviour while at
the same time protesting oppression and marginalisation.

5.5.3 Transgressive, Second-Order Agency

Gabriel’s narrative describes both a transgressive and a compliant relationship with the
cultural and social values that are dominant in Filipino society. He holds two seemly

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contradictory visions for his future, desiring to become a police officer, as well as a powerful
underground figure whose successful criminal activities will earn him respect and protection
in the community. Despite being dangerous and exposing him to threats of violence and
exploitation by the police, Gabriel uses drugs to generate income and help him manage
emotional and physical pain. This complex thought processes are suggestive of reflexive
decision making in which he holds two points of view, both transgressing and complying
with Filipino cultural norms.

Gabriel’s illegal activities are suggestive of a more radical approach to agency, rather than
just survival. His activities transgress culturally ascribed norms of behaviour in Filipino
children as he attempts to resist the effects of “Othering” and challenge the social order in the
Philippines by engaging in illegal activities (Hoggett 2001). Each individual’s navigation of
the “rules of the game” is dependent on their reserves and access to social, cultural and
economic capital, and thus the “rules of the game” have been shown to reinforce social
inequality and influence the life chances of children (Wolf 2007, Lareau, Adia Evans et al.
2016). Gabriel demonstrates “second-order agency” when he seeks to transgress the social
norms of the Philippines and radically alter his life circumstances, and those of his family, by
refusing to conform to normative behaviours in children and resisting the effects of
oppression (Hoggett 2001).

In generating resources via criminal activities, Gabriel aims to effect change in his own life,
and that of his family, by accessing material resources that enable survival. Gilgun and
Abrams (2005) argue that illegal activities can be an effective means by which children who
are marginalised by mainstream society can enhance their chances of survival. While adult
expert researchers may suggest these behaviours are maladaptive, young people consider
such activities as important and legitimate mechanisms by which to attain access to physical
and emotional resources. Drug dealing has been observed to be “underground work” for
people who are marginalised by mainstream society (Lister 2004). Recent Filipino research
has suggested that young men who deal drugs in Manila cooperate with each other to devise
ingenious strategies by which to avoid detection (Lasco 2018). Lasco (2018) found that
young men who engage in drug dealing to survive consider this a legitimate form of work by
which they are able to access basic resources. Young men engage in various tactics to avoid
detection including using missed calls and texts as mechanisms to warn each other of possible
police detection. They also use their bakarda as a “brigade” to provide information and

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protection from police (Lasco 2018). Thus in the Philippines, young men who are
marginalised by mainstream society perceive drug dealing as a form of self-employment that
is associated with autonomy and entrepreneurial ability (Fairlie 2002).

In Gabriel’s case, he described his illegal activities as contributing towards his emotional and
physical wellbeing. Drug use and dealing enables him to access material resources, offers
him status in the community, and enables him to support his family. Gabriel also uses drugs
as a mechanism to manage his emotions. He acknowledged that drug dealing is a dangerous
but said that, for him, it is an important source of income. He uses the money he earns to pay
for his daily expenses and his “vices”: “It calms me down. My nervousness, it lessens. And
my head is calmer, focused. And I’m not nervous. No matter what happens to me. It hurts
less.”

He also explained that when he feels depressed and suicidal, drugs help him manage his
strong feelings:

When I’m sad and there’s a lot of problems. When I feel heavy and I think about
killing myself, because before I had guns. And the place where I put them, it’s a high
place. I said, while I’m holding the gun, “What if I shoot myself with this?” Because I
have a lot of problems and I don’t say anything. I’ve really depressed. So that’s when
I take drugs. I’ll just light up. I feel better, until I fall asleep from being high.

Thus Gabriel described his drug use as a mechanism that enables him to fight more
effectively as drugs help him manage his fear, and the pain of physical injury. His actions are
suggestive of transgressive agency as he seeks to radically alter his own life via engaging in
illegal activities.

5.5.4 “Getting Back At” Summary

Gabriel’s perceptions of “doing well” are suggestive of “Getting back at” in Lister’s
taxonomy of agency. When Gabriel explains his transgressive activities within the context of
oppressive government policy, he suggests that such actions are expressions of political
agency. Gabriel’s case is significant in extending current conceptions of resilience to include
acts of marginalised children who engage in illegal activities as demonstrations of political
resistance. The implication of Gabriel’s conception of resilience is that researchers who seek
to understand resilience in children who are highly marginalised must appreciate the
meanings ascribed to particular resources and how the child might value them as they pursue
self-identified notions of “doing well” (Panter-Brick 2015).

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Gabriel’s overtly political perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” uncover the
shortcomings of Ungar’s notion of hidden resilience. Ungar’s (2005a) concept refers to the
unconventional ways through which young people negotiate positive health outcomes by
drawing on dangerous personal, relational and community resources that are non-culturally
normative and represent risk and danger. Ungar (2005a, 2009) argues that behaviours such as
drug use, crime, early sexual activity and gang membership can represent a young person’s
best strategy for a pathway to healthy outcomes, when they are excluded from other health
seeking-resources more commonly associated with resilience.

However, Gabriel’s narrative challenged Ungar’s notion when he explained the meaning he
ascribes to these dangerous activities. Gabriel described his activities as both a means for
personal survival and as a mechanism by which to resist “Othering” from mainstream
Filipino society. Gabriel is demonstrating a more radical type of agency than that offered by
Ungar in that he is seeking to “break out” from social systems and resist dominant political
and social structures that oppress street-involved children. In Gabriel’s narrative, engaging in
illegal activities is meaningful in that they facilitate resistance to oppressive government
policy that he identified as the primary threat to the safety of street-involved children in the
Philippines. Gabriel’s case study and the application of Lister’s taxonomy of agency draw
attention to the political nature of perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” in populations
of young people who are marginalised by mainstream society. Gabriel’s case study supports
Bottrell’s (2002, 2007, 2009b) critique of Ungar and suggests support for an under-developed
approach to resilience that considers children’s collective experiences of marginalisation and
oppression.

5.6 Kyla: “Doing Well” via “Getting Organised”: Facilitating Resilience via Collective
Action

Kyla’s perception of “doing well” involves living in a society in which children’s rights are
upheld. Exposure to the concept of children’s rights at Bahay Tuluyan changed how Kyla
perceived “doing well” and facilitated her protests against injustice by adults against children
in a way that is not culturally normative. She now believes this knowledge is essential to the
survival of street children:

If you’re a kid who goes everywhere, and you don’t know where to go because of
poverty, you need to be strong and stand up for yourself. You need to be strong to
fight, or speak up for yourself, and just go on with your life.

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For Kyla, feeling empowered to advocate is fundamental for street children to overcome the
“adversity” associated with street life and to go on to “do well”.

Kyla’s case study demonstrates an alternative conception of resilience in which some

children consider conditions of “adversity” and “doing well” to be associated with the
realisation of their human rights in the context of oppression and marginalisation. Other
children in the complete study sample shared this perception, emphasising the role of human
rights in the lives of children who perceive themselves to be resilient. Mary Anne
exemplified this when she suggested that the realisation of her dreams is dependent on her
rights being upheld by the society in which she lives:

I won’t reach my dreams, my future, if I didn’t know about my rights. If I didn’t have
them, if I didn’t know them, people would just step on me and I can’t do anything
about it.

Similarly, Jezz explained this when the researcher asked him: “Can you tell me about what
you know about the rights of children?” He replied: “[I learnt] how the government should
treat children” which has inspired him to “know our [street-involved children’s] lives can be
better … not hungry and dirty all the time … to go to school, to have a good life.”

This thesis argues that the dominant resilience discourse that has emerged from the Minority
World is based on a narrow and ethnocentric conception of “healthy functioning” that
privileges predominantly Minority World values and overlooks the social and political
positions of children in the societies in which they live. It has argued that in the Filipino
resilience literature “healthy functioning” children are those who demonstrate compliance
with cultural and social norms that are dominant in Filipino society such as observance of
relationships of mutual obligation and deference to adults (Banaag 1997, Bautista, Roldan &
Garces-Bacsal 2001a, Sta. Maria, Martinez & Diestro 2014, Banaag 2016, Wartenweiler
2017). Children are expected to obey children who are older than themselves and adults in
positions of authority (Alampay & Jocson 2011).

Kyla challenges this conception by constructing herself as resilient when she draws on
personal, relational and community resources to protest injustice and engage with other
children in collective acts of resistance (Lister 2004, Ungar 2011). After she learnt about her
rights, the next time Kyla witnessed the abuse of a street child, she was able to navigate
formal structures in the community by lodging a complaint at the barangay. This action
resulted in an investigation and conviction of the adult guard who assaulted the child.

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Although she is sceptical about the long-term impact, she takes solace that she has
contributed to change in how street children are treated in the community.

Kyla’s case is suggestive of Bottrell’s (2009b) critique of the social-ecological approach to

resilience, which she argues emphasises children’s individual responses to adults’ discursive
power over the health discourse, but fails to account for children’s collective experiences of
marginalisation and oppression:

While Ungar’s (2004) study emphasizes the significance of social relations through
analysis of discursive power and the subordinate positioning of young people’s own
discourses, attention to the materiality of the adversities and disadvantages faced by
high-risk youth, and the societal construction of them, is subsumed into individuated
and discursive re-positioning through therapeutic intervention. (Bottrell 2009b, p.
326)

Lister (2004) suggests that “getting organised” requires the individual to identify with the
oppressed group that is marginalised or “Othered”. She argues that, while the categorisation
of groups of people can serve to stigmatise people, it can also provide a basis for a
“categorical identity” or sense of sameness with others that facilities the formation of a
collective identity and fuels political action (Lister 2004). Kyla exemplifies how the shared
experiences of “adversity” can serve to unify children and prompt political agency when they
are aware that they are “Othered” by mainstream society. Kyla illustrated this when she
reflected on her personal experience and suggested that members of the public look on street
children with disgust. Her observations are in keeping with studies that have found that street
children are conscious of this stigma and of how they are differentiated from mainstream
society (Pomm 2005, Makofane 2014).

Identifying with other street-involved children who are “Othered” from mainstream society,
Kyla uses her emerging collective consciousness as a basis for engaging in collective acts of
political protest, seeking to “rupture” social, cultural and political norms that govern street-
involved children’s lives and their relationships with adults (Hoggett 2001, Lister 2004). In
Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency, “getting organised” falls in the political/citizenship
strategic quadrant, which highlights the calculated actions of oppressed individuals to
overcome barriers to mobilise action and effect change.

Children’s status as social, political and economic actors is explored in discussions of

children’s agency by scholars who have emphasised their capacity to make decisions and take
actions (Boyden and Levison 2000, valentine 2011, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017). These

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studies suggest that understandings of agency in the lives of children must account for power
relationships between children and adults and the cultural and contextual construction of
childhood:

It is now apparent that what promotes children’s best interests cannot be defined
without reference to social and cultural theories of child development, children’s
personal and social characteristics, their specific circumstances, the nature of their
childhood experiences, and the social contexts in which they live. Even in adversity
children are not the passive recipients, but active survivors, of experience. (Boyden &
Levison 2000. p. 8)

The social, political and cultural context determines how children’s actions are understood,
with some expressions of agency understood as rebellious while others are sanctioned by
adults (Redmond 2009). Bordonaro (2012) observes that in studies of street-involved children
decisions and actions that transgress normative behaviours in children have been devalued as
demonstrations of agency as they are judged by adult researchers as not meeting their best
interests:

Deviation from mainstream morality (playing truant, having boyfriends, being “rude”,
lack of “respect”, etc.) was assessed as risk of becoming a street child, an outlaw, a
prostitute; concern for protection made therefore legitimate interventions aiming at
restraining youth’s behaviour. In most cases the ultimate goal of social intervention
appeared to be that of morally redeeming the child. (Bordonaro 2012, p. 419)

Thus, choices and actions by street-involved children that do not fit with normative ideals of
behaviour are often overlooked by adults as positive expressions of agency.

Kyla’s case study is illustrative of “second-order” agency by which she aims to radically alter
the social order of the Philippines by challenging the oppression of street-involved children
(Hoggett 2001). In her engagement in political action she demonstrates transgressive agency
when she behaves in ways that are not associated with culturally normative relationships
between adults and children in Filipino society. Kyla’s case illustrates that children are not
helpless and reliant on adults in mainstream society in order to “do well”, but rather have the
capacity to powerfully claim their rights. Her case is suggestive of a political conception of
resilience in which children’s political agency and capacity for collective action is central to
their conception of “doing well”.

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5.6.1 A Collective Consciousness with “Othered” Street Children

In her discussion of poverty and marginalisation, Lister defines “Othering” as: “A dualistic
process of differentiation and demarcation, by which the line is drawn between ‘us’ and
‘them’ – between the more and the less powerful – and through which social distance is
established and maintained” (Lister 2004, p. 101).

Kyla’s narrative demonstrates that she is aware of the social, political and economic position
of street-involved children in the Philippines who experience stigma, oppression and
victimisation (Pomm 2005). Her identification of her own circumstances with the experiences
of other street-involved children fuels her anger towards the government and informs her
collective consciousness.

Kyla, informed by her training at Bahay Tuluyan, suggests that children’s rights provide a
platform for collective action. Kyla believes the government can do more to help street
children. She has been made aware that the Filipino government is a signatory to the UNCRC
and duty bound to take action to protect children. She is involved in advocacy activities at
Bahay Tuluyan and has participated in letter writing to the government to call attention to the
plight of street children and demand policy change. She exemplified this when she said:

What I would really like is to tell the government is to help. Help the children that
don’t have any place to go. They are at the most risk of losing direction. Of being
pushers, users. There is reason why they lose direction in life, because they have
nowhere to go. They have nobody to go to.

Other children also discussed their engagement in advocacy activities at Bahay Tuluyan
regarding “Rescue”, the policy response to street children. When the researcher asked about
his experience of feeling powerful Jezz answered: “we write to the government to tell [the
police] to stop. It is against our rights.”

Kyla, like some of the other children, demonstrated reflexive agency in her knowledge and
anger about her personal circumstances, and those of other children (Hoggett 2001). Her case
study aligns with other studies of children who have been “Othered” by mainstream societies
and whose political agency is nurtured when they develop an awareness of their status and
marginalisation (Redmond 2009, Lind 2017, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017).

As discussed in Section 4.4, other children who participated in this study also spoke about
child rights training at Bahay Tuluyan and their understanding of human rights. Justine said

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that “all children should have an education, they should not be left on their own, they should
be cared for”. Similarly, Miguel in her child-led tour took the researcher to the recreation
room where she has learnt about the UNCRC and child rights at the Children’s Assemblies.
While in this room she talked about her perceptions of children’s rights and her views about
the government’s role in helping street children. She explained that children should “have the
right to go to school” and “have loving parents”. She discussed this in the context of her own
experiences of becoming a street child.

Kyla identified with the category of “street children” when she spoke on behalf of street
children and described the multiple “adversities” children experience. However, while
identifying with the categorised group can create a sense of belonging and sameness with
others, it can also separate individuals when they do not wish to be associated with stigma
(Lister 2004). Kyla’s relationship with the “category” of street children is complex, as she
seeks to both align with, and distance herself from, street-involved children. Lister (2004)
observes that people who live in poverty often do not wish to identify themselves as “poor”.
Skattebol and colleagues (2017) identify a similar finding in their study when young people
sought to differentiate themselves from labels such as “vulnerable” or “at risk”: “We found
examples of ‘othering’ where young people deemed by the system to be at risk would
denigrate others as ‘worse’ than themselves” (Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo 2017, p. 324).

Kyla exemplified this when she described the relationships with other children she formed
under the pier. She simultaneously suggested they were necessary for her survival as well as
presenting risks for her, with their transgressive behaviour having the potential to threaten her
ability to make strategic decisions about her future. Kyla’s narrative is suggestive of
Hoggett’s (2001) conception of agency, which emphasises the human capacity to hold
simultaneous but divergent views about themselves and their actions.

Panter-Brick (2002) suggests that the term “street child” is a powerful label that serves to
reinforce stigma, emphasise vulnerability and suggest a homogeneity of circumstances that
does not reflect street-involved children’s actual lived experience:

First, it is a generic term that obscures the heterogeneity in children’s actual

circumstances. Second, it does not correspond to the ways many children relate their
own experiences or to the reality of their movements on and off the street. Third, it is
imbued with pejorative or pitying connotations. Fourth, it deflects attention from the
broader population of children affected by poverty and social exclusion. (Panter-Brick
2002, p 149)

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Kyla described an awareness of the label “street child” when she described that the “worst
thing” is to be viewed with disgust by mainstream society who “look down on you” and
“don’t speak up for you”. Kyla’s views accord with those found in other research which
suggests that street-involved children are aware of the stigma of being labelled a ”street
child”, a term that has powerful emotional overtones that suggests children are subjects of
both pity and hostility by mainstream society (Aptekar 1988, Aptekar 1994, Panter-Brick
2002, Sta. Maria, Martinez et al. 2014).

In other cultures and contexts, street-involved children are aware that they are ‘Othered” and
they identify as a collective group. Beazley’s (2003) study in Indonesia draws on Turner’s
self-categorisation theory (Turner & Reynolds 2011) to examine the lives of street boys as
they undergo a process of collective identity formation, which becomes stronger the longer
they live on the street. Turner suggests that individuals define themselves as members of
distinct social categories and then, in turn, develop desirable behaviours and assign attributes
to themselves via a process of self-stereotyping (Turner & Reynolds 2011). In Beazley’s
(2003) study, male street children were found to have developed a subculture via establishing
codes of behaviours that enabled them to resist the effects of shame associated with being
stereotyped by mainstream society. Similarly, Davies (2008) reports that street children form
strong, stable “subcultures” with other children that provide them with a powerful sense of
self and a collective identity. In his study of street children in Kenya, Davies suggests that
children create a secure special domain in which they are free to live away from the
constraints of the adult world. Children in Davies’ (2008) study worked together, observing
informal rules that governed the sharing of resources and how they moved within the
geography of the streets, and formed an “anti-society” that provided an alternative view of
the world and celebrated difference by preying on the fears of the mainstream.

A study of indigenous and sexual minority youth who are marginalised from mainstream
society suggests that group affiliation can serve to provide context to personal circumstances
and serve as a basis for collective struggle (Wexler, DiFluvio et al. 2009). This study concurs
with the work of Barber (2008, 2009, 2013), who has argued that in communities engaged in
conflict and war youth who perceive the legitimacy of violence benefit from a collective
sense of identity that is informed by their own personal experiences. Wexler, DiFluvio and
Burke suggest that “group affiliations can provide young people with a sense of belonging,
social norms and behavioral pathways of response, and can offer them a sustaining

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ideological commitment” (2009, p. 570). Thus, shared experiences of marginalisation can be
empowering to young people who form relationships that are associated with strength to
resist oppression and engage in political action.

In Kyla’s case, she is aware that as a street child she is “Othered” and this fuels her
consciousness of the collective experience of other street-involved children. While her
identification with the category of “street child” is complex, she draws on an emerging
collective consciousness to challenge the social order and demand that her rights, and the
rights of other street-involved children, are observed and upheld.

5.6.2 Challenging the Social Order via Rights

Kyla challenges the social and political order of the Philippines by drawing on the UNCRC
and the responsibilities of the government as duty bearer, which contrast with the lived
experiences of street-involved children. Kyla seeks “second-order” change, as defined by
Hoggett (2001), when she seeks to disrupt political relationships between street-involved
children and adults who hold positions of power. This is a radical model of agency that
accounts for the capacity of an individual to challenge the social systems which make up their
lives and manage the risks associated with this disruption (Hoggett, 2001).

A radical perspective must therefore also be concerned with second-order change, the change
that occurs when individuals or groups challenge the game rules per se. Such ruptural, non-
incremental changes may occur in individuals’ lives, in family systems, in neighbourhood
communities, within institutions and, just occasionally, within whole societies (Hoggett 2001,
p. 51).

Kyla seeks to radically alter the social and political “rules” of the Philippines by pointing out
the gap between the responsibilities of the government as a signatory to the UNCRC and the
lived experience of street-involved children. After learning about children’s rights at Bahay
Tuluyan, she draws on this and expressive transgressive agency when she deviates from
social and cultural positions ascribed to children in Filipino society.

Other children in the complete study sample also discussed the role of children’s rights as a
mechanism to facilitate change in Filipino society. Daniel explained that in his training as a
Youth Facilitator he has learnt about the rights of children and this has inspired him to
imagine an alternative society:

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 First, they should give the child the right to speak for themselves. Second, they should
give the child an education. Because sometimes, it’s already public school, the child
lives on the street, the teacher adds stuff to buy for the children living on the street.
The children on the street, they can’t buy anything. They should give it for free, all
that’s needed should be free.

The intersection of human rights and the lives of people who live in extreme poverty has been
articulated by Amartya Sen (2005), who suggests human rights are grounded in both freedom
from coercion and oppression, as well as freedom to choose a life that they have reason to
value. A human rights approach to poverty and deprivation suggests an ethical and legal
claim that those in powerful positions have a duty to uphold the rights of the less powerful
(Sen 1999). When applied to children, the rights discourse makes clear the importance of
multiple resources in achieving physical, mental and social development (Nussbaum 2003).
Critics suggest that in the human rights discourse there is a gap between legislative
responsibilities and the realities of people’s daily experiences of deprivation (Abane,
Acheampong et al. 2011). When applied to the lives of street-involved children, Schimmel
(2006) argues that when children’s rights of provision and protection are not upheld, agency
is not possible due to constrained choice and inadequate resources.

Nonetheless, as Kyla demonstrates, the rights discourse offers children a platform for
collective action and to demand social and political change (Lister 2004). Discussions of
children’s agency have been used to argue for increased rights of civic and political
participation in matters that pertain to them (valentine 2011). In the Filipino resilience
literature the rights discourse has been drawn on to highlight street-involved children’s
strengths and capacities (Caparas 1998, Bautista, Roldan et al. 2001). Caparas (1998)
suggests that programs based on child rights have the capacity to develop personal skills in
children and provide opportunities for community participation that lead to the development
of resilience. However, she also downplays children’s own capacity to collectively contribute
towards social change. Thus, Caparas inadvertently offers an individualised conception that
fails to acknowledge the impact of the UNCRC as a basis for collective consciousness and
the capacity for collective action.

Kyla described herself being incredulous when she learned about the rights of children and
the role of government as duty bearers to protect her rights under the UNCRC. In the
Philippines, the rights of children are enshrined in law by various instruments that support the
participation of children in policy and legislation that affects them (Bessell 2009). The rights
of children were first legislated via the1974 Child and Youth Welfare Code, which was used

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a basis for the ratification of the UNCRC in the Philippines in 1991. Later that same year, the
Local Government Code was introduced, which stipulates that each barangay must establish
youth participation mechanisms such as regular youth assemblies. Despite these legislative
instruments, Filipino children experience multiple barriers to genuine participation including
entrenched cultural beliefs about the capacities of children and observance of age-based
hierarchies in which children are deferential to the authority of adults (Bessell 2007). These
legislative provisions are rarely enacted and, when they are, usually engage children from
high socio-economic-status backgrounds who attend school. Other important barriers that
prevent genuine participation include the value placed on children as future adults, as well as
beliefs that position children as incapable of contribution due to incomplete development
(Liebel & Saadi 2012). Poor children have been observed to face additional barriers such as
the inability to access resources that enable participation in youth consultation processes
(Bessell 2007).

Kyla’s case study demonstrates the capacity of children to powerfully claim their rights
independently of adults. Kyla’s journey towards collective action began when she learnt that
the UNCRC forms the “basic rule of law” regarding “how children should be treated” in the
Philippines. Lister (2004) suggests that the human rights discourse makes clear the legal
entitlements of people who live in poverty and deprivation. Redmond (2014, p. 618) points
out that international legislative instruments such as the UNCRC require that signatories
support children with adequate material and non-material resources that enable children to
reach their “fullest potential”. In this he observes that the UNCRC does not free children
from exposure to poverty and deprivation but rather obligates duty bearers to support growth
and development (Redmond 2014).

Lister (2004) notes that, in order to engage in collective acts of self-help, people who are
“Othered” must overcome barriers to getting organised. She identifies “resource”-related
barriers such as accessing wealth, education and developing advocacy skills. She also
suggests that political and cultural barriers act as impediments to collective action in
populations of people who are already experiencing disadvantage (Lister 2004). In the
Philippines, in order to challenge the existing social order, street-involved children must
overcome barriers that are related to their ability to access resources, as well as social,
cultural and political norms that are dominant in society. Lister acknowledges that barriers
like these deny citizens their right to engage in political action and form the basis of social

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exclusion. Smith, Lister et al. (2005) point out that children’s citizenship is often associated
with their status as future economic contributors. They call for a lifelong approach to
citizenship that acknowledges children’s capacity for political action across their life course.
(Smith, Lister et al. 2005)

In Kyla’s case, supported by Bahay Tuluyan, she is afforded the opportunity to contribute
towards long-term change to better the lives of street-involved children by challenging the
existing social order in the Philippines. She has begun to envisage a future in which she can
experience the rights to protection and provision; she aspires to live in safety, have food to
eat and be able to go to school. Fuelled by her new understandings about the legal
entitlements of children, she has also begun to demand her right to participation, protesting
examples of injustice in her community and engaging in collective action by advocating for
change in government policy responses to street children.

5.6.3 Political Action and Collective Acts of Self Help

Kyla’s conception of “doing well” includes radical demonstrations of “second-order” agency

as she seeks to disrupt the existing social and political order that serves to oppress street-
involved children (Hoggett 2001). Kyla said: “What I would really like to tell the government
is to help. Help the children that don’t have any place to go. It is up to you to help them get
their rights.”

Kyla’s case study is suggestive of a radical approach to resilience that accommodates

children’s capacity to engage in political action and seek to transform social and political
relationships. Lister (2004) defines political action as acts of “collective organisation around
poverty or welfare rights”, which can include formal campaigns and informal community
acts. Boyden and Levison (2000) identify children’s capacity to engage in political activism,
citing examples of children seeking to redress injustice in situations of oppression across the
world:

Children also express their agency through political and social activism, whether on
their own behalf, on behalf of their communities, or other children, or in support of an
idea or principle. Children have acted as defenders of equality and justice, as in the
struggle against apartheid and the Bantu Education system in South Africa. As
defenders of nationhood, Palestinian children took up arms against the occupation of
their homeland. Children have organised against exploitative employment. In 1984,
British children supported the miner’s strike, raising funds for miners’ families and
joining pickets. Through peer-to-peer teaching and counseling, children in many
countries help combat the spread of sexually transmitted infections and disseminate

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 primary health messages. Through advocacy, they fight for the rights of families
living in illegal housing. (Boyden & Levison 2000, p. 44)

Nguyen-Gillham et al. (2008) identify children’s engagement in acts of political resistance as

a protective factor in communities where violence and political oppression are part of
everyday life. (Nguyen‐Gillham, Giacaman et al. 2008) In their study of young people in
Palestine they found that engaging in political acts such as throwing stones or participating in
political protests was a means of rejecting the dominant narrative about themselves and
served to restore their dignity. They called for a realignment of programs that seek to build
resilience in children by focusing on the existing social capital in communities (Nguyen‐
Gillham, Giacaman et al. 2008). The capacity of young people to engage in political action
has been studied in the Philippines in the context of disaster and climate change (Haynes and
Tanner 2015). Through the use of participatory video making, researchers noted the capacity
of young people to influence decision makers and take direct action to support the community
in the event of a natural disaster (Haynes and Tanner 2015). Their study findings suggest that
young people are not passive victims of climate change or reliant on adults in the event of an
emergency.

Kyla’s case study is also suggestive of political action as she seeks to change the social and
political structures that oppress street-involved children. At the Annual Street Children’s
Congress facilitated by Bahay Tuluyan in 2017, the children worked with Youth Facilitators
to develop a response to the 2017 General Comment on Street Involved Children by the
Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN 2017), which explicitly addresses the needs of
street-involved children. Children described the adversities they experienced on the streets in
relation to their rights and arranged them in thematic categories: survival and development,
participation, and justice for children. In the category of “survival and development” children
articulated adversities such as sleeping on the street, engaging in prostitution, exposure to
violence and the failure of the state to protect their dignity. In the category of “participation
and freedom” children observed that they were not provided with opportunities to engage in
public debate regarding street children. They also identified that they are “treated as dirt” and
“looked down upon” by others in Filipino society (Bahay Tuluyan 2017). This response was
sent to the United Nations, as well as to the Philippines Government, to demand change to the
public policy that addresses street-involved children. Kyla demonstrates her agency via
political action when she places responsibility for enacting the convention on the

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government. She demands that the government has a special responsibility to street children
to enact their rights.

Lister (2004) uses the term “collective self-help” to describe activities by marginalised people
that seek to improve their lives and the living conditions of those who experience
disadvantage. In some contexts, these activities include formal community development
initiatives assisted by community organisations that seek to improve the community’s access
to resources or reduce debt. Acts of collective self-help can also include informal acts of
mutual aid and neighbourhood support, whereby people collaborate in order to improve their
lives. By engaging in acts of political organisation Kyla is demanding that the voices of
children who are marginalised be recognised and their experiences acknowledged.
Researchers such as Panter-Brick (2002) and Grover (2005) call for policy makers to
recognise street-involved children as having important things to contribute to research and
policy that aims to improve their lives. Kyla supports this assertion and demonstrates how
Filipino street-involved children who are exposed to child rights can engage in critical and
collective inquiry about power relations in society and take steps to redress situations of
injustice.

For Kyla, exposure to the UNCRC legitimised her protest and empowered her to speak out
against violence:

If you’re a kid who goes everywhere, and you don’t know where to go because of
poverty, you need to be strong and stand up for yourself. You need to be strong to
fight, or speak up for yourself, and just go on with your life.

Thus, Kyla demonstrates that acts of collective self-help are an important expression of
resilience. Her agency is evident in her advice to other street children to learn about their
rights as a mechanism to resist oppression.

5.6.4 Getting Organised Summary

Kyla’s construction of resilience is emblematic of actions expressed by children in the study,

including Daniel, Justine, Miguel and Jess who conceptualised “adversity” and “doing well”
as overtly political constructs. In this, like other children in the study, she suggested that
managing the effects of oppression is a collective experience. Moreover, “doing well” for
Kyla includes the ability to resist the effects of marginalisation and oppression via engaging
in political acts.

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When she was exposed to the concept of child rights, her perceptions of what it is to “do
well” were transformed. Learning about child rights informed Kyla about the rule of law and
the duty of the state to protect street children. She attributes learning about rights as
empowering her, contrary to normative Filipino values of respect for adults (Alampay and
Jocson 2011), to protest against oppression and injustice by forcing authorities to listen to the
“soft voice of a child”. In this, Kyla’s conception of “doing well” includes political agency
and the power to protest oppression.

As discussed in Chapter 2, Caparas’ (1998) study examines the Bahay Tuluyan Junior
Educator Program and its capacity to develop leadership skills in children. She quotes a
participant in the program who said they “feel important about himself because he is able to
serve street children” (Caparas 1998, p. 254). Caparas (1998) also reports study participants’
suggestion that the government has a role in helping street children by providing them with
more programs like the Junior Educator Program. Kyla extended these early observations by
Caparas when she suggested that learning about child rights can empower children to move
from a self-identified position of “powerless” to advocate for themselves and others. Kyla
suggested that “doing well” includes demonstrations of political agency, even when these
acts contravene notions of age-based hierarchies that are defined as a desirable characteristic
in Filipino children (Alampay and Jocson 2011). This case therefore suggests that the current
construction of resilience in Filipino research fails to observe diverse perceptions of healthy
functioning, including those that do not meet culturally normative expectations of children.

Kyla’s desire to disrupt the social order is evident when she protests about the rights of other
children when she observes instances of abuse by adults in positions of power. Her
knowledge about child rights and her role as a Youth Facilitator at Bahay Tuluyan enables
her to cause radical change in her life and the lives of other children. She transgresses the
“rules of the game” when she defies social norms that govern the behaviour of children,
including speaking up to adults who abuse power (Hoggett 2001). Kyla’s perception of what
it is to “do well” fuels her motivation to “get organised” via acts of collective self-help and
political action (Lister 2004). Kyla’s actions are suggestive of a radical approach to agency
that challenges the existing social order and seeks to create political and social change.

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5.7 Chapter Summary

The major contribution to knowledge that this thesis makes is to highlight street-involved
children’s diverse perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”, revealing conceptions that are
currently underdeveloped in both the Minority World and Filipino resilience discourses.
Drawing on the social-ecological approach as a basis for understanding the lived experience
of Filipino street-involved children, the study has sought to understand the complex processes
children facilitate in the context of their social ecology, as they navigate and negotiate
resources and travel towards highly nuanced perceptions of “doing well”. The emblematic
case studies in this thesis present an often-overlooked conception of resilience that includes
expressions of children’s political agency when they are denied their human rights. This
conception foregrounds how power relations between adults and children, and especially
between adults in positions of authority and marginalised children, need to be accounted for.

This thesis has pointed out that the dominant conception of resilience has emerged from the
Minority World, constructed by adult, expert researchers who have suggested that resilient
children demonstrate specific personal resources and achieve outcomes associated with
“healthy functioning” in children. The social-ecological approach by Ungar (2011) highlights
that this conception overlooks resilience as a cultural construct but nonetheless relies on
Minority World values associated with optimal child growth and development in Western
societies. In the Filipino resilience discourse, expert researchers from the field of psychology
have proposed a culturally nuanced conception of resilience that suggests compliance with
Filipino values associated with desirable outcomes in children. The Filipino literature concurs
with Ungar’s thesis that resilience is culturally nuanced and dependent on contextual values
that govern the society in which the child lives.

This thesis suggests that Ungar’s social-ecological approach provides an important

contribution to understandings of resilience but fails to adequately account for the
complexities of children’s actions in the context of power inequalities in society. In Chapter
2, an examination of the CYRM and “seven tensions” provided an interpretation of Ungar’s
conception of “healthy functioning” in children. The analysis suggested that Ungar correlates
“healthy functioning” with children achieving good health outcomes that are dominant in the
child’s culture and context (Ungar 2013; Ungar & Liebenberg 2013). In his conception of
“hidden resilience” Ungar acknowledges unorthodox mechanisms by which children achieve
healthy outcomes (Ungar 2013, Ungar and Liebenberg 2013). However, this thesis suggests

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that Ungar’s conception of hidden resilience inadvertently operates from a normative adult
perspective, suggesting the ultimate goals children hold for their lives are associated with
ideas of “good health” that are dominant in the culture and context in which the child lives.
The concept of hidden resilience overlooks children’s diverse conceptions of “doing well”,
which may not correlate with culturally specific notions of optimal growth and development.
In identifying personal, relational, community and cultural resources as indicators of
resilience, Ungar’s approach inadvertently offers a narrow conception of “healthy
functioning” that privileges health outcomes associated with normative development in a
particular cultural context, and therefore overlooks children’s own conceptions of what it is to
“do well”.

Furthermore, this thesis suggests that Ungar’s approach overlooks children’s analysis of their
marginalisation as a political experience which they share with other street-involved children
and their families. In his discussion of hidden resilience, while acknowledging the discursive
power to which children are subject and the individual actions by which they resist labelling
and stigma, he inadvertently overlooks the capacity of children to engage in collective
political action when they identify as a marginalised group excluded from mainstream
society. The narratives of the children who participated in this study challenge this
individualised approach, instead perceiving their adverse experiences to be the result of
structural oppression via unjust social policy and the denial of their human rights. The case
studies presented in this study suggest that in efforts to manage this oppression the children
undertake diverse actions including every day and personal or strategic and political actions.
This thesis suggests that these actions are in part motivated by a political analysis and
recognition that street-involved children are oppressed and marginalised as a group. Drawing
on critiques of agency in relation to children who live in an adult-centric society, this thesis
extends Ungar’s approach, suggesting resilience is a political concept for children who are
aware that they are “Othered” by Filipino society and take both short-term and long-term
actions to resist the impact of oppression (Bottrell 2009b, Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017).

The case studies of Angelica and Jasmine demonstrate how children undertake individual
actions that seek to improve their lives, and resist “Othering” from mainstream Filipino
society. Angelica does this when she makes a strategic decision to use resources that are
available to her, Bahay Tuluyan and school, with the intention of getting her family out of
poverty in the long term. Angelica demonstrates first-order agency when she plays within the

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“rules of the game” to change her personal circumstances and those of her family (Hoggett
2001). She is highly reflexive about her choices and her ability to rationalise her actions is an
important component of her view of herself as a competent and resilient child.

Jasmine, in contrast, copes with the day-to-day challenges of poverty and oppression by
creating multiple “like family” relationships that help her get by. She demonstrates “first-
order” agency as she seeks to improve her immediate circumstances within existing social
structures to which she has access (Hoggett 2001). Jasmine demonstrates some reflexive
thought, taking deliberate actions that enable her to establish in-group relationships that meet
collectivist values associated with group membership. However, her long-term plans to
escape poverty are vague and potentially compromised when she continually “runs away”
from Bahay Tuluyan to return to her friends on the streets. Thus, Jasmine’s narrative is
suggestive of habitual, everyday agency as she copes with the extreme challenges of her life.

The case studies of Gabriel and Kyla suggest children also can consider themselves to be
resilient when they undertake actions that demonstrate political agency, albeit in diverse
ways. Gabriel has an ambivalent relationship with Filipino values, engaging in criminal acts
while simultaneously striving to uphold his relationships of mutual obligation to his family
and his strong relationship with God. He perceives his engagement in crime as a mechanism
for outsmarting the police and the government, which he sees as oppressive and unjust. His
gang-related activities also offer him a means of achieving attachments and relationships of
protection. Thus, Gabriel’s activities are suggestive of political agency that seeks to
transgress the social order dominant in Filipino society, as a mechanism to manage the effects
of injustice and oppression. Gabriel’s case study and the application of Lister’s taxonomy of
agency hold implications for Ungar’s conception of hidden resilience. While hidden
resilience acknowledges the role of unorthodox behaviours such as crime and drug use, it
assumes that children’s true motive for these activities is seeking healthy outcomes that are
defined by the culture and context in which the child lives, albeit via unhealthy means. Thus,
the concept of hidden resilience inadvertently makes a normative judgement that children’s
reflexive processes ultimately lead to “good health outcomes”.

Gabriel’s case study suggests that Ungar’s conception of hidden resilience downplays the
collective experiences of marginalisation and the possibility that aberrant behaviours are a
form of social protest (Bottrell 2009b). Ungar’s approach positions aberrant behaviours as
meaningful only when they contribute to health-related outcomes for the individual that

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reflect normative concepts of healthy functioning in children, in turn reflecting dominant
notions of growth and development in the context of the society in which the child lives. He
suggests that social workers and therapists can assist young people to challenge their personal
narratives about themselves and thus establish a healthy self-concept that rejects labels of
deviance and defiance. In situating remedial actions with individual children, Ungar
inadvertently reverts to an individualist conception of resilience and overlooks acts of
political and collective protest (Bottrell 2009b). This chapter has suggested that children hold
contradictory beliefs about self and the complex processes that underpin their choices. This
finding concurs with recent studies of agency in the lives of children, suggesting that young
people live in multiple contexts and structures that enable or constrain choice (Skattebol,
Redmond & Zizzo 2017).

Kyla’s case is significant in this thesis, as she “gets organised” and demonstrates political
agency via engaging in collective action in ways that are currently underexplored in the
resilience discourse. Supported by Bahay Tuluyan, Kyla learned about the rights of children,
and this transformed her conception of what it is to “do well”. Kyla was aware of the
powerlessness of children living in an adult-centric society when she articulated that adults in
positions of power do not listen to the voices of children. Having learned about children’s
rights, however, she challenges individual cases of injustice, for example when she
challenged the abuse of a child by a guard outside a fast food restaurant. In this example she
drew on the UNCRC to point out that the guard’s actions constituted child abuse and were
illegal. Kyla also takes part in advocacy activities when the children of Bahay Tuluyan write
to the government about the conditions of street children’s lives. Kyla engages in reflexive
and strategic activities that seek to create “second-order change”, radically altering the lives
of street-involved children in the Philippines (Hoggett 2001). Kyla’s case study exemplifies
that children’s perceptions of resilience can include acts of political agency including
engaging in collective actions that seek to radically challenge the existing social order of the
society in which they live.

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 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

6.1 Introduction

This study has sought to understand how street-involved children in Manila, Philippines,
construct resilience in the context of lives characterised by material deprivation,
marginalisation and government oppression. In order to address the research question, 25
children registered under the care of Bahay Tuluyan engaged in a range of qualitative data
collection methods that enabled the researcher to gain a unique insight into children’s
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” (Ungar 2011). In this study, the perceptions of
children were privileged as the researcher adopted the position that she was the learner and
the children were experts in their own lives (Ryan 2006). This study offers new insights into
the construction of resilience, highlighting how children’s perceptions diverge from those
held by adult, expert researchers and policy makers who control the dominant social and
political discourse. In doing so, it contributes to the knowledge base and amplifies the voices
of children who are “Othered” by mainstream society.

This study makes a theoretical contribution to the resilience discourse by suggesting children
hold perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” that inform acts of resistance against their
shared experiences of oppression and marginalisation. To do this, the study has drawn on
scholars of agency as well as critics of the resilience discourse as a basis on which to suggest
marginalised children’s efforts to “do well” can be understood as acts of political agency
(Bottrell 2002, 2007, 2009b, Redmond 2009, valentine 2011, Skattebol, Redmond et al.
2017). In applying Lister’s (2004) taxonomy of agency to the children’s perceptions of
“adversity” and “doing well”, this study places resilience within social, political and
economic structures in society and considers various types of agency as expressions of
resistance against collective disadvantage. This study foregrounds the capacity of children
living in poverty to respond to the collective experience of adversity by focusing attention on
the multiple (culturally approved and “deviant”) strategies that children employ when they
overcome difficult circumstances (Skattebol, Redmond et al. 2017).

The findings of this study suggest that children hold perceptions of “adversity” and “doing
well” that diverge from those held by adult researchers and policy makers. The findings of
this study emphasise the importance of privileging the voices of children in all stages of the

247
policy-making process and suggests that policy makers should pay attention to the diverse
expressions of resistance that are not usually associated with dominant conceptions of
“healthy functioning” in children. Children in this study engaged in various day-to-day and
strategic actions to improve their lives and the lives of others, some of which complied with
normative expectations of children, while others did not. This study argues that, in the lives
of highly marginalised children, these actions are valid forms of resilience that are currently
underexplored in the dominant discourse.

The findings of this study challenge the individualised conception of resilience that
emphasises personal characteristics and Western values and norms associated with child
development. In public policy, this conception of resilience is evident when governments
emphasise personal responsibility for overcoming disadvantage in poor children and their
families. For children in this study, personal experiences of oppression informed the
development of a political consciousness that fuelled personal and collective action to change
the circumstances of street-involved children. The child participants understood that their
experiences of “adversity” as political and associated their deprivation of basic resources with
which to survive with a denial of their human rights. Thus the findings of this study challenge
the individualised conception of resilience that is dominant in resilience-based policy
(Bottrell 2013). This thesis suggests a refined approach to understanding resilience based on
children’s diverse perceptions of “doing well” that include expressions of political agency
when children take individual and collective action to improve their lives and the lives of
others.

6.2 Implications of Children’s Diverse Perceptions of Resilience for Theory

The findings of this study have implications for the resilience discourse. In privileging the
voices of children, this study suggests their perceptions of what it is to “do well” extend
beyond dominant conceptions that are founded on narrow ideas of “healthy functioning”.
This thesis has analysed conceptions of “healthy functioning” that are dominant in the
Minority World resilience literature, as well as conceptions of “healthy functioning” in the
Filipino studies of resilience. In highlighting children’s own perceptions of resilience, this
thesis suggests a more nuanced conception of “adversity” and “doing well” that diverges
from perceptions of “healthy functioning” held by adult researchers.

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This study contributes to theory on resilience by highlighting the perspectives of one group of
children in the Majority World. The dominant construction of resilience has, in many
instances, privileged conceptions of childhood that are prevalent in Minority World
industrialised countries, with researchers defining “healthy functioning” to be associated with
Western ethnocentric values and notions of child development (McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et
al. 2005, McAdam-Crisp 2006). Drawing on Ungar’s social-ecological definition and
scholars who have adapted his approach, this thesis has argued that the dominant conception
of resilience applies Minority World values to children in diverse contexts, overlooking
cultural nuances and the varied constructions of “healthy functioning” in children. Filipino
literature on resilience in street-involved children, reviewed in-depth for the first time in this
study, suggests that resilience is informed by collective values and a conception of self that
emphasises group membership and relationships of mutual obligation. In this study, street-
involved children in Manila are shown to have placed importance on collectivist values when
they privileged the needs of their families over their own. Thus, children in this study
perceived “doing well” as being able to uphold collectivist values and observe relationships
of mutual obligation and comply with Filipino values.

The major contribution of the study concerns children’s perceptions of resilience within the
social, political and economic context of their lives and acknowledging the constraints and
opportunity structures available to the child within their culture and context (valentine 2011).
The children in this study suggest the adversities they face are shared with other street-
involved children and their families who are marginalised by mainstream society. This
perception is suggestive of a political conception of “adversity” that acknowledges
marginalised groups in society. In drawing on literature on agency, this study has suggested
an alternative approach to resilience that addresses relationships of power between those in
mainstream society and those who are marginalised, as well as between adults and children.
This approach aims to take into account children’s diverse conceptions of “doing well” that
can be seen as expressions of political agency in children who are marginalised from
mainstream society (Hoggett 2001, Lister 2004, valentine 2011, Skattebol, Redmond et al.
2017).

This study also highlights the diverse mechanisms by which children resist the effects of
“Othering” from mainstream society that are not usually associated with resilience. Children
in this study engaged in everyday actions to manage the effects of poverty, as well as

249
strategic actions to overcome adversity that they perceived to be the result of political
oppression. These actions included complying with social and cultural norms of “healthy
functioning” in children, as well as transgressing these norms by engaging in criminal
behaviour. This study furthers Ungar’s conception of “hidden resilience”, which
inadvertently emphasises individual responses by children who wish to resist being labelled
delinquent, dangerous or disordered (Ungar 2005, 2009, Bottrell 2009a, 2009b). This thesis
has argued that children can perceive their illegal actions as a response to the collective
experience of oppression and can reflect ambivalent relationships with cultural values that
determine notions of “healthy functioning” in a specific culture and context. The thesis has
shown moreover that street-involved children’s own conceptions of resilience are in some
cases intertwined with rights-based discourses as foundations for acts of radical political
agency, which are largely overlooked in the dominant resilience literature.

6.3 Implications of Children’s Diverse Perceptions of Resilience for Policy

This study findings hold implications for policy and programs that seek to facilitate resilience
in children and their families who are marginalised from mainstream society. The findings
suggest that children hold perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” that diverge from
those identified by adult, expert researchers in constructions of resilience in both the Majority
and Minority Worlds.

One implication is that the voices of street-involved children should be privileged in policy
and program development, implementation and evaluation (Turnbull, Hernández et al. 2009).
Privileging the voices of children at all stages of policy and program development requires
that adults identify and address power inequalities in adult-centric societies that determine
how children engage in the political process.

As in many nations, in the Philippines there are legislated modes of participation in which
children are enabled by adults to take part in political decision making (Bessell 2009).
However, children face significant barriers to participation including being confronted with
culturally normative notions of incomplete development and the authority of adults (Bessell
2007, Protacio-de Castro, Camacho et al. 2007, Bessell 2009). Hart’s (2008) ladder of
participation articulates that the most meaningful level of political participation is child-
initiated actions with shared decision-making power between adults and children (Shier 2001,
Hart 2008). However children’s participation in collective decision making is often described

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as “tokenism” or a form of non-participation whereby adults overlook feedback and
contributions by children (Lundy 2018). In the Philippines, mechanisms of child participation
have been observed to exclude children who are poor, or not in school (Protacio-de Castro,
Camacho et al. 2007). Furthermore, Filipino political processes in which children participate
are controlled by adults who are able to disregard children’s contributions at their discretion
(Protacio-de Castro, Camacho et al. 2007).

The involvement of children in civic decision-making processes has tended to offer a narrow
understanding of children’s engagement, overlooking diverse expressions of political agency
and community participation (Hart 2008). This thesis joins a handful of studies that have
acknowledged the capacity of street-involved children to demonstrate resistance to
marginalisation in their own ways, including through the formation of subcultures and
collective identities that enable them to survive in the context of oppression (Davies 2008,
Bottrell 2009b, Beazley 2003). As such, an implication of this study is that policy makers
must consider the “informal” mechanisms by which children protest experiences of
marginalisation that are outside those awarded to them by adults. This includes personal
transgressive acts such as drug dealing and crime, committed by young people who attribute
them as acts of resistance against experiences of oppression. This is in addition to recognising
collective acts of political protest when children powerfully claim their rights and call on the
government to uphold their responsibilities as duty bearers under the UNCRC. Understanding
children’s diverse expressions of political agency requires that policy makers ask children
about their perceptions and seek to understand modes of behaviour that are not traditionally
associated with resilience and “doing well”.

Recognising children’s diverse expressions of political agency requires that policy makers
deeply listen to children and seek to understand their experiences of “Othering”. One of the
key findings of this study is that children perceive “adversity” to be the result of oppressive
government policies directed towards street-involved children, whom they identify as a
marginalised group in society. Children who participated in the study demonstrated a political
analysis of “adversity” that is currently underexamined in the risk factors identified in the
resilience discourse, which focus on personal, relational and community adverse
circumstances. Furthermore, the children in this study, in order to resist the effects of
marginalisation, engage in diverse personal, collective, day-to-day and strategic actions to
effect short- and long-term change in their own lives and the lives of others. These diverse

251
acts in some cases comply with, and in other case contravene, notions of “healthy
functioning” dominant in the Philippines, but nevertheless all represent efforts to manage the
shared experience of being “Othered” by mainstream Filipino society.

This study foregrounds the capacity of children to contribute to social change via collective
resistance against oppression and marginalisation, which is often overlooked in resilience-
based interventions. Kyla’s case study highlights this study finding and exemplifies
children’s capacity for reflexive, strategic action as they seek to radically alter the political
and social structures that constrain their lives (Hoggett 2001). An implications of her case
study is the usefulness of a rights-based framework for programs with street-involved
children to enable them to develop new understandings of what it is to “do well” and create a
mechanism by which they can move towards that perception (Berckmans, Velasco et al.
2012). As Kyla demonstrates, a rights-based framework also enables children to claim their
rights, rather than relying on adults to claim them on their behalf (Van Daalen, Hanson et al.
2016). Kyla’s case study challenges policy makers to understand children’s rights beyond
formal mechanisms of participation and instead consider the practices and methods that
children use to embrace their rights and use them for themselves (Liebel 2012).

The findings of this study challenge the individualist approach to public policy that seeks to
facilitate resilience in children by foregrounding issues of equality and access to services and
structures. An implication of this study is that policies and programs that seek to enhance
resilience in children must address structural barriers that prevent them from accessing basic
health services and material goods that enable survival. In addition programs that aim to
enhance resilience in children must also address stigma and discrimination that they
experience in their day-to-day lives (Henderson & Denny 2015). “While resilience theory and
practice are concerned with young people’s coping against the odds, there is a case for
shifting the odds to open the directions and objects of young people’s coping and
competence” (Bottrell 2009b, p. 337).

Public policy concerning “street children” has been observed to focus attention on the
individual and their presumed behaviours, thereby neutralising wider social factors that
promote deprivation (De Moura 2002). Policy concerning street-involved children has been
observed to be based on deeply ingrained stereotypes that assume criminality or passivity and
reliance on the help of adults (Bar-On 1997, Moncrieffe 2006, Hills, Meyer-Weitz et al.
2016, Stodulka 2017). Common service models such as drop-in, alternative education,

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feeding and accommodation programs contribute to the survival of street-involved children,
but position “doing well” as an individual endeavour (De Moura 2002). Programs that target
street children tend to offer activities that focus on “rehabilitation” when they address
problematic behaviours such as drug use and criminality, thereby seeking to restore
normative notions of “childhood” (Turnbull, Hernández et al. 2009). As such, these programs
overlook power inequalities and guide individualised interventions that seek to improve the
lives of singular children (De Moura 2002).

An individualist approach to resilience is consistent with neoliberal ideology and has been
drawn on as a basis for policy interventions in which the individual is positioned as
responsible for their own success despite disadvantage (Seccombe 2002, Bottrell 2013,
Tierney 2015, Crossley 2016). The central argument of neoliberalism is that individuals are
consumers who are self-enterprising and make decisions in their own best interests. As a
form of governance, resilience relies on the individual to be autonomous and responsible, and
capable of self-organisation in response to stress (Joseph 2013, Chandler 2014). Policy that
informs the Filipino welfare system has been influenced by its history of American
colonisation and a social welfare model in which the individual is considered to be the locus
of change (Yu 2006). The Filipino welfare system is characterised by a devolution of social
services, an emphasis on charity, and the promotion of “self-reliance” in people who are poor
(Holden, Nadeau et al. 2017). Neoliberal public policy is also the basis of government
interventions such as the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme, also called the “Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program”, which demands poor parents enrol their children in school and
attend parenting classes in order to qualify for financial assistance (Alampay, Lachman et al.
2018). This program provides cash transfers to poor households in order to break the cycle of
intergenerational unemployment and poverty (Chaudhury, Friedman et al. 2013). An
evaluation of the program in 2013 suggests that, while this scheme has increased enrolment
in school for very young children, it fails to address the educational engagement of children
after they turn 10, with many children dropping out as soon as they are able to earn an
income (Chaudhury, Friedman et al. 2013).

Once at school, the national curriculum includes an emphasis on character development via
education programs that teach religiosity, citizenship and economic participation as important
indicators of a successful adulthood (Almonte-Acosta 2011). Influenced by the American
school system, public schools in the Philippines integrate an emphasis on character

253
development into all classroom activities, teaching values such as peace, respect and a love of
hard work (Florido 2006). In doing so, these public policy approaches position the individual
as responsible for their own success and ability to overcome disadvantage.

One implication of this study’s findings is that the policy and programs that target street-
involved children in the Philippines simultaneously deny them basic resources by which to
survive and position them as responsible for their arduous life circumstances. The primary
response to street-involved children is the Protocol of Rescue, which removes children from
public spaces and places them in protective custody (Republic of the Philippines 2012, Bahay
Tuluyan 2014). Alternatively called “street sweeps”, “clean ups” or “reach out” operations,
rescue is delivered by diverse government officials with diverse mandates that include
protecting and rehabilitating children as well as city beautification (Republic of the
Philippines 2012, Bahay Tuluyan 2014). A 2014 study by Bahay Tuluyan found that children
experience rescue as a violation of their human rights when they are removed from the streets
against their will and experience abuse and violence at the hands of government officials
(Bahay Tuluyan 2014). Other social policies such as the war on drugs and curfew
disproportionately impact poor children and their families, exposing them to violence and
victimisation (Reyes 2016, Kattouw 2018). Since the 2016 election over 9000 deaths have
been attributed to the war on drugs, with most casualties taking place in the poorest areas of
Manila (Jensen and Hapal 2018, Simangan 2018). Simangan (2018) suggests the actions of
the government can be classified as genocide, as defined by Stanton (2013) with phases that
include dehumanisation, polarisation, extermination and denial (Stanton 2013, Simangan
2018). Thus, public policy positions street-involved children as responsible for overcoming
“adversity” while simultaneously subjecting them to extreme political oppression and
denying them their basic human rights.

Another implication of this study is that policy makers should fully recognise children’s
capacity to be active agents and contribute to political matters that concern them and their
families. The insights of this study extend beyond the Philippines, prompting the examination
of political movements initiated for and by young people. For example, Extinction Rebellion
(XR) is a social movement primarily made up of younger adults who engage in acts of civil
disobedience in response to the looming climate change crisis. Inspired by Greta Thunberg
who initiated the school climate strikes, there are now 80 XR groups across the world which
regularly engage in organised activities to protest climate inaction. Young people who have

254
participated in these groups have suggested that protesting against climate inaction enhances
their mental health and provides hope for the future (Murray 2019). In Australia and
overseas, engagement in these activities has led to young people being arrested and subject to
harsh government action in response to their protests (Smee 2019). This response is
suggestive of a public policy approach that considers the political agency of young people
expressed via actions that contravene expectations of behaviour as acts of civil disobedience
rather than as expressions of resilience. This study foregrounds the diverse expressions of
political agency of groups of marginalised children who take action to improve their
circumstances and those of others as acts of resilience.

6.4 Study Limitations

In this section multiple theoretical and methodological limitations will be discussed that
should be noted when considering the findings of this study. The small number of children
who took part in data collection suggests that their perspectives should not be seen as
representative of all street-involved children in the Philippines. This study sought to
understand the lived experience of this particular group of street-involved children and
acknowledges that street-involved children live in many different contexts, in both the
Minority and Majority Worlds (McAdam-Crisp, Aptekar et al. 2005). The scope of this study
concerns only the lived experience of this group of children who live in Manila, Philippines
and, as such, the findings should not be assumed to automatically apply to street-involved
children who live in other cultures and contexts.

Furthermore, it is acknowledged that street-involved children are a non-homogenous group

who experience a variety of living conditions, including being orphaned or abandoned, living
on the streets with their families, spending many hours on the street but returning to their
families at the end of each day, and living under the care and protection of a non-government
agency (Panter-Brick 2002, UN 2017). In order to manage the ethical and methodological
complexities of conducting research with street-involved children who are hard to access and
live precarious lives, all of the children who participated in this study lived or studied at
Bahay Tuluyan. Thus, the participants represent a subset of street-involved children.

All children in the study, including those featured in the emblematic case studies, learnt about
the UNCRC at the research site, Bahay Tuluyan. As explained in detail in Section 3.6, Bahay
Tuluyan is a grassroots community organisation that delivers all programs and activities

255
within a child rights framework. A limitation of the study findings concerns the politicisation
of the children who participated and the study findings that emphasise the political agency of
children. This agency supports community protests and engages in international awareness
campaigns against injustices street children experience including the policy of “rescue” and
the “war on drugs” (Bahay Tuluyan 2014). Bahay Tuluyan also provides opportunities for
children to lead community advocacy activities and thus facilitates their cognisance of their
own experiences and how they relate to the human rights discourse. As such, the children
who participated in this study are perhaps more likely than many other children to have
perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” that are associated with political agency. Studies
of the perceptions of “doing well” of street-involved children who have not learnt about their
human rights would be worthy of further research.

A significant methodological challenge in this study concerned the cultural position of the
researcher, as an Anglo-Saxon Australian living in Manila. The different nationalities of the
researcher and the child participants influenced the study method and presented the potential
for cultural bias and exacerbated power differentials. Prior to the study commencement the
researcher reviewed academic literature regarding the impact of cultural bias in cross-cultural
studies with children (Graham et al. 2013). After the completion of this process the researcher
worked with Bahay Tuluyan to identify possible risks and cultural bias that could emerge
during this study, including issues of comprehension, identification of themes and the
incorrect interpretation of children’s perceptions that are based within cultural values. An
extensive risk assessment and mitigation process was undertaken and documented in the
Memorandum of Understanding (Appendix 4).

To manage this challenge, several mechanisms designed to enhance cultural sensitivity were
built into the study and are discussed in detail in Chapter 3. These mechanisms included a
reflexivity diary in which the researcher reflected on her own cultural position and examined
her own perceptions and assumptions. The Local Advisory Group provided important advice
on the data collection to ensure cultural relevance. The Local Advisory Group met multiple
times during the data collection and assisted with the modification of the data collection
protocol to ensure maximum understanding between the children and the researcher. This
included the modification of data collection methods to include “flash cards” that articulated
Filipino values in order to facilitate understandings of cultural nuance in children’s
perceptions of “doing well”. In addition, at the conclusion of the data collection and the

256
process of thematic analysis, the Local Advisory Group provided advice regarding
contextually specific findings. These mechanisms were intended to mitigate the significance
of cultural bias and inaccurate understandings of children’s perceptions during this study.

Further cultural challenges were experienced in relation to language. Prior to living in

Manila, the researcher was not fluent in Tagalog, the primary language spoken on the island
of Luzon. While all children who participated in the study spoke some level of English, data
collection was planned to provide maximum opportunities for children to feel competent and
confident in expressing their thoughts and perceptions. For this reason, a Tagalog interpreter
was present in all interactions with children including the “draw and talk” art activities, the
“walk and talk” child-led tours and the semi-structured interviews. After each interaction
with a child, the researcher and the interpreter met and reflected on the data collection
process to ensure cultural understanding. As the result of this process, the data collection
process was modified to include the addition of “flash cards” that identified Filipino values in
Tagalog (Appendix 11). A variety of other qualitative mediums were also utilised such as art
activities in which children were invited to explain their pictures to the interpreter. The child-
led tours enabled children to provide a detailed description of the meaning they attributed to
people and places as they encountered them in their social ecology. The variety of data
collection mechanisms enabled the researcher to gain a rich insight into children’s
experiences. In addition, all transcripts were transcribed by a Tagalog-speaking transcriber
who provided additional information regarding the use of colloquial language.

This study encountered several ethical challenges during the process of data collection. Child
participants were accessed via Bahay Tuluyan, on which they are reliant for their physical
health and wellbeing. In addition, as an older adult, the researcher also occupied a position of
power in Filipino society in relation to children. In order to manage perceptions of coercion
the study included a sequenced process of informed consent and assent that included verbal
and written information provided in English and Tagalog. Each child participant had multiple
opportunities to learn about the study, meet the researcher and ask questions. Children self-
selected into the study and were also offered the opportunity to discontinue their participation
if they wished. Managing possible perceptions of coercion was an ongoing challenge during
data collection and required the researcher and interpreter to be vigilant for non-verbal signs
of unwillingness to participate.

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The theoretical limitations of this study concern findings in relation to gender. While even
numbers of male and female participants self-selected into the study, the thesis did not
investigate variance in boys’ and girls’ perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well”, or
investigate gender-based strategies by which children resist the effects of marginalisation. In
Filipino society, different social and cultural expectations exist for male and female children
(Liwag 1998, Alampay & Jocson 2011, Barrera 2017). As suggested in Angelica’s case
study, female children are observed to have responsibilities for home-based domestic tasks
such as the care of siblings, while male children are given more freedom away from the home
and are expected to undertake manual labour to generate an income (Pomm 2005).
Furthermore, the Philippines is a rapidly developing nation in which gender roles are
changing in response to globalisation and changing social values (Eviota 1992, Bayudan-
Dacuycuy 2012). Given these circumstances, it is possible that differentiation exists in girls’
and boys’ perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” that could warrant specific
exploration. Furthermore, an examination of intersectionality and interlocking systems of
oppression such as race, gender, disability and class may reveal further structural inequalities
and their impact on the mechanisms by which children overcome adversity in the Philippines
(Belkhir & Barnett 2001, Driscoll 2011).

The findings of this study also hold implications for specific policy areas in relation to
children, young people and their families that have not been explored in detail. For example,
in this study Ungar’s conception of hidden resilience has been drawn on as a theoretical basis
to explore young people’s behaviour, including engagement in crime, as a means of
developing a powerful self-concept (Robinson 2016). In the field of youth justice, studies
have considered resilience as a separate but related concept to “desistance”, defined as
processes by which young people end their criminal careers (Fitzpatrick 2011). Desistance,
like resilience, is understood to be the result of complex processes that are associated with
emotional, material and relational resources that enable the cessation of crime (Halsey,
Armstrong et al. 2016). This thesis has highlighted children’s and young people’s acts of
personal and strategic agency in response to the collective experience of being “Othered” by
mainstream society. Young people’s perceptions of their criminal behaviour as acts of
political resistance remains an important finding of this study that warrants further research.

This thesis acknowledges that studies of children’s voice are faced with inherent difficulties
that are born of unequal power relationships between adult researchers and child participants.

258
Child-centred researchers face the challenge of enabling children to express themselves,
while also understanding what they choose to express (Spyrou 2011).

In child-centred research, efforts to enable children to express their views have led to
researchers employing creative qualitative methods such as role plays, drawings, videos and
photographs in order to uncover and understand children’s perceptions (Eldén 2013). Some
critics have pointed out inherent difficulties with these approaches, arguing the researchers
must resist the temptation to uncover a singular “authentic” voice of children and risk
overlooking diversity of experiences based on gender, age, culture and context (Eldén 2013,
Spyrou 2011, Komulainen, 2007). Furthermore, children are complex beings who make
choices about what they share with the researcher, choosing to express one viewpoint while
simultaneously holding another. To illustrate this point Spyrou (2011) draws from her own
experience of researching Greek Cypriot children’s constructions of national identity,
pointing out that building relationships with children enables the researcher to understand the
meaning and complexity of children’s views over time. Such findings imply that researchers
should take care to observe the range of ways in which children choose to communicate,
including through silences and omissions (Spyrou 2011).

This thesis includes an analysis of reflexive and non-reflexive agency as children self-identify
their use of resources that enable them to recover after adversity. However, in suggesting
these findings, this thesis acknowledges a significant limitation in the inherent difficulties
researchers face in uncovering non-reflexive agency in research. The tension between
reflexive and non-reflexive agency is suggested in Jasmine’s case study, where her strategies
for survival are presented as habitual and day-to-day, rather than strategically planned.
Jasmine engaged in all the research methods available including the “talk and draw” art
activity, child-led tours, and a semi-structured interview in which the researcher attempted to
maximise opportunities for reflection. In addition, analysis included diverse data sources
including verbal and non-verbal communication recorded by the researcher. For example, on
the child-led tour Jasmine pointed to a small temporary dwelling where she slept with other
children. However, this thesis accepts that this study is reliant on the perceptions that Jasmine
chose to share.

As Skattebol, Redmond and Zizzo (2017) observe, children’s non-reflexive thought processes
are difficult to identify and analyse as they rely on the interpretation of actions and decisions
that are not explicitly explained. Furthermore, they suggest it is not always clear if children’s

259
actions and decisions are reflexive, with children holding complex beliefs and motivations for
their actions and decisions that may be conscious or all unconscious(Skattebol, Redmond &
Zizzo 2017). In their study, young people expressed allegiance to the neoliberal notion of the
autonomous self while simultaneously taking action to protect their families and assist them
to manage the impacts of marginalisation and poverty:

Young people’s stories are embodied, layered, messy, deadpan, passionate and often
biting. They are replete with the inconsistencies that permeate any narrative of self
that seeks to account for more than one action and more than a single context.
(Skattebol, Redmond & Zizzo 2017, p. 315)

In this study, child participants made choices regarding engagement in the diverse range of
data collection methods, and thus revealed reflexive and non-reflexive perceptions that offer
interesting insights into resilience. The relationship between reflexivity and resilience in
children is underexplored in the resilience literature and warrants further exploration.

6.5 Recommendations for Further Research

Several recommendations for further research pertain to the theoretical and methodological
limitations mentioned in Section 6.4. This study acknowledges that street-involved children
experience a variety of circumstances including being orphaned and abandoned, living on the
streets with their families, spending long hours each day generating an income or residing
under the care of a non-government agency. The street-involved children who participated in
this study lived or studied at Bahay Tuluyan and as such represent a subset of street-involved
children who are under the care and protection of a non-government agency. Further
investigations regarding children’s perceptions of resilience are warranted with a larger and
more diverse participant group of street-involved children. For example, a broader study
might include the perceptions of children who engage in formal work as a mechanism to get
out of poverty. Moreover, similar studies of younger children (below the age of 11 years)
may yield interesting insights into perceptions of “adversity” and “doing well” that may vary
from this participant group.

Furthermore, this study was undertaken over several months in 2017 and therefore offers
insights into children’s perceptions at a “point in time”. Longitudinal studies of children who
live and work on the streets are warranted, including examining the insights of children and
their changing perceptions over time. Further studies may investigate gender-based modes of
resistance considering social and cultural norms that are dominant in Filipino society.

260
This thesis argues that the resistance of children who are marginalised is largely
underexamined in the resilience discourse. The major contribution of this study concerns
children’s perceptions of resilience as an overtly political construct when they live in the
context of government oppression and a denial of their human rights. This study has
suggested that children express resistance to political oppression in varied forms. It holds
implications for understanding of other decisions and actions by marginalised children that
are overlooked by adults as expressions of resilience. The application of Lister’s taxonomy of
agency to groups of marginalised children in other cultures and contexts may reveal different
strategies to resist the effects of oppression that are otherwise overlooked.

The child rights dialogue employed by children in this study also suggests new questions
regarding children’s perceptions of their rights as a protective factor that facilitates resilience.
In this study, the rights discourse provides Kyla with an instrument by which she can
proclaim her rights and the rights of other street-involved children. Like Gabriel, Kyla’s
expression of political agency extends beyond that afforded to her by adults in positions of
power. Unlike Gabriel however, she seeks to reform relationships of power in Filipino
society by engaging in political advocacy and collective acts of self-help. Her collective
consciousness that she shares with other street-involved children is born of shared
experiences and creates a foundation for sustained and radical change (Wexler, DiFluvio et
al. 2009). Her case study implies that a rights-based framework would be useful in programs
with children who are marginalised by mainstream society (Berckmans, Velasco et al. 2012).
While rights-based approaches have been recognised as a basis of interventions with
marginalised children, they are often organised by adults on behalf of children. This study
suggests that children have the capacity to claim their rights, rather than relying on adults to
claim them on their behalf (Van Daalen, Hanson et al. 2016). Further studies are warranted
that seek to uncover acts of self-organising by children who demand their human rights in the
context of marginalisation and oppression. This is especially relevant in the age of the
Extinction Rebellion.

Finally, drawing on Ungar and scholars of agency, this thesis has challenged the dominant
conception of resilience and argued that street-involved children perceive “adversity” and
“doing well” to be deeply intertwined with their social, political and economic context (Lister
2004, Ungar 2011, 2012). While Ungar’s (2009) conception of hidden resilience recognises
children’s diverse journeys towards self-identified conceptions of “doing well”, this thesis

261
has drawn attention to the social-political context of children’s lives and the actions they take
to resist the effects of oppression. Further theoretical debate is warranted to deeply explore
the relationship between political agency and resilience, particularly in populations of
children who are “Othered” by mainstream society and who hold conceptions of their own
“healthy functioning” that are outside of normative growth and development in the dominant
society in which they live. Theoretical debate such as this may further undermine the
dominant concept of resilience and challenge its application in the lives of marginalised
children altogether.

6.6 Concluding Remarks

This study’s findings suggest new questions for researchers who seek to understand how
children conceptualise resilience and their acts of political agency in the context of
marginalisation. The existing literature in both the Minority and Majority Worlds
overwhelmingly overlooks that children’s reflexive and non-reflexive acts of political agency
may be associated with resilience. The implications of this study suggest further
investigations are warranted that consider children’s own perceptions of their political agency
and how this contributes towards their conceptions of “doing well”.

It has been my privilege to undertake this study and contribute towards new understandings
of children’s conceptions of resilience that differ from those of expert, adult researchers who
dominant the resilience discourse. This study highlights the diverse actions of marginalised
children and suggests they can be understood as acts of resistance in response to inequalities
of power in society. It is my hope that this study encourages other researchers and policy
makers seek out and privilege the perceptions of children, drawing attention to the diverse
ways children express political resistance in the context of marginalisation and oppression.

262
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 APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Child Assent Form

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

CHILD ASSENT FORM
FOR DATA TO BE USED IN STUDY

Good day!

I am Alisa Willis from Flinders University in South Australia. I am doing a study to try and
understand how children recover after experiencing difficulties in life. As an adult, I don’t
know what children think and feel. It is important that I listen to the voices of children like you
to understand how children recover after adversity.

We are asking you to take part in the research study because your social worker feels you
might be an expert in overcoming life’s challenges. We also think you have the ability to
make an independent decision if you want to participate.

If you decide to take part, I will meet with you several times. During our meetings I will ask
you some questions about how you feel about yourself, your family and your community. To
make our talks easier, we will do some activities together like artwork. We will also go for a
walk around Bahay Tuluyan and the neighbourhood.

During our walk we will talk about people and places that are important to you. We will then
sit in a quiet room at Bahay Tuluyan so we can talk privately. I will record our talk on voice
recorder so that I can use all the information that you give me. An interpreter will be there to
help us if we need.

I promise that I will keep all your answers private, and will not show them to your parents or
even staff at Bahay Tuluyan. Only people from Flinders University working on the study will
see them. The only time I would break this promise is if I was worried that you were in
danger or have committed a major crime. In this instance, I would talk to you about who we
might need to tell. It is likely we would tell someone at Bahay Tuluyan or a partner agency
who you feel comfortable with.

During the research, your privacy will be protected; your name and any identifying details will
not be included in the study. You will also have the opportunity to hear about the end result

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of the study. It takes a long to process all the information, but when it is done we will have a
celebration at Bahay Tuluyan and be able to share what we have learned.

We don’t think that any big problems will happen to you if you take part in this study, but it is
possible that you might feel sad when we ask about bad experiences in your past. If that
happens, a Bahay Tuluyan staff member or someone from a partner organisation will be talk
to you to help you feel better.

Participating in this study might help you understand all the resources in yourself, your family
and your community that you use to help you overcome problems. You might also feel good
about providing advice for an important study that might help to improve services for children
like you.

You should know that:

• You do not have to be in this study if you do not want to. You won’t get into any
trouble with Bahay Tuluyan if you say no.
• You may stop being in the study at any time. If I think you look uncomfortable during
the study, I will suggest we take a break and check that you are OK to keep going.
• Bahay Tuluyan have been asked if it is OK for you to be part of this study. Even if
they say it’s OK, it is still your choice whether or not to take part.
• You can ask any questions you have, now or later. If you think of a question later,
you or your guardian can contact me at [email protected] or when you see me
at Bahay Tuluyan. Social workers might also be able to answer any questions you
might have.

Sign this form only if you:

• Have understood what you will be doing for this study,

• Have had all your questions answered,
• Have talked to someone you trust about this project,
• Agree to take part in this research, and
• Agree for your de-identified data to be used in the final report.

_______________________________________________________________________

Your Signature Printed Name Date

______________________________________
Name of Legal Guardian(s)

_______________________________________________________________________
Researcher explaining study
Signature Printed Name Date

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Appendix 2: Child Participant Information Sheet (English)

Child Participant Information Sheet

“Understanding Resilience in the lives of Children in Manila,

Philippines”

This study is trying to understand how children like you recover and do well, despite
experiencing many difficulties in life.

We think that children build relationships with people and places in order to overcome
problems in their past, and go on to do well in life. But in order to really understand this, we
want to talk with you, who are doing well, despite experiencing difficult times. We think that
you have expertise in this area, and your opinions and experiences will help us learn more.

We think participating in this project will benefit you in thinking about relationships and
places that have helped you. Also, you might feel good about your opinions and experiences
being part of an important study that will help improve services for children.

This Information Sheet will answer some questions about the research project so that you
can think about if you wish to take part in the study. You don’t have to participate if you don’t
want to, and no one will be upset if you choose not to. Also, you can withdraw at any time
during the project, and the information that you have contributed will not be used.

Here are some questions you might want to ask me before you make the decision to
participate.

Who are you?

I am Alisa Willis and I am a student from Flinders University of South Australia. I have been
working with BT for the last 4 years and we are doing this research project together.

What will the project be like for me?

If you agree to take part, I will come to Bahay Tuluyan and talk with you about the important
people in your life and how they have helped you. To make our talks easier, we will meet two
times, and do some activities together. The first meeting is likely to take about 45 minutes.
The second meeting that includes a child led tour might take an hour or so.

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What do you want to know about me?

In our first meeting, we will get to know each other and learn more about the study. We will
do an art activity that helps us talk and draw about the risks children experience and what
makes a good life.

In our next meeting, I will ask you to give a tour of Bahay Tuluyan and surrounding area, so
you can point out to me the people and places that are important to you. We will then go to
Bahay Tuluyan where we will have a private talk. During our talk I will ask you some
personal things, like who has helped you when you are in trouble, and who you consider to
be family.

The questions will be in Tagalog or English, and an interpreter will be there to help us if we
need it. I will record our discussion with a digital voice recorder and use it as part of the
project. I will listen to the recording and those from other children, and then I will write a
report about what I find.

Will my name be used?

No, we will give you a code, so we can describe what you think without someone knowing
that it was you. Any other identifying information will also be changed. This means that your
thoughts and feelings will go into the report, but we will make sure that no-one reading it
knows whom you might be.

Is it confidential?

Yes, you can tell anyone you like about the research but I will treat what you say as
confidential. This includes the staff at Bahay Tuluyan. This would only change if I feared you
were in danger or if you had committed a major crime. Then I would have to tell someone at
Bahay Tuluyan or someone from a partner agency. I would not do this without you knowing,
and before I did this, we would talk about whom the best person would be to tell.

Will I see the report you will write?

Yes, I will come back to Bahay Tuluyan and tell you about what we have found. It takes a
long time to finish the report but when I do, I will make sure you can get a summary of the
report if you want one.

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How can I get more information?

You can contact me anytime on the number and email address at the top of this Information
Sheet. Or you can talk to me, or any of the social workers at Bahay Tuluyan who will be able
to answer any questions you might have.

The University of the Philippines Ethics Review Board and the Flinders University of South
Australia Ethics Review Board have approved this study.

Complaints or feedback can be made via the following:

Flinders University Ethical Research Board www.flinders.edu.au or at the number at the top
of this page.

The University of the Philippines Ethics Review Board [email protected] or

telephone +6325264346 3 2 5264346; Mobile: +63 927 3264910; Email:
[email protected]

Thank you for considering taking part in this study. I hope to see you soon.

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Appendix 3: Information Sheet for Guardian (English)

INFORMATION SHEET FOR BAHAY TULUYAN

CHILD’S GUARDIAN

Researchers:
Alisa Willis
School of Social and Policy Studies
Flinders University
Ph: 0917 793 3023

Supervisor(s):
Gerry Redmond
School of Social and Policy Studies
Flinders University
Ph: +61 882013911

Supervisor(s):
Lorna Hallahan
School of social work and Social Planning
Flinders University
Ph: +61 882013911

Purpose of the study

This study is entitled “Understanding resilience in the lives of street-involved children

in Manila, Philippines”

The purpose of the study is to investigate resilience in the lives of street-involved children
and the implications for social work policy and practice. The child under your guardianship
has been selected to participate in this study as they meet the Selection Criteria for
participation.

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By taking part in this study, the child under your guardianship will help us understand the
perspectives of street children regarding the dynamics between protective relationships and
other health enhancing resources in themselves, their community and their culture, and
explore what this means for social work policy and practice.

Description of the study

If you and the child under your guardianship agree to take part, I will make a time to come to
Bahay Tuluyan and talk with them about the important people in their life. I will have some
questions that will be in Tagalog and English, and an interpreter will be there to help us. In
order to make the child feel comfortable, we will use several research methods including an
art activity, a child led tour of Bahay Tuluyan and a semi-structured interview. During these
activities I will ask the child some personal things, like who has helped them when they have
experienced difficulties, and who they consider to be family. I will ask them questions about
how they draw on personal, relational, community and cultural resources that will help me
understand how children grow and thrive in the context of adversity.

The interview discussion will be recorded using a digital voice recorder to help with collating
the results, and writing the final report. Once recorded, the discussion will be transcribed
(typed-up) and stored as a computer file and destroyed once the research is over.

Bahay Tuluyan and the Flinders University School of Social and Policy Studies support this
project. But please note, the participation of the child is entirely voluntary. If for any reason
they do not wish to participate in the study, they can withdraw at any time without penalty.

Will the child benefit from being involved in this study?

The aim of this study is to understand the experiences and perceptions of street-involved
children, in order to help governments and community organisations better design policy and
services that promote the resilience of this population group.

We think that by participating in this project, the child might benefit by thinking about
protective relationships and how they might use them to grow and thrive in the context of
adversity. Also, they might feel good about having their perceptions and experiences used
as a basis for improving services for street-involved children.

Will the child be identifiable by being involved in this study?

Children’s data will be de-identified using a code system, in order to protect their privacy.
During the collation of results, and in the final report, all information will be de-identified.

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We plan to publish the results of the study in a report and in academic journals. In any
publication, information will be provided in such a way that the child will not be able to be
identified.

Once the data are typed-up and saved as a file, the voice file will then be destroyed. Digital
data files will be stored on a password-protected computer and the university secure system
that only the researcher, Alisa Willis, will have access to.

Are there any possible risks or discomforts to the child involved?

The researcher anticipates few risks to the child in this study; however given the nature of
the subject matter some participants could experience emotional discomfort, particularly
when reflecting on difficult experiences.

As we have agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding, Bahay Tuluyan staff will provide
emotional support to the child, post and prior to the interview. If a child raises a quality of
care concern that involves Bahay Tuluyan, the researcher will advise Bahay Tuluyan
management and support from a partner organisation will be sought as per the MOU.

If you have any concerns regarding anticipated or actual risks or discomforts, please raise
them with the researcher whose contact details are on the front page of this Information
Sheet.

Voluntary Participation of the Child

The participation of the child is voluntary and, as per the Philippines National Ethical
Guidelines for Health Research, they will be asked to complete an Assent Form that
indicates their free and informed consent for their data to be used as part of this study.

During the research process, the child may refuse to answer any questions if they wish.
They are also free to withdraw from the study at any time without effect or consequences.
This will be explained to them both verbally and in writing to the child during the data
collection process. Children’s data will only be used if the child has returned a signed Assent
Form at the conclusion of data collection.

A Guardian Consent Form accompanies this information sheet. If you agree for the child
under your guardianship to participate, please read and sign the form and pass it to the
researcher.

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How will I receive feedback?

On the completion of the project, the outcomes will be given to all participants via a
presentation at Bahay Tuluyan. Also, a summary document in English and Tagalog will be
made available that details the findings.

What do I do now?

If you agree for the child under your guardianship to participate in the study, please sign the
Guardianship Consent Form on the next page and return to Alisa Willis.

If you have any questions or would like further information about this study, or have any
comments at any time during the project, please feel free to contact Alisa on +63 917793
3023 or at the email address at the top of this Information Sheet.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Information Sheet.

Alisa Willis

This research project has been approved by the Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research
Ethics Committee (Project number 7765). For more information regarding ethical approval of the
project the Executive Officer of the Committee can be contacted by telephone on 8201 3116, by fax
on 8201 2035 or by email [email protected]

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Appendix 4: Memorandum of Understanding with Bahay Tuluyan and Risk Matrix

Memorandum of Understanding

1. Background

This document specifies the agreed objectives and governance structure of the research
project by Alisa Willis, Doctoral Candidate from Flinders University of South Australia in
undertaking the study entitled “Understanding Resilience in the Lives of Street-Involved
children in Manila, Philippines” and Bahay Tuluyan (BT).

This research project has been devised and planed within an ongoing relationship between
Alisa Willis and BT. Alisa Willis has been working with BT on a pro-bono basis since 2015.
This work has included collaborating with BT social workers to develop internal procedures,
staff training and fundraising activities. In 2016-17 BT revised its theory of change to include
the resilience of children as a key objective. The need for a locally devised resilience
measure was identified. Alisa Willis undertook a literature review of Filipino research and
identified several potential resilience measures. It was decided that this process warranted a
research project in which street-involved children’s construction of resilience was explored.
Information generated by the study would be used to devise a local resilience measurement
tool that would be outside the remit of the study and for unlimited use by Bahay Tuluyan.

This agreement has been drafted and devised in partnership with the researcher and BT. It
has been viewed and agreed by Flinders University via the Supervisor. All parties when
approved by the Flinders University Ethics Committee will sign the document. The document
will be valid for the duration of the project unless either party requests alterations.

Appendix 1 and 2 are attached to this MOU.

2. Description of Bahay Tuluyan

Bahay Tuluyan is a non-government organization working with Children in Need of Special

Protection in the Philippines.

BT’s vision is of a world where every child’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.
Their mission is to work to prevent and respond to abuse and exploitation of children through
the delivery of child centered programs and services at the grassroots level and dynamic
collaboration with local and international partners for social development and change.

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The values that guide service provision include the following:

- Rights based framework

- Children’s participation
- Non-discrimination
- Best interests of the child
- Equality and fairness
- Professionalism and ethics
- Gender sensitivity
- Good governance and integrity
- Ecologically friendly

Established in Manila in 1987, BT provides a variety of programs and services aimed at

preventing and responding to child abuse and exploitation.

Residential Shelter Accommodation: Emergency, Short Term and Long Term Care: for up
to 50 children per night in Malate, Laguna and Quezon.

Drop in Service: Offered at the Malate, this service provides hygiene facilities and meals to
up to 40 street-based children per day. Children are offered case management and access
to education bridging programs.

Mobile Unit: Street based education for children in Manila

Alternative Education: bridging program into mainstream education targeting street-

involved children and using a peer education/facilitator model

Independent Living Skills Program: teaching practical self-reliance skills including

financial management and basic job preparation

Child Rights Education: Training programs regarding the United Nations Rights of the
Child for students and professionals

Community Organizing and Advocacy: Utilizing the Child-to-Child Approach in projects

such as the Annual Street Children’s Congress and Kid’s View.

Participatory Research: including “Youth Pimps of Manila” (2006) and “Sagip or Huli?
Rescue of Street Children in Caloocan” (2014)

Social Enterprise: education and training programs including the Macabarta Guest House
and Sustainable Farming Project at Laguna.

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The target groups for service provision is children and young people that are aged between
the ages of 3 and 18 years with some flexibility based on need and resource availability.

3. Research Question

How do street-involved children understand resilience in the context of their social

ecology?

4. Aims & Objectives of the Research

The overall goal of this study is to examine the construction of resilience from the
perspective of street-involved children, with the intention of uncovering the meaning of
resources and their relationship with resilience.

Drawing on the social ecology approach, this study hopes to offer new understandings
regarding how children negotiate and navigate resilience in the Majority World. The study
aims to identify and examine children’s experiences of resilience in relation to relational
assets, and how they stimulate access to personal, community and cultural resources in
complex and highly nuanced ways.

The research design and methodology have been guided by the objectives of the project
and research questions. This research project seeks to understand how relationships
facilitate resilience in the social ecology of street-involved children in the Philippines.

A summary of the research objectives is provided below.

No. Research objective

1. The study seeks to establish an understanding of how Filipino street-involved children view
the construct resilience in their social ecology.

2. The study aims to explore how Filipino street-involved children draw on personal,
relational, community and cultural resources in order to facilitate resilience in their social
ecology.

Resilience research has been primarily undertaken in the Minority World with assumed
universality in definitions of adversity and desirable outcomes.

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This study aims to contribute to the body of resilience research in Majority World settings. In
doing this, the study intends to offer Bahay Tuluyan an evidence base, by virtue of the final
report, by which to understand resilience in this context and from the perspective of children.

5. Key Definitions

Child: As per the United Nations Rights of the Child, children are defined as boys and girls
under the age of 18 years. Of note, BT’s service users are aged between 3 to 18 years
although BT offers some flexibility based on the needs of children who present for service.

Resilience: Defined in the context of exposure to adversity (whether psychological,

environmental or both) as both the capacity of individuals to negotiate their way to heath
sustaining resources, including opportunities to experience feelings of wellbeing, and
improve conditions of the individual’s family, community and culture to provide these health
resources and experiences in a culturally meaningful way (Ungar 2006). This definition
emphasizes the dynamic process that is culturally, community and environmentally specific.

Protective Factors: correlative factors of resilience that may reflect preventative or

ameliorative influences and have a positive impact on risk and adversity. Can serve as
safeguards, encouraging coping strategies. This evaluation will use an ecological approach
that focuses on characteristics of individual children and their families, community and wider
social and cultural issues.

6. Principles that Will Guide the Study

The project will be conducted in accordance with BT’s values and with the below principles
of practice:

- Research processes are consistent with the principles of the UNCRC ensuring
opportunities for participation and respecting the evolving capacities of the child.
- The research design includes mechanisms to minimize power discrepancies
between the researcher and the participants by drawing on child-centred
research methods.
- The research design will address the complex ethical and methodological
challenges of working with this client group including managing disclosures of
abuse and illegal activities.
- Participation in all aspects of the study will be voluntary, with multiple
opportunities for expressing assent and withdrawal throughout the data collection
phase. Data will not be used without express written permission provided by the
child and children’s guardian (BT).
- The project will be culturally and contextually sensitive, consulting and
collaborating with a Local Advisory Group to devise research instruments, and
drawing on additional resources as required (such as interpreters and
transcription services).

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 - The project will ensure any additional workload caused by the research is
minimized for staff and services provided to children remain the priority.
- The research will be designed in a way that risks to children are minimized and
that they are not unduly burdened by taking time away from other important
activities such as school and program attendance.
- The research project will seek to be impartial and therefore as much as possible
seek to provide confidentiality and privacy to all participants.
- The children will have the opportunity to receive feedback on the outcome of the
project and use the findings in the final report for activities and service
improvement strategies as they see fit.

7. Research Methodology

7.1 Participants:

This project will involve children who are aged between 11 – 18 years and are registered as
Children in need of Special Protection and in the care of Bahay Tuluyan and registered as a
Child in need of Special Protection with the Department of Social Welfare. As such, BT will
act as guardian of the child and provide consent for each child participating in the project.

The age range for participation in this study has been selected based on the concept of
“evolving capacities” referred to in Article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that
states that direction and guidance provided by parents or guardians of a child must take into
account the capacities of the child to exercise rights on their own behalf. The notion of
evolving capacities recognizes that child development is not a universal process but rather
the acquisition of competencies is dependent on the experiences and context of the child.

Children demonstrate competence for decision making when they:

- Have the ability to communicate relevant information by understanding, expressing

choices and asking questions,
- Are able to think and choose to some degree without choice or manipulation being
able to think through the issues themselves
- Have the ability to assess for potential benefits, risks and harm of a course of action
and understand the long and short term consequences of a decision or action
- Have a relatively stable set of values, which form a foundation for decision making
(Adapted from UNICEF 2015).

The Bahay Tuluyan Management Committee and the researcher will purposefully select
children for the study. Selection will be based on the following participation criteria:

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 - Children will be boys and girls aged between 11 and 18 years of age.
- Children will be assessed as having the capacity to communicate, ask questions, and
make an informed choice that is relatively independent after assessing possible risks
and benefits of participation.
- Children will be street-involved as defined broadly below.
- Children will be under the care of Bahay Tuluyan and reside in sheltered
accommodation at the Malate, Laguna or Quezon site.
- Children will have enough time to participate in the study without detracting from
other activities such as education and life skill program involvement.
- Children have not experienced recent psychological, emotional or physical trauma,
which may be exacerbated by participating in the study.
- Children will be willing to participate in the research, in particular, undertaking a semi-
structured interview with the researcher and translator at the Bahay Tuluyan site
where they reside.

The application of the selection process to individual children will be conducted in a

confidential manner.

7.2 Research Process:

The research process will be delivered over several stages in order to meet the research
objectives. A diagram illustrating the research process from the perspective of the child has
been devised.

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 Research
Information Participant Invitation to Research Meeting 2:
Presented selection Child to Meeting 1: Child-led Feedback
at the based on Participate Information Tour & at Project
Children’s Selection by BT staff and Art Semi- Completion
Assembly Criteria member Activity Structured
Interview

Stage 1: The research project will be introduced at the Children’s Assembly with a fun
activity that introduces the concept of resilience.

Stage 2: Participants will be invited to participate in the project via an invitation by the Social
Worker or BT staff member. The Assent Form will be explained. The child will be provided
with the Children’s Information Sheet. If the child is willing to consider participating, the BT
staff member will arrange a time for the researcher to visit the site for the next stage.

Stage 3: Meeting One: Induction and explanation of study by the researcher to the child at
the BT site. The purpose of this meeting is as follows:

• Introductions
• Explain risks, benefits and process of the study
• Establish voluntary participation
• Establish informed consent (Introduce the Assent Form)
• Build rapport and trust
• Explore the concepts of “risks” and “doing well” via an art activity
• Set up interview & tour for the next day

Stage 4: Meeting Two: Child-led tour and semi-structured interview. The child-led tour will
enable further rapport building and establish conversation flow. Furthermore, a walking
whilst talking methodology enables the child and the research to interact spontaneously as
they respond to the streetscape, co-constructing a knowledge transfer between the

316
researcher and the child. The tour also allows an inversion of power roles with the child
positioned as expert in their own life. The child will lead the tour. The researcher has
prepared a loose guide if required that begins in the street outside the BT site and
progressing past people and places that may be important to the child. The researcher will
observe BT privacy rules during this tour that includes adults not entering bedrooms.

The semi-structured interview will allow for a private conversation that covers who the child
considers family and how they use personal assets in order to facilitate resilience.

The Data Collection Protocol for use in this project has been devised in consultation with
the Local Advisory Group in order to:

- Ensure maximum rapport with the child during the interview process,
- Increase the context validity of the questions,
- Ensure the correct use of language and terminology,
- Provide accountability and transparency to the project.

The researcher will adopt a position of inquiry during the interview, allowing for the child to
demonstrate competency and expertise in street-life.

It is likely that the tour and interview may take up to 1.5 hours in duration. The researcher
will gauge the participant’s fatigue or comfort during the interview process and offer to
postpone or cease the interview at any time.

A translator who will be trained regarding the project aims and interview protocol will also be
available. The translator will be sourced from the Philippine Social Service Association and
will be supported and trained by the researcher prior to the interview.

A Bahay Tuluyan staff or a member from a partner organization will be available for post-
interview support if required by the child.

8. Roles and Responsibilities

The following table documents roles and responsibilities associated with the evaluation.

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 Role Role at BT Responsibilities

Project Sponsor Deputy Director of Advise researcher regarding BT

BT – Catherine Management directives
Scerri
Available for consultation during project
development
Application of Selection Criteria for child
participation
Enabling researcher access to children
Oversee implementation of study findings
and service improvements

Staff of BT Social Workers Available for consultation during the

House Parents project development
Youth Facilitators Passing on invitation to participate in
research to children in accordance with
Privacy and Confidentiality Policy
Participate in Local Advisory Group
(Voluntary)

Researcher Alisa Willis Undertake Literature review

Build relationships, consult and
collaborate with BT staff
Design research materials
Facilitate Local Advisory Group
Undertake interview with children
Facilitate Focus Group
Collate and analysis data
Feedback to BT staff and management

University As per Flinders University Policy

Supervisor

9. Work Plan

Date Activity Output

June Development of Project Documentation Project Proposal

2017 Acceptance of Candidature

June Ethics Approval (Australia) Ethics Application Aust

2017

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 June Local Advisory Group Established & First Advisory Meetings
2017 Meeting

Aug– Researcher attending Children’s Presentations

Nov Assemblies
2017

Aug– Sample selection undertaken based on List of possible children

Nov Selection Criteria to participate
2017 Provision of Children’s Information Sheet to
Children
Invitations to participate issued to children

Oct– Child led tours and interviews with children Interviews completed
Dec across BT sites
2017

Jan Community Feedback TBA

2019

10. Informed Consent

The following written information will be provided to participants to ensure informed consent.
Information will be tailored to adult and child participants.

Participants who are children will be provided with:

1) An Information Sheet in Tagalog and English that includes the following

information: details about the project aims and objectives, benefits and risks to
the project, confidentiality and privacy information, voluntary participation and the
right to withdraw without penalty.
2) An Assent Form in Tagalog and English that documents: a statement of the
purpose of the research, a description of the procedures to be applied to the
minor; a description of the potential risks and discomforts associated with the
research; a description of any direct benefits to the minor; a statement that the
minor does not have to participate if he/she does not want to; a statement that
the minor is free to withdraw at any time; a statement that the minor should
discuss whether or not to participate with his/her parents prior to signing the form;
a statement that the guardian of the minor will be asked for their permission on
behalf of the minor; an offer to answer all questions and seek further information.

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 3) A Guardian’s Consent Form for each child. Signed by BT for each child,
amended based on the Flinders University Parental Consent Form for Child
Participation in Research Consent Form.

11. Confidentiality, Privacy & Informed Consent Protocol

The Republic of the Philippines Act no. 10173 “Data Privacy Act of 2012” requires that
consent of the data subject is obtained in a way that is “freely given, informed indication of
will, whereby the subject agrees to the collection and processing of personal information
relating to his/ her. Consent shall be evidenced by written, electronic, or recorded means. It
may be also be given on behalf of the subject by an agent specifically authorized by the data
subject” (Section 3b). This Act requires compliance in and outside the Philippines if the
information pertains to a Philippines resident (Section 6a).

In order to manage the complex confidentiality and informed consent challenges associated
with this study, the following has been agreed to.

1) The Bahay Tuluyan Management Committee will select participants in accordance

with the Selection Criteria in a confidential process.
2) Staff will be advised on the children that will participate in the study on a need to
know basis.
3) The invitation to children to participate in the study will be delivered by the BT staff
member at the request of management. The invitation will include the provision of the
Children’s Information Sheet and the Assent Form, which will be discussed with the
child. The child will have the opportunity to ask further questions. If the child is willing
to proceed the BT staff member will contact the researcher who will attend the
service on nominated dates that are convenient to the child.
4) The BT staff member prior to interview will provide the Children’s Information Sheet
and Assent Form to the child. This is to ensure adequate time for deliberation. These
documents will be available in Tagalog and English.

12. Disclosures, Allegations and Complaints

If though the delivery of the research, the researcher becomes aware of illegal activities or
information to suggest a child is in danger, in accordance with Mandated Reporter
requirements (South Australian Child Protection Act) and the Philippines National Privacy
Act, these activities will be reported to Bahay Tuluyan.

In the event of an allegation or complaint, the researcher will ask the child how they would
like the information to be passed and take their wishes and feelings into account.

320
In the event of an allegation of complaint concerning a BT staff member, the researcher will
advise BT management who will seek the assistance of a partner organization for support
and assistance. This may include assistance with an investigation that includes an
examination of the complaint and recommendations for next steps. Support offered to the
child by the partner organization may include seeking support for the child such as
counselling or alternative accommodation services.

At the conclusion of the research, the researcher will meet with BT management to discuss
key themes and findings. BT will be provided with a copy of the final thesis for use. No
identifying information will be provided unless consented to by the child.

A matrix of risk and mitigation strategies has been developed and is attached to this
document.

Burden and Risk Management Matrix

The following burdens and risks have been identified in a joint process between the
researcher and BT. In the following table, each risk is identified below with associated
mitigation strategies.

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Risks and Burdens Risk Mitigation Strategies
to Children Level
Low,
Med,
High

Psychological Risks

Child do not like • All documentation and terminology used

being identified as will be considered and determined by the
High
street children due to Local Advisory Group. Agreed
social stigma terminology has been used in all
documentation including written
information provided to the child.

Children become • The researcher will build relationship

distressed during the prior to the interview and ensure the child
High
interview process is well prepared for topics of conversation
via the Children’s Assembly.
• Questions will be crafted to ensure
minimal distress during the interview
including focusing on opinions and
attitudes rather than life stories
• Researcher will be aware of child’s verbal
and non-verbal communication during the
interview and check in with the child
regarding their emotional state, halting
the interview if required.
• The researcher will be mindful of their
own emotional reaction during the
interview in order to minimize distress of
the child
• The researcher will advise the child that
interview can take place over several
meetings if required.
• BT staff, or those of a partner
organisation, will be available after the
interview to “check in” with the child and
provide debriefing if required.
• The researcher will ensure the interview
ends on a positive note.
• The researcher will advise BT staff if the
child becomes distressed during the
interview.

Children are • The researcher will attend the service

uncomfortable being regularly to build a relationship with the
High
interviewed by a children and staff, in the months prior to
white older woman interviews taking place.
• The researcher will make efforts to
reduce power differentials between the

322
 child and the researcher, considering
dress and appearance.
• The researcher will adopt an informal
manner during all contact with the
children and staff that is in keeping with
culturally appropriate modes of
communication.
• The data collection method will include
child friendly activities that promote
discussion and comfort levels as
determined by the Local Advisory Group.
• The researcher will ask children and staff
for feedback after the data collection
processes to indicate comfort levels.

Children are • All data in the report will be

distressed with how depersonalized with fictitious names used
Medium
they are personally in place of real names.
presented in the
findings • Other identifying data will be removed
from the report.
• Questions in the interview are structured
to ensure children are not revealing “life
stories” but rather reflecting on opinions
and attitudes.
• The researcher will ensure that in the
report, each child’s responses are treated
with respect and impartiality.

Children feel coerced • Voluntary participation will be addressed

to participate because
High in the Children’s Information Sheet.
they are dependent
on BT • Children will be asked to sign an Assent
Form that documents voluntary
participation.
• Staff will advise children that participation
is voluntary when they are approached
after the Children’s Assembly.
• Children are advised during the interview
that participation is voluntary and they
are able to withdraw at any time.
• The researcher will observe any verbal or
non-verbal communication before and
during the interview that indicates if the
child feels coerced, halting the interview if
required.

Children are • The purpose of the project will be

concerned that they
High explained at the Children’s Assembly,
will displease BT with highlighting that there is no “right” or
their responses

323
 “wrong” answers and that this research is
about increasing our understandings.
• All interview data will be confidential with
de-identifying names used.
• Children will be advised of the
confidential nature of the information
verbally at the Children’s Assembly and
prior to the interview.
• Confidentiality provisions will be
explained in the Children’s Information
Sheet and the Assent Form.

Children feel their • Children will be interviewed in a

privacy is intruded confidential space at the site, which is
Low
upon as the interview reserved for private conversations and
takes place at their are regularly used by social workers to
place of residence speak with children as part of the case
management process. This space is
away from the living quarters and located
near the “classrooms” and social work
office.

Participating in the • Participation in activities will be planned

project takes the child
Low around the children’s activities including
away from other school and BT programs.
activities such as
school or program • Children will be advised of the time
activities requirements of the interview process
and these will be stated in writing and
verbally prior to participation.
• Children will be selected for participation
in accordance with the selection criteria
that include consideration of the child’s
commitments and availability.
• The researcher will make themselves
available on weekends and after-school
hours

Children feel • Children are likely to have already

uncomfortable revealed negative information about their
Medium
revealing negative families to BT during the process of BT
information about becoming Guardians of the child.
their families due to
“Hiya” or shame • Researcher will build rapport prior to, and
during the interview process.
• Researcher will ensure non-judgmental
responses to questions and observe own
non-verbal body languages.
• Child will be assured of confidentiality.

Children feel the • Children will be advised in verbally (at the

project has “come to Children’s Assembly) and in writing (on

324
nothing” after Medium the information sheet) regarding the time
participation due to lag between research and the final report.
“time” lag between
• The researcher will keep the Local
research and report
Advisory Group and BT Management
regarding the time frames for the final
report.
• The community will be presented with the
final research report at a celebration at
BT. All children who participated will be
invited to take part.
• The community will be advised when the
final report will be made available to
children who participated

Safety Risks

Children disclose • Children will be advised of the limits to

illegal activity confidentiality prior to the semi-structured
High
interview.
• Children will be advised of the
researcher’s role and limits to
confidentiality will be stated verbally and
in writing and made available to the child
via the Children’s Information Sheet and
the Assent Form.
• Disclosure of serious criminal activity
(e.g. rape, murder) will be reported to BT
management as per research
requirements.

Children are • The children are familiar with the

physically injured environment and are well versed in safety
Low
during the research requirements at the sites.
process including
transport to and from • The sites have well-established Safety
the interview Plans and policy regarding children’s
safety procedures, first aid, fire, and
natural disasters.
• Children will walk to and from the
interviews.

Children disclose • It is likely that abuse is already known

current or past abuse due to BT guardianship and admission
High
process.
• Children will be advised of the limits to
confidentiality and the responsibilities of
the researcher as a mandated notifier to
advise BT of any abuse concerns.

325
Children make a • Children will be advised of confidentiality
complaint or disclose agreement verbally and in writing.
Medium
poor practice at BT
• Researcher will discuss with the child that
it is important that poor practice is acted
upon by BT and that BT has a complaints
process.
• Researcher will offer to support the child
in discussing their complaint with BT.
• Researcher will act on the wishes of the
child unless the child is in danger.

Risks and Burdens Risk Mitigation Strategies

to Staff at BT Level
Low,
Med,
High

Participation by staff • The project has been negotiated with BT

in the research Management who oversee workload
Medium
detracts from other management.
duties
• The researcher will seek to minimize the
imposition on staff including preparation
of materials, gathering of resources and
travelling to the venue.
• Staff will be advised verbally and in
writing that participation is voluntary.
• The researcher will regularly “check in”
with staff and BT management regarding
workload issues and the impact of the
project.

Participation in the • The project has been negotiated with BT

research makes staff Management who oversee workload
Medium
feel under stress due management.
to workload
• The researcher will seek to minimize the
imposition on staff including preparation
of materials, gathering of resources and
travelling to the venue.
• Staff will be advised verbally and in
writing that participation is voluntary.
• The researcher will regularly “check in”
with staff and BT management regarding
workload issues and the impact of the
project.

Staff disagree with • Staff have contributed to the research

research findings aims and objectives.
Low
• Staff are progressively informed of the
research progress and emerging findings

326
 via staff meetings and the Local Advisory
Group.
• Staff provide input in the Social Worker
Focus Group Discussion.
• Staff draw on the research after the
completion of the project in the BT
continuous improvement program.
• Staff devise actions as a result of the
research that improve their social work
model.

Staff do not feel • Staff are given the opportunity to

listened to as part of comment on the research aims,
Low
research process objectives and process as part of Staff
Meetings.
• Staff can participate in the Local Advisory
Group.
• Staff will be provided with an Adult
Participant Information Sheet that
includes contact details for the
researcher and invites further questions.

Staff do not feel • Staff are given the opportunity to

engaged in research comment on the research aims,
Medium
process objectives and process as part of Staff
Meetings.
• Staff can participate in the Local Advisory
Group.
• Staff will be provided with an Adult
Participant Information Sheet that
includes contact details for the
researcher and invites further questions.
• Staff workload is managed in accordance
with their participation in the project.

Staff reveal poor Medium • Staff have the opportunity to reflect on

practice the implications of the research for social
work practice and are therefore likely to
suggest improvement for service
provisions at BT.
• Management have the opportunity to
reflect on service provision as the result
of the research in the spirit of continuous
learning.
• Revelations of negligence of a serious
nature will be discussed with the social
worker concerned to make a decision
regarding informing management.

327
 • Confidentiality agreement will be
observed unless revelations are illegal or
a child is likely to come to harm.
• Agreement between BT and the
researcher will be made prior to research
being conducted and documented in the
MOU.

Staff reveal illegal Low • Illegal activities will be reported to the BT

activities management group.
• Issues of concern will be discussed with
the social worker who made the
disclosure with the researcher informing
the social worker of their obligations as a
mandated notifier.
• Procedures to manage revelations of
illegal activities will be agreed and
documented as part of the MOU between
the researcher and BT.
• Police report will be made as per the
Privacy Act.

Staff reveal Medium • If during Focus Group Discussions

organisational organisational barriers are revealed, the
barriers to good researcher will ask staff how they might
practice like to discuss this with management.
• The researcher will only discuss issues
with the BT management committee at
the express request of the staff, taking
care not to reveal personal information as
per the confidentiality arrangements.

Staff break Medium • Confidentiality agreements are explained

confidentiality verbally and in writing to staff in the Adult
agreements Participant Information Sheet and at the
established in the beginning of the Focus Group
focus group Discussion.
discussion

Staff fail to observe Medium • Privacy practices in the research process

practices established are developed in collaboration with BT
to protect the privacy staff and management at Staff and
of children Management Meetings.
• Privacy practices are explained in the
Adult Participant Information Sheet and
consent forms.
• Privacy arrangements are discussed at
the Local Advisory Group.
• Staff are reminded of privacy procedures
prior to interviews.

328
Staff feel the research Medium • Staff are advised regularly of the
has “come to nothing” research progress via Staff Meetings and
due to lag time the Local Advisory Group.
between research
and report • Staff participate in the research project
planning.
• Staff are presented with the final
research report.
• Staff are involved in planning the final
presentation of findings to the
community.

Staff are physically Low • Staff observe BT Occupational Health

injured before, during and Safety Policies of the agency.
or after the data
collection process • Staff take all reasonable precautions to
prevent accidental injury before, during
and after data collection.

Risks and Burdens Mitigation Strategies

to Incidental People

Children who are • Participation in the research is one of a

clients of BT but do number of options for participation in
Low
not meet selection research activities.
criteria yet wish to
participate may feel • Children will not receive incentives for
excluded participation.
• Participation will be similar to other centre
activities and not attract undue attention.

Service Partners who • The service site is managed by the BT

wish to use the centre Management Committee who will assess
Low
resources may not be organisational priorities and resource
able to due to allocation.
resources devoted to
this project

Risks and Burdens Mitigation Strategies

to Researchers

The researcher is • The researcher operates within BT

physically injured Occupational Health and Safety
Low
before, during or after guidelines.
the data collection
process including • The researcher takes reasonable
transport to and from precautions to prevent injury during the
the site. research process.
• As much as possible, the researcher
ensures personal transport to and from
the site is safe with all reasonable

329
 precautions taken to prevent injury or
accidents.
• The researcher exercises personal
precautions in order to ensure safety
such as being aware of surroundings and
ensuring personal items are secured.
• The researcher advises a third person
when travelling to and from the site via
public transport

Researcher feels • The researcher regularly meets with BT

isolated in the staff and management regarding the
Low
research process study.
• The researcher attends BT staff meetings
when invited.
• The researcher builds relationships with
Flinders University Higher Degree
support services.
• The researcher has regular supervision
with supervisor via Skype.

Researcher becomes • The researcher will be well prepared for

distressed during the interviews and anticipate likely
Medium
research process in distressing conversations with strategies
relation to children’s for self-management.
stories
• The researcher monitors and manages
their own emotional response during the
interview.
• The researcher halts the interview if
distressed.
• The researcher seeks support from BT
management after interviews with
children.
• The researcher sets time for regular
debriefing with supervisor during the
research period.

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Appendix 5: Local Advisory Group Terms of Reference

Local Advisory Group, Terms of Reference

Purpose of Local Advisory Group

This group has been established with the purpose of providing a mechanism for staff of
Bahay Tuluyan to participate in the research project entitled “Understanding Resilience in
the lives of Street-Involved Children in Manila, Philippines” undertaken by Doctoral
Candidate Alisa Willis from Flinders University of South Australia.

This resilience research project seeks to investigate the role of relationships in facilitating
resilience in the lives of Filipino street-involved children and uncover the implications for
social work practice.

The goal of the group is to provide:

- Local knowledge regarding resilience in the context of Bahay Tuluyan’s client group
to inform data collection methods,
- Act as a conduit to other Bahay Tuluyan staff and raise awareness about the study in
the service,
- Inform decisions regarding the logistics of the project including the dissemination of
study findings in the community,
- Decide how the research findings might be best used in service improvements at
Bahay Tuluyan after the completion of the project.

Tasks of the group will include:

- Approve the Terms of Reference for the group,

- Inform the development of the Data Collection Protocol,
- Support the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding and the
Confidentiality Protocol in the delivery of the research,
- Contribute to understanding and interpreting study findings in the local context,
- Help identify appropriately qualified interpreters and transcribers to support the study,
- Inform the planning of the community feedback process at the conclusion of the
project.

Membership of Local Advisory Group

The Bahay Tuluyan Management Committee in consultation with the researcher will
determine membership of this group. Proposed members will be advised that participation is
voluntary and can be discontinued at any time.

Membership will include:

331
 • 1 x researcher
• 1 x member of the Bahay Tuluyan Executive
• 1 x social worker at Bahay Tuluyan
• 2 x youth facilitators over the age of 18 years.

Membership will last for the duration of the research project with maximum completion date
in March 2020. The Bahay Tuluyan Management Group in consultation with the researcher
will determine any changes or amendments to the membership.

Accountability

The researcher is responsible for determining the agenda for each meeting in consultation
with the Bahay Tuluyan Management Committee.

The executive member is responsible for providing management advice and final decision-
making. Decisions regarding child participants or staff members will be provided outside this
forum in order to protect confidentiality.

All other members are responsible for providing expert local advice in a timely manner.
Some consultation of members will occur out-of-session in order to ensure the workload
burden is minimized.

Working Methods

The Advisory Group will meet on a semi-regular basis, in-session and out-of-session, as
determined by the phase of the research project.

Initial meetings will take place in July 2017, August 2017, September 2017, and October
2017 at dates to be mutually determined. Ideally these meetings will occur face-to-face at
the Malate site, but if unable, Skype will be utilized. The researcher will chair the meetings
and generate an agenda for the meetings, circulating via email one week prior to the
meeting. Meetings will be conducted in an “informal” nature facilitating open discussion and
in a spirit of enquiry and collaboration.

The Advisory Group will meet together post interview process in order to access feedback
regarding the findings of the research and tool development process. This information will be
available for the development of the local resilience measure.

The management group will manage any conflicts or disagreements in the group in
consultation with the Bahay Tuluyan Conflict Resolution Policy.

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Information and Resources

Information and resources will be provided via email prior too, and post group meetings. All
group members will ensure that sensitive matters remain confidential within the confines of
the group discussions. This includes feedback post-interview and any personal information
about staff or child participants.

Definition of Terms

Data Collection Protocol: A document that details agreed questions delivered during the data
collection process. These questions will be exploratory, open ended and semi-structured in
order to uncover the complex relationships between protective factors in the lives of children
in the context of their day-to-day lives. The interview protocol will also document preparation
of participants, rapport-building activities and demonstrate the capacity to meet ethical
challenges during the research process.

Conflict Management

Any conflicts will be managed as per the Bahay Tuluyan Conflict Management Policy and in
keeping with the mission and values of Bahay Tuluyan.

Agreement of Terms of Reference

Bahay Tuluyan Management Committee and researcher approve this document. January
2017.

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Appendix 6: Data Collection Protocol

Data Collection Protocol for Child Participants

Meeting 1:

PURPOSE:

Introduce self (provide letter of Introduction)

Establish voluntary participation

Establish informed consent

Build rapport

Explore children’s conception of “Risk” & “Doing Well”

Set up logistics for interview & tour

Introductions

Hello and thank you for agreeing to talk with me today. My name is Alisa Willis and I am a
researcher from the Flinders University of South Australia.

This is … and she/he is here to help us with language, as my Tagalog is very bad! She/he
will act as an interpreter and ask the questions in Tagalog after I have asked it in English. If
there is something that you cannot describe, feel free to talk in Tagalog and she will explain
what you have said to me after.

Can I show you a letter of introduction from my supervisor at the university? I am wondering
if we could read it together. Should we read it in English, or would you prefer in Tagalog?

Establishing Voluntary Participation

Before we start, I want to make sure you understand that participating in the study is
voluntary. If you do not want to take part, no one will be upset with you and nothing will
change for you at Bahay Tuluyan.

334
Do you feel ok to talk today?

I will keep checking with you throughout our talks, like I just did then, to see if you are ok to
keep going. You can let me know at any time, for any reason, that you don’t want to keep
going. We can make another time to meet, or you can finish all together.

I know you heard about the study at Bahay Tuluyan. Let’s looks at the Children’s Assent
Form. This form gives you important information about this study. You would have seen it
when your social worker talked with you. I am wondering if our interpreter can help us by
reading it to you in Tagalog? After that, you can ask me any questions that you might have.

Is there anything you would like to ask me after reading this form?

Do you feel happy to sign the form today to indicate you understand the project? You can
sign it later if you like. I will need to collect the form before I use your data in the study.

Purpose of the Study

I would like to tell you a bit about the purpose of the study.

This study is trying to understand children who grow up to do well in life, despite having
experienced difficulties and problems.

We think children like you have lots of interesting ways of surviving and achieving their
dreams, with some difficult experiences making them stronger. For example, we wonder if
children who do not live with their families create other “families” with their friends and adults
in the community that help them.

In order to understand this, we need to talk with children like you, who are doing well,
despite experiencing difficult times in the past. We think that you might be an expert in this,
and can help us understand how children overcome trauma and do well in life.

In this study, the term we use to describe this is called “resilience.”

Have you heard this word before? Can you tell me what you think it means?

There are two parts of resilience; one is the many difficulties, risks and problems that
children face. The second part describes how children overcome these difficulties, to do well
in life.

335
I am interested in what you think it means to “do well” in life. I am also interested in what you
think the risks and challenges are that children like you experience.

Let’s start by thinking about someone you know who has experienced many difficulties and
still managed to do well and live a good life?

PROMPTS:

- Can be a famous person or someone you know personally like:

- Youth facilitator
- Staff member
- Relative
- Stepbrother or sister

Can you describe that person to me?

How do you know they did well in life?

What troubles did they face in life?

How did they overcome those troubles?

Who might have helped them?

Benefits and Risks of Participation

We think that participating in the project might be a good experience for you. It might be that
thinking about the positive and protective relationships in your life might make your feel
happy.

It also might help you in the future to manage problems by drawing on the people around
you.

You might also feel good being considered an expert in children’s lives. The information you
share with me today and tomorrow is important, and will be used by social workers and the
government to help other children like yourself.

I don’t think you will have any problems with our talks today and tomorrow. But it could be
that we talk about personal things from your past that might make you feel upset. If that
happens, please let me know so we can take a break or stop talking. You don’t have to tell
me anything that you don’t want to.

336
Also, a Bahay Tuluyan staff member will talk with you after our session to make sure you
feel ok.

Process of research

Today we are just going to talk about the research, and I am going to answer any questions
you might have about the study. You can ask anything you like.

Tomorrow, I will be here again and we will begin by talking about the Assent Form that you
have seen today. I am hoping that you feel OK to sign it at that point. But if you need more
time, I can collect it later. I can only use your data in the final report once you have signed
that form.

I am then hoping that you will take me on a tour of where you live. The tour is the opportunity
for me to learn about your life and who helps you to overcome the difficulties of life. You are
the expert in life around here, so during the tour I will ask you questions about your life and
your neighborhood. This might take about 20 minutes – or longer if you like. We won’t go far
from BT, but we can walk around outside and you can point out places and people you like
to visit around here.

We will then come back here and have a talk. During our talk I will ask you some personal
things, like who has helped you when you are in trouble, and who you consider to be family.

We will record our talk on this digital voice recorder. Would you like to look at it?

(Researcher offers the child the recorder)

During our tour, I will get you to hold the recorder so that we can speak into it when you are
telling me about the people and places you like to visit. If other children join us on the tour,
that is Ok. But I am really interested in what you think and feel. So it is important for the
recorder to capture your voice. We will also use the recorder when we come back here and
talk.

Later, I will listen to the tape, and those from other children and then put all the information
together in a report.

It takes a long time to write the report, but when it is done, I will come back to Bahay Tuluyan
to talk about what we have found. A summary of the report will also be available in Tagalog if
you would like to keep one.

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Remember, in our tour and in the talk, everything you say is going to be very interesting to
me. There are no right or wrong answers. I know it will feel a little bit strange at first, but I am
hoping you will become comfortable to talk freely about your life.

Confidentiality

When I write up the report, I will give you a different name, so we can describe what you
think without someone knowing that it was you. Any other identifying information will also be
changed. Your thoughts and feelings will go into the report, but we will make sure that no
one reading it knows whom you are.

You can tell anyone you like about the research but I will treat what you say as confidential.
This includes the staff at Bahay Tuluyan.

This would only change if I feared you were in danger or if you had committed a very serious
crime. Then I would have to tell someone at Bahay Tuluyan or a partner agency that we
trust. I would not do this without you knowing, and before I did this, we would talk about
whom we should tell.

Drawing Activity – 2 drawings

I am wondering if we can do a drawing activity to begin to think about the risks and
difficulties that children around here face in life. I also want to start to talk about what it
means to “do well.”

I am wondering if we can draw a picture or brainstorm some words using these art materials.

Remember, this isn’t a test and there is no right or wrong answers. I will be interested in
everything you say or draw today. If you choose to draw today, the picture doesn’t have to
be perfect – I am more interested in what you are thinking then the quality of the drawing.

DRAWING 1:

Can we draw or write a list of experiences and challenges that children around here
face in life?

DRAWING 2:

Can we draw a picture of what it means to you to “do well” in life?

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Meeting Close

Thank you so much for talking with me today. We have nearly finished now, but:

• Is there anything else you would like to ask me about what we have talked about
today?

I am really excited about our tour and talk tomorrow.

• How are you feeling about our tour and chat tomorrow?

We will start with the tour of BT.

• Where would you like to start our tour tomorrow?

• And then where might we go?

Here is the Assent Form, please take it with you and read it. Feel free to talk about it with a
friend or a staff member at BT. If you have any questions, you can contact me by talking to a
staff member. If you feel ready we will sign the form tomorrow.

Thank you so much for helping me today.

Let’s meet here tomorrow in this room, and we will sign the Assent Form together.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

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Meeting 2:

PURPOSE:

Data gathering via child-led tour

Data gathering via semi-structured interview

Stage 1: Introduction and Reconnection

Question Stage Building Rapport

Question Purpose Establish Voluntary Participation

Establish conversation flow

Hello and great to see you again.

Thanks for coming to see me today.

Yesterday we talked about the research and what would happen today. One of the really
important parts of our conversation was making sure that you understand your participation
is voluntary. I want to check with you that you feel happy to proceed today?

Did you have a chance to read the Assent Form; are there any questions you would like to
ask of me?

If you are happy to proceed, do you feel comfortable to sign the Assent Form and get
started?

(Researcher collects the Assent Form if the child is comfortable)

If you don’t feel ready to sign the Assent Form yet, it is OK. I will just need to collect it before
we finish our talks so that I can use the data for the study.

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Stage 2: Tour of Social Ecology

I am wondering if we can start today by going for a walk around Bahay Tuluyan and you
showing me around – almost like you are a tour guide and I am a visitor here for the first
time.

I am wondering if you can show me Bahay Tuluyan, and particularly point out all the people,
places and objects around here that are important to you.

During the tour I will ask you lots of questions so that I can understand your experiences and
in particular, how you manage to overcome problems and difficulties in your life.

I am hoping that as we walk together, you are reminded of things that are important to you.
Feel free to tell me anything – everything you say will be interesting to me. Remember there
are no right or wrong answers. I am interested in your thoughts, feelings, memories, objects
and people that you think are important.

I have this audio recorder. (Show the child)

I am wondering if you would like to hold it, so we can record your answers. (Offer the
recorder to the child.)

After we finish the tour we can come back here and I will ask you some questions. How does
this sound for you? Do you want to ask any questions?

Ok let’s get started. Maybe we can start the tour from the front entrance of Bahay Tuluyan.

Neighborhood

(Researcher and child will stand just outside BT looking at the street)

• Can you imagine for a moment that I can’t see, can you describe this street for me?
What are people doing on this street?
• Can you point out to me the people and places around here that are important to
you?
Prompts
o Church, school, neighbors, shops and venders, hospital, basketball, square,
park, makeshift homes.
• What sorts of activities do you and other children do in those places?
• Why are they important to you and other children?
• Are there any risks on this street, or the streets around here, for children? What are
they?

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Bahay Tuluyan

(Entrance)

• How did you feel when you first walked through these doors?
• What did you learn about Bahay Tuluyan? Who do they help?
• What kinds of difficulties might the children have experienced in life?
• How does Bahay Tuluyan help these kids?
• What happens to children’s lives after they come here?

Communal Areas

(Kitchen, group rooms, play-rooms, outside play area, gardens, animal enclosures)

• What is happening in this room?

• What are children doing?
• What are they doing together in this room?
• What adults are helping children in this room?
• How are they helping them?
• Why do they need to do this activity?
• How does this help them?
• How might this make the child feel towards the other children? The adults?

General walk around questions:

• What do you like about BT?

• Can you describe the other children that are here with you? What do they mean to
you?
• Can you tell about the other adults that are here with you? What do they mean to
you?

Child’s Room (Researcher will not enter)

• What happens in this room?

• Who do you share this room with?
• How did you first feel when you first saw this room?
• If you have had a difficult day, what do you do in this room to relax?
• How might your roommates help you when you have had a difficulty?

Thanks for giving me a tour of BT. I am wondering if we can go back to the social work room
and talk about your life here at BT.

Tour closes by walking toward social work room.

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Stage 3: Interview QUESTIONS

Stage Overcoming Apprehension

Establishing Child as the Expert

Purpose Construction of recovery and “doing well”

Construction of risks

Identification of personal skills

Let’s start by you telling me a little bit about yourself…

• Can you tell me what brought you to live at Bahay Tuluyan?

• Can you tell me about a time when life was hard for you? Can you tell me a story
about that time?
• How did you get through this time?
• Who helped you? How did they help you?

Questions about you:

• Tell me about some things you are good at.

• What words might your friends use to describe you?
• How might your family describe you?
• How might your social worker or teacher describe you?

Question Stage Establishing Participation

Question Purpose Identification of Biological Family

Resources

• Who do you call Na nay and Ta ta? What do they mean to you?
• Tell me about all your siblings, including your half siblings? What are your feelings
about them?
• Do you have Lolo, Lola, Tita and Tito? Are they in your life? How do they help you
overcome difficulties?
• Who do you consider to be family right now?

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Question Stage Sharing Expertise

Question Purpose Exploring “chosen” family

Identification of Peer Resources

Hidden Resilience

Adaptive distancing

• Can you tell me about friends in your life that have become like family?
• How do children help each?
• Can you describe your “Bakarda?”
• How does a Bakarda help you?
• How do you feel when you are together?
• Can you think about a time when you and your friends did something “hindi tama” but
it made you feel strong or helped you in some way? Can you tell me about it?
• Can you tell me how you feel about the vice and temptations of street life like drug
use or crime?
• How do you keep away from vice and temptations (for example drug use or crime)?

Question Stage Sharing Expertise

Question Purpose Identification of Community Resources

Role of the social worker

• Can you describe the experience of going to school for you?

• What does school mean to you and your future?
• Who helps you get to school?
• Do you participate in any community activities, organisations or religious groups?
Can you describe them?
• Are there any special people at these community activities that help you?
• Which staff members here are important to you? Why are they important?
• Can you tell me about any adults who are like family to you?
• How would you describe your social worker?
• How has your social worker helped you overcome the difficulties that you have
experienced?

Question Stage Sharing Expertise

Question Purpose Identification of Cultural Resources

344
 • What does it mean to be a good Filipino?
• How would you describe your relationship with God? How does this help children
who live on the street?

Filipino Values
I AM NOW GOING TO SHOW YOU A WORD IN TAGALOG.

• CAN YOU LOOK AT THIS CARD AND EXPLAIN WHAT THE TERM MEANS?
• CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME WHEN YOU HAVE USED THIS FILIIPNO
VALUE TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES?

Question Stage Conclusion

Question Purpose End interview positively

• Can you tell me your hopes and dreams for your future?
• How will you achieve this?
• Who are the people that will help you get there?
• What are your hopes for your family?
• How will you help them get there?
• What advice would you give to people trying to help children like you? What should
they do?
• What advice would you give the government to help children like you?

Question Stage Close

Question Purpose Seek feedback

Monitor the emotional state of the child

• How has this interview been for you?

• How are you feeling now?
• Would you like to spend some time with a BT staff member now?
• Would you like to spend time with someone from a partner agency now?
• ** Check if child has not signed Assent Form.

345
Appendix 7: Transcriber and Interpreter Confidentiality Agreements

CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT
Transcription Services

Understanding Resilience in the Lives of Street-Involved Children in Manila,

Philippines

I, ________________________, translator and transcriber, agree to maintain full

confidentiality in regards to any and all recordings and documentation received from Alisa
Willis related to her doctoral study on Understanding Resilience in the lives of Street-
involved children in Manila Philippines.

Furthermore, I agree:

1. To hold in strictest confidence the identification of any individual that may be

inadvertently revealed during the translation of interviews, or in any associated
documents;
2. To not make copies of any recordings or computerized files of the interview texts,
unless specifically requested to do so by Alisa Willis;
3. To store all study-related recordings and materials in a safe, secure location as long
as they are in my possession;
4. To return all recordings and study-related documents to Alisa Willis in a complete
and timely manner.
5. To delete all electronic files containing study-related documents from my computer
hard drive and any backup devices.

I am aware that I can be held legally liable for any breach of this confidentiality agreement,
and for any harm incurred by individuals if I disclose identifiable information contained in the
audiotapes and/or files to which I will have access.

Translator’s name (printed) ___________________________________________________

Translator’s signature _______________________________________________________

Date

346
 CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT
Interpreter Services

Understanding Resilience in the Lives of Street-Involved Children in Manila,

Philippines

I, ________________________, Interpreter, agree to maintain full confidentiality in regards

to any and all recordings and documentation received from Alisa Willis related to her
doctoral study on Relationships that Facilitate Resilience in Street-involved children in
Manila Philippines.

Furthermore, I agree:

1. To hold in strictest confidence the identification of any individual that may be

inadvertently revealed during the translation of interviews, or in any associated
documents;
2. To not make copies of any recordings or computerized files of the interview texts,
unless specifically requested to do so by Ailsa Willis;
3. To store all study-related recordings and materials in a safe, secure location as long
as they are in my possession;
4. To return all recordings and study-related documents to Alisa Willis in a complete
and timely manner.
5. To delete all electronic files containing study-related documents from my computer
hard drive and any backup devices.

I am aware that I can be held legally liable for any breach of this confidentiality agreement,
and for any harm incurred by individuals if I disclose identifiable information contained in the
audiotapes and/or files to which I will have access.

Interpreter’s name (printed) __________________________________________________

Interpreter’s signature _______________________________________________________

Date ____________________________________________________________________

347
Appendix 8: Systematic Review Terms

Record of search strategies

Citations
Databases
retrieved (n)
PsycINFO (Ovid) 156
Medline (Ovid) 110
ProQuest Social Sciences Premium Collection 408
ProQuest Psychology Database 42
Scopus 303
Informit Databases 10

Total citations before duplicates removed 1029

Total citations after duplicates removed 642

Searches run 14/6/17

PsycINFO 1806 to June Week 1 2017

# Searches Results

(Homeless/ or Abandonment/) and (childhood birth 12 yrs or adolescence 13 17 yrs or School

1 1783
Age 6-12 yrs).ag.

2 Child neglect/ 3654

3 ("mga anak ng kalye" or "batang kalye" or Binata).tw,id. 0

4 (child* adj4 (difficult circumstance* or special protection or protection)).tw,id. 4681

((street* or homeless* or "at risk" or abandon* or neglect* or exploit* or community or beggar*

5 or begging or working or scaveng* or runaway*) adj4 (child* or urchin* or youth or minor? or 56035
adolescen* or teen* or girl* or boy* or gang* or family* or families)).tw,id.

6 or/1-5 60673

7 "resilience (psychological)"/ or well being/ or "adaptability (personality)"/ or cognitive reserve/ 383308

or coping behavior/ or emotional adjustment/ or emotional stability/ or posttraumatic growth/ or

348
 psychological endurance/ or adjustment/ or person environment fit/ or well being/ or self-
preservation/ or instinctive behavior/ or self-defense/ or emotional control/ or "sense of
coherence"/ or "stress and coping measures"/ or agency/ or goal orientation/ or interpersonal
control/ or self-determination/ or self-regulation/ or volition/ or autonomy/ or choice behavior/ or
freedom/ or "independence (personality)"/ or empowerment/ or "internal external locus of
control"/ or social behavior/ or competence/ or ability/ or achievement/ or social skills/ or
positive psychology/ or optimism/ or positive emotions/ or positivism/ or Psychosocial
Readjustment/ or persistence/ or self-efficacy/ or self-confidence/ or self-esteem/ or social
identity/ or identity formation/ or self-concept/ or mental health/

psychological development/ or cognitive development/ or emotional development/ or moral

8 development/ or psychosocial development/ or adolescent development/ or early childhood 150457
development/ or childhood development/ or Psychosocial Development/

(Resilien* or adapt* or adjust* or coping or emotion* or growth or endurance or wellbeing or

well being or mental health or instinct* or "sense of coherence" or agency or goal orient* or
9 control or volition or autonom* or choice* or freedom or independence or empower* or social* 2147118
or competen* or abilit* or achieve* or positive psycholog* or optimis* or positivism or readjust*
or persist* or recover* or surviv* or thriv* or identity).tw,id.

(self adj2 (preserv* or defen* or determin* or regulat* or efficac* or confiden* or esteem or

10 127331
concept*)).tw,id.

(develop* adj2 (psycho* or social* or emotional* or cognitive* or moral* or adolescen* or

11 110386
childhood or advers* or normative or threat*)).tw,id.

12 ((social* or economic*) adj (actor or acting)).tw,id. 143

13 or/7-12 2278482

14 protective factors/ or prevention/ or risk management/ or safety/ or protective services/ 47430

15 social environments/ or home environment/ or environmental enrichment/ or social ecology/ 16197

16 Environmental Effects/ 7256

17 ecological factors/ or behavioral ecology/ or ecological psychology/ or Ecology/ 9199

18 Environment/ Or School Environment/ 26359

349
19 family/ or extended family/ or dysfunctional family/ or family background/ or kinship/ 50785

family members/ or biological family/ or cousins/ or daughters/ or foster children/ or

20 25468
grandchildren/ or grandparents/ or sons/

parents/ or adoptive parents/ or fathers/ or foster parents/ or mothers/ or single parents/ or

21 84291
stepparents/ or "surrogate parents (humans)"/ or siblings/ or brothers/ or sisters/

22 family relations/ or interpersonal relationships/ or parental role/ or sibling relations/ 55708

23 parent child relations/ or father child relations/ or mother child relations/ or filial responsibility/ 49192

interpersonal interaction/ or "assistance (social behavior)"/ or collaboration/ or collective

behavior/ or cooperation/ or group participation/ or interpersonal communication/ or interpersonal
24 116426
compatibility/ or interpersonal influences/ or participation/ or peer relations/ or interdependence/
or interpersonal relationships/ or relationship satisfaction/

25 "trust (social behavior)"/ 8532

26 social networks/ or social capital/ or social groups/ or social interaction/ or social support/ 69165

27 respect/ or "self-monitoring (personality)"/ or "social and interpersonal measures"/ 1349

28 friendship/ or relationship quality/ 13253

social capital/ or social integration/ or social mobility/ or socialization/ or solidarity/ or

29 60465
sociocultural factors/

30 communities/ 27478

31 community involvement/ 3766

32 attachment behavior/ 19149

33 social acceptance/ or need for approval/ or peer pressure/ or popularity/ 7199

belonging/ or membership/ or affiliation motivation/ or group identity/ or group participation/ or

34 10250
religious affiliation/

35 Christianity/ or Religion/ or Spirituality/ or Religious Beliefs/ or God Concepts/ 42248

350
36 religiosity/ or faith/ or religious education/ or religious experiences/ or religious practices/ 14825

37 gangs/ or juvenile gangs/ 1563

38 social workers/ 10909

39 residential care institutions/ or group homes/ 10579

40 Community Services/ 14998

teachers/ or educational personnel/ or elementary school teachers/ or high school teachers/ or

41 58035
junior high school teachers/ or middle school teachers/ or preschool teachers/

42 mentor/ or peer counseling/ or significant others/ or social influences/ 20501

(protect* or prevent* or safety or environment* or ecolog* or sociocultural* or sociolog* or

43 826642
cultural* or culture?).tw,id.

(family* or families or familial or kin or kinship* or parent* or mother* or father* or

44 574317
grandparent* or grandmother* or grandfather* or sibling* or brother* or sister* or cousin*).tw,id.

45 (daughter* or son or sons or foster* or stepparent* or filial*).tw,id. 66128

(relationship* or relational* or relatives or interpersonal* or inter-personal* or peer* or mentor*

46 or others or group* or interdepend* or network* or belonging or belong or bond or bonding or 1605839
bonds or ties or attachment* or affiliat*).tw,id.

(social* adj2 (capital or interact* or support* or integrat* or involve* or mobil* or accept* or

47 158347
attach* or behav* or identif* or identit* or participat* or membership* or influen*)).tw,id.

(community* or communities or neighbour* or gang or gangs or peer* or bakarda or supportive

48 545221
adult* or teacher* or leader* or facilitator* or surrogate*).tw,id.

49 (social worker* or case worker* or caseworker* or house parent*).tw,id. 23512

50 (Christian* or religion* or religious or spiritual* or God or faith).tw,id. 101237

51 or/14-50 2559545

351
 (Philippine* or Filipino* or Pilipinas or Pinio* or Manila* or Quezon* or Malate* or Cebu* or
52 5520
Mindanao* or Caloocan* or Pasay* or Luzon* or Visayas*).tw,id,lo.

53 collectivis*.tw,id. 5175

54 or/52-53 10571

55 6 and 13 and 51 and 54 156

Ovid MEDLINE(R) Epub Ahead of Print, In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid
MEDLINE(R) Daily, Ovid MEDLINE and Versions(R)

# Searches Results

1 ("mga anak ng kalye" or "batang kalye" or Binata).tw,id. 17

2 (child* adj4 (difficult circumstance* or special protection or protection)).tw,kw. 3681

((street* or homeless* or "at risk" or abandon* or neglect* or exploit* or community or beggar*

3 or begging or working or scaveng* or runaway*) adj4 (child* or urchin* or youth or minor? or 43281
adolescen* or teen* or girl* or boy* or gang* or family* or families)).tw,kw.

4 or/1-3 46493

(Resilien* or adapt* or adjust* or coping or emotion* or growth or endurance or wellbeing or

well being or mental health or instinct* or "sense of coherence" or agency or goal orient* or
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or competen* or abilit* or achieve* or positive psycholog* or optimis* or positivism or
readjust* or persist* or recover* or surviv* or thriv* or identity).mp.

(self adj2 (preserv* or defen* or determin* or regulat* or efficac* or confiden* or esteem or

6 109881
concept*)).mp.

(develop* adj2 (psycho* or social* or emotional* or cognitive* or moral* or adolescen* or

7 53462
childhood or advers* or normative or threat*)).mp.

8 ((social* or economic*) adj (actor or acting)).tw,kw. 29

352
9 or/5-8 8232195

(protect* or prevent* or safety or environment* or ecolog* or sociocultural* or sociolog* or

10 4514985
cultural* or culture?).mp.

(family* or families or familial or kin or kinship* or parent* or mother* or father* or

11 1614819
grandparent* or grandmother* or grandfather* or sibling* or brother* or sister* or cousin*).mp.

12 (daughter* or son or sons or foster* or stepparent* or filial*).mp. 86981

(relationship* or relational* or relatives or interpersonal* or inter-personal* or peer* or mentor*

13 or others or group* or interdepend* or network* or belonging or belong or bond or bonding or 5690341
bonds or ties or attachment* or affiliat*).mp.

(social* adj2 (capital or interact* or support* or integrat* or involve* or mobil* or accept* or

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attach* or behav* or identif* or identit* or participat* or membership* or influen*)).mp.

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17 (Christian* or religion* or religious or spiritual* or God or faith).mp. 80038

18 or/10-17 10179735

19 Philippines/ 7530

(Philippine* or Filipino* or Pilipinas or Pinio* or Manila* or Quezon* or Malate* or Cebu* or

20 25568
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21 collectivis*.tw,kw. 935

22 or/20-21 26485

23 4 and 9 and 18 and 22 110

ProQuest Social Sciences Premium Collection

353
N=408

Includes databases:

Databases

• Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)

• Criminal Justice Database
• Education Database
• ERIC
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
• PAIS Index
• PILOTS: Published International Literature On Traumatic Stress
• Political Science Database
• Social Science Database
• Social Services Abstracts
• Sociological Abstracts
• Sociology Database
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

(ti((Resilien* OR adapt* OR adjust* OR coping OR emotion* OR growth OR endurance OR

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persist* OR recover* OR surviv* OR thriv* OR identity OR (self NEAR/1 (preserv* OR
defen* OR determin* OR regulat* OR efficac* OR confiden* OR esteem OR concept*)) OR
(develop* NEAR/1 (psycho* OR social* OR emotional* OR cognitive* OR moral* OR

354
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OR mentor* OR others OR group* OR interdepend* OR network* OR belonging OR belong
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(capital OR interact* OR support* OR integrat* OR involve* OR mobil* OR accept* OR
attach* OR behav* OR identif* OR identit* OR participat* OR membership* OR influen*))

355
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worker*" OR "case worker*" OR caseworker* OR "house parent*" OR Christian* OR
religion* OR religious OR spiritual* OR God OR faith)) OR su((protect* OR prevent* OR
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culture OR cultures OR family* OR families OR familial OR kin OR kinship* OR parent*
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OR brother* OR sister* OR cousin* OR daughter* OR son OR sons OR foster* OR
stepparent* OR filial* OR relationship* OR relational* OR relatives OR interpersonal* OR
"inter-personal*" OR peer* OR mentor* OR others OR group* OR interdepend* OR
network* OR belonging OR belong OR bond OR bonding OR bonds OR ties OR
attachment* OR affiliat* OR (social* NEAR/1 (capital OR interact* OR support* OR
integrat* OR involve* OR mobil* OR accept* OR attach* OR behav* OR identif* OR
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OR neighbour* OR gang OR gangs OR peer* OR bakarda OR "supportive adult*" OR
teacher* OR leader* OR facilitator* OR surrogate* OR "social worker*" OR "case worker*"
OR caseworker* OR "house parent*" OR Christian* OR religion* OR religious OR spiritual*
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((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit* OR community
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Binata OR (child* NEAR/3 ("difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection" OR
protection)) OR ((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit*
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(child* OR urchin* OR youth OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR
boy* OR gang* OR family* OR families)))) OR su(("mga anak ng kalye" OR "batang kalye"
OR Binata OR (child* NEAR/3 ("difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection" OR
protection)) OR ((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit*
OR community OR beggar* OR begging OR working OR scaveng* OR runaway*) NEAR/3
(child* OR urchin* OR youth OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR
boy* OR gang* OR family* OR families))))) AND (ti((Philippine* OR Filipino* OR
Pilipinas OR Pinio* OR Manila* OR Quezon* OR Malate* OR Cebu* OR Mindanao* OR

356
Caloocan* OR Pasay* OR Luzon* OR Visayas* OR collectivis*)) OR ab((Philippine* OR
Filipino* OR Pilipinas OR Pinio* OR Manila* OR Quezon* OR Malate* OR Cebu* OR
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su((Philippine* OR Filipino* OR Pilipinas OR Pinio* OR Manila* OR Quezon* OR Malate*
OR Cebu* OR Mindanao* OR Caloocan* OR Pasay* OR Luzon* OR Visayas* OR
collectivis*)))

ProQuest Psychology Database

N=42

(ti((Resilien* OR adapt* OR adjust* OR coping OR emotion* OR growth OR endurance OR

wellbeing OR "well being" OR "mental health" OR instinct* OR "sense of coherence" OR
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OR independence OR empower* OR social* OR competen* OR abilit* OR achieve* OR
"positive psycholog*" OR optimis* OR positivism OR readjust* OR persist* OR recover*
OR surviv* OR thriv* OR identity OR (self NEAR/1 (preserv* OR defen* OR determin* OR
regulat* OR efficac* OR confiden* OR esteem OR concept*)) OR (develop* NEAR/1
(psycho* OR social* OR emotional* OR cognitive* OR moral* OR adolescen* OR
childhood OR advers* OR normative OR threat*)) OR ((social* OR economic*) NEAR/1
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growth OR endurance OR wellbeing OR "well being" OR "mental health" OR instinct* OR
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persist* OR recover* OR surviv* OR thriv* OR identity OR (self NEAR/1 (preserv* OR
defen* OR determin* OR regulat* OR efficac* OR confiden* OR esteem OR concept*)) OR
(develop* NEAR/1 (psycho* OR social* OR emotional* OR cognitive* OR moral* OR
adolescen* OR childhood OR advers* OR normative OR threat*)) OR ((social* OR
economic*) NEAR/1 (actor OR acting)))) OR su((Resilien* OR adapt* OR adjust* OR
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health" OR instinct* OR "sense of coherence" OR agency OR "goal orient*" OR control OR
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OR competen* OR abilit* OR achieve* OR "positive psycholog*" OR optimis* OR
positivism OR readjust* OR persist* OR recover* OR surviv* OR thriv* OR identity OR

357
(self NEAR/1 (preserv* OR defen* OR determin* OR regulat* OR efficac* OR confiden*
OR esteem OR concept*)) OR (develop* NEAR/1 (psycho* OR social* OR emotional* OR
cognitive* OR moral* OR adolescen* OR childhood OR advers* OR normative OR threat*))
OR ((social* OR economic*) NEAR/1 (actor OR acting))))) AND (ti((protect* OR prevent*
OR safety OR environment* OR ecolog* OR sociocultural* OR sociolog* OR cultural* OR
culture OR cultures OR family* OR families OR familial OR kin OR kinship* OR parent*
OR mother* OR father* OR grandparent* OR grandmother* OR grandfather* OR sibling*
OR brother* OR sister* OR cousin* OR daughter* OR son OR sons OR foster* OR
stepparent* OR filial* OR relationship* OR relational* OR relatives OR interpersonal* OR
"inter-personal*" OR peer* OR mentor* OR others OR group* OR interdepend* OR
network* OR belonging OR belong OR bond OR bonding OR bonds OR ties OR
attachment* OR affiliat* OR (social* NEAR/1 (capital OR interact* OR support* OR
integrat* OR involve* OR mobil* OR accept* OR attach* OR behav* OR identif* OR
identit* OR participat* OR membership* OR influen*)) OR community* OR communities
OR neighbour* OR gang OR gangs OR peer* OR bakarda OR "supportive adult*" OR
teacher* OR leader* OR facilitator* OR surrogate* OR "social worker*" OR "case worker*"
OR caseworker* OR "house parent*" OR Christian* OR religion* OR religious OR spiritual*
OR God OR faith)) OR ab((protect* OR prevent* OR safety OR environment* OR ecolog*
OR sociocultural* OR sociolog* OR cultural* OR culture OR cultures OR family* OR
families OR familial OR kin OR kinship* OR parent* OR mother* OR father* OR
grandparent* OR grandmother* OR grandfather* OR sibling* OR brother* OR sister* OR
cousin* OR daughter* OR son OR sons OR foster* OR stepparent* OR filial* OR
relationship* OR relational* OR relatives OR interpersonal* OR "inter-personal*" OR peer*
OR mentor* OR others OR group* OR interdepend* OR network* OR belonging OR belong
OR bond OR bonding OR bonds OR ties OR attachment* OR affiliat* OR (social* NEAR/1
(capital OR interact* OR support* OR integrat* OR involve* OR mobil* OR accept* OR
attach* OR behav* OR identif* OR identit* OR participat* OR membership* OR influen*))
OR community* OR communities OR neighbour* OR gang OR gangs OR peer* OR bakarda
OR "supportive adult*" OR teacher* OR leader* OR facilitator* OR surrogate* OR "social
worker*" OR "case worker*" OR caseworker* OR "house parent*" OR Christian* OR
religion* OR religious OR spiritual* OR God OR faith)) OR su((protect* OR prevent* OR
safety OR environment* OR ecolog* OR sociocultural* OR sociolog* OR cultural* OR
culture OR cultures OR family* OR families OR familial OR kin OR kinship* OR parent*
OR mother* OR father* OR grandparent* OR grandmother* OR grandfather* OR sibling*

358
OR brother* OR sister* OR cousin* OR daughter* OR son OR sons OR foster* OR
stepparent* OR filial* OR relationship* OR relational* OR relatives OR interpersonal* OR
"inter-personal*" OR peer* OR mentor* OR others OR group* OR interdepend* OR
network* OR belonging OR belong OR bond OR bonding OR bonds OR ties OR
attachment* OR affiliat* OR (social* NEAR/1 (capital OR interact* OR support* OR
integrat* OR involve* OR mobil* OR accept* OR attach* OR behav* OR identif* OR
identit* OR participat* OR membership* OR influen*)) OR community* OR communities
OR neighbour* OR gang OR gangs OR peer* OR bakarda OR "supportive adult*" OR
teacher* OR leader* OR facilitator* OR surrogate* OR "social worker*" OR "case worker*"
OR caseworker* OR "house parent*" OR Christian* OR religion* OR religious OR spiritual*
OR God OR faith))) AND (ti(("mga anak ng kalye" OR "batang kalye" OR Binata OR
(child* NEAR/3 ("difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection" OR protection)) OR
((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit* OR community
OR beggar* OR begging OR working OR scaveng* OR runaway*) NEAR/3 (child* OR
urchin* OR youth OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR boy* OR
gang* OR family* OR families)))) OR ab(("mga anak ng kalye" OR "batang kalye" OR
Binata OR (child* NEAR/3 ("difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection" OR
protection)) OR ((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit*
OR community OR beggar* OR begging OR working OR scaveng* OR runaway*) NEAR/3
(child* OR urchin* OR youth OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR
boy* OR gang* OR family* OR families)))) OR su(("mga anak ng kalye" OR "batang kalye"
OR Binata OR (child* NEAR/3 ("difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection" OR
protection)) OR ((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit*
OR community OR beggar* OR begging OR working OR scaveng* OR runaway*) NEAR/3
(child* OR urchin* OR youth OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR
boy* OR gang* OR family* OR families))))) AND (ti((Philippine* OR Filipino* OR
Pilipinas OR Pinio* OR Manila* OR Quezon* OR Malate* OR Cebu* OR Mindanao* OR
Caloocan* OR Pasay* OR Luzon* OR Visayas* OR collectivis*)) OR ab((Philippine* OR
Filipino* OR Pilipinas OR Pinio* OR Manila* OR Quezon* OR Malate* OR Cebu* OR
Mindanao* OR Caloocan* OR Pasay* OR Luzon* OR Visayas* OR collectivis*)) OR
su((Philippine* OR Filipino* OR Pilipinas OR Pinio* OR Manila* OR Quezon* OR Malate*
OR Cebu* OR Mindanao* OR Caloocan* OR Pasay* OR Luzon* OR Visayas* OR
collectivis*)))

359
Scopus

N=303

TITLE-ABS-KEY ( ( "mga anak ng kalye" OR "batang kalye" OR binata OR ( child* W/3 (

"difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection" OR protection ) ) OR ( ( street* OR
homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit* OR community OR beggar*
OR begging OR working OR scaveng* OR runaway* ) W/3 ( child* OR urchin* OR youth
OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR boy* OR gang* OR family*
OR families ) ) ) AND ( resilien* OR adapt* OR adjust* OR coping OR emotion* OR
growth OR endurance OR wellbeing OR "well being" OR "mental health" OR instinct* OR
"sense of coherence" OR agency OR "goal orient*" OR control OR volition OR autonom*
OR choice* OR freedom OR independence OR empower* OR social* OR competen* OR
abilit* OR achieve* OR "positive psycholog*" OR optimis* OR positivism OR readjust* OR
persist* OR recover* OR surviv* OR thriv* OR identity OR ( self W/1 ( preserv* OR defen*
OR determin* OR regulat* OR efficac* OR confiden* OR esteem OR concept* ) ) OR (
develop* W/1 ( psycho* OR social* OR emotional* OR cognitive* OR moral* OR
adolescen* OR childhood OR advers* OR normative OR threat* ) ) OR ( ( social* OR
economic* ) W/1 ( actor OR acting ) ) ) AND ( protect* OR prevent* OR safety OR
environment* OR ecolog* OR sociocultural* OR sociolog* OR cultural* OR culture OR
cultures OR family* OR families OR familial OR kin OR kinship* OR parent* OR mother*
OR father* OR grandparent* OR grandmother* OR grandfather* OR sibling* OR brother*
OR sister* OR cousin* OR daughter* OR son OR sons OR foster* OR stepparent* OR filial*
OR relationship* OR relational* OR relatives OR interpersonal* OR "inter-personal*" OR
peer* OR mentor* OR others OR group* OR interdepend* OR network* OR belonging OR
belong OR bond OR bonding OR bonds OR ties OR attachment* OR affiliat* OR ( social*
W/1 ( capital OR interact* OR support* OR integrat* OR involve* OR mobil* OR accept*
OR attach* OR behav* OR identif* OR identit* OR participat* OR membership* OR
influen* ) ) OR community* OR communities OR neighbour* OR gang OR gangs OR peer*
OR bakarda OR "supportive adult*" OR teacher* OR leader* OR facilitator* OR surrogate*
OR "social worker*" OR "case worker*" OR caseworker* OR "house parent*" OR christian*
OR religion* OR religious OR spiritual* OR god OR faith ) AND ( philippine* OR filipino*
OR pilipinas OR pinio* OR manila* OR quezon* OR malate* OR cebu* OR mindanao* OR
caloocan* OR pasay* OR luzon* OR visayas* OR collectivis* ) ) AND ( LIMIT-TO (
LANGUAGE , "English" ) )

360
Informit Databases

N=10

( (resilien* OR adapt* OR adjust* OR coping OR emotion* OR growth OR endurance OR

wellbeing OR "well being" OR "mental health" OR instinct* OR "sense of coherence" OR
agency OR "goal orient*" OR control OR volition OR autonom* OR choice* OR freedom
OR independence OR empower* OR social* OR competen* OR abilit* OR achieve* OR
"positive psycholog*" OR optimis* OR positivism OR readjust* OR persist* OR recover*
OR surviv* OR thriv* OR identity) AND ((((preserv* OR defen* OR determin* OR regulat*
OR efficac* OR confiden* OR esteem OR concept*) %1 self) OR ((psycho* OR social* OR
emotional* OR cognitive* OR moral* OR adolescen* OR childhood OR advers* OR
normative OR threat* ) %1 development*) OR social* %1 act* OR economic* %1 act*)))
AND (((((street* OR homeless* OR "at risk" OR abandon* OR neglect* OR exploit* OR
community OR beggar* OR begging OR working OR scaveng* OR runaway* ) AND (child*
OR urchin* OR youth OR minor OR minors OR adolescen* OR teen* OR girl* OR boy* OR
gang* OR family* OR families))) OR ((("difficult circumstance*" OR "special protection"
OR protection ) %3 child*))) AND (philippine* OR filipino* OR pilipinas OR pinio* OR
manila* OR quezon* OR malate* OR cebu* OR mindanao* OR caloocan* OR pasay* OR
luzon* OR visayas* OR collectivis*))

361
Appendix 9: Filipino Universities Contacted for Hard Copy, Unpublished Studies

University Department/ School + location

Ateneo de University School of Social Science

Department of Psychology
Manila

Brokenshire College School of Psychology and Behavioral Science

Davao

De La Salle University Collage of Liberal Arts Psychology Department

Multiple Campuses

Mindanao State University School of Psychology and Behavioral Science

Davao

Notre Dame of Dadiangas School of Psychology and Behavioral Science

University
General Santos City
South Caotabato

Philippines Women’s School of Social Work

University
Manila

San Pedro College School of Psychology

Davao

Siliman University School of Psychology and Behavioral Science

Manila

University of San Carlos School of Psychology and Behavioral Science

Cebu

University of Santo Thomas Department of Psychology

Manila

University of the Philippines Department of Psychology

Department of Social Work
Manila

362
Appendix 10: PRISMA Flow Chart

PRISMA 2009 Flow Diagram Results for: “Resilience and Street-Involved

Children in Manila, Philippines”

Records identified through Additional records identified

database searching through other sources
(n = 1317) (n = 6)

Records identified through Duplicates removed

database searching (n = 675)
(n = 1323)

Records screened Records excluded

based on title and based on inclusion/
Abstract (n = 648) exclusion criteria
(n = 507)

FULL text articles Full-text articles

assessed for eligibility excluded
(n = 141) (n = 133)

Full-text articles for

synthesis
(n = 8)

363
Appendix 11: Memo 1 to Ethics Committee

Memorandum to the Human Research Ethics

Committee

For projects previously approved by the SBREC

1. Project Information

Project Ethics Approval

7765 30/6/2018
No. Expiry Date

Project Facilitating Resilience in the Lives of Street-Involved Children in Manila, Philippines

Title

Principal
Researche Alisa Willis Email address: [email protected]
r

Annual Reports up
Next annual report due?
to date?

2. Details
The researcher would like to advise the committee that during the course of data collections
there have been instances in which the researcher has been required to break the
confidentiality of a child participant. Breaking the child’s confidentiality has been deemed
necessary in accordance with the research protocol documented in the Memorandum of
Understanding between the researcher and Bahay Tuluyan.

The situations are summarized below:

Incident 1: During an interview conducted on the 1st of October, a 17-year-old child

participant revealed that they had previously sold drugs as a means of generating income.
As part of their strategies to avoid detection by police, the child advised that he had recruited
very young children to act as couriers to transport drugs around the region. The researcher
advised the child that this information revealed would need to be passed onto Bahay

364
Tuluyan. The child indicated that his social worker was already aware of this situation and
that he no longer undertook the activities he described. The researcher suggested that the
child speak with their social worker and seek emotional support and together assess any
ongoing risks to his safety.

The researcher discussed the concern with the Bahay Tuluyan Deputy Director one day after
the interview. The Deputy Director advised that the allocated social worker was aware that
this child participant had previously supplemented his income with selling drugs, and that the
dangers associated with this activity were addressed in his assessment and case plan. It
was her understanding that this activity was historical, but she advised that she would alert
the child’s social worker with the intention of reviewing the risk assessment. She advised
that this included assessing the reported practice of recruiting young children to courier
drugs with the intention of insuring that this activity did not present risk to other children.

She further advised that it is common practice to use young children as drug couriers to
avoid detection by police. She determined the best course of action that in order to manage
this risk to the other young children, who may be recruited to this activity, was to alert all
social workers that recruitment might be taking place currently within the client group. She
advised that all social workers would be vigilant in counseling children regarding the risks
associated with drug-related activities. She advised that this would be discussed at the next
team meeting. In order to protect the privacy of the child the identification the child who
made the disclosure would be withheld.

Incident 2: At an interview on the 7th of October, a 12-year-old child disclosed that they had
witnessed an extra-judicial killing by police of a young man in the community for dealing
drugs. He revealed that this event had taken place prior to his admission to Bahay Tuluyan.
During the interview the child expressed fear and revealed that witnessing the event had
caused emotional distress. After the disclosure the researcher asked the child whom he had
asked to help him after this experience and the child advised that he had advised the social
workers at Bahay Tuluyan.

As per the Memorandum of Understanding, the researcher assessed that this incident could
cause emotional harm to the child and passed this information onto the Deputy Director of
Bahay Tuluyan. The Deputy Director advised that they were aware of this incident and that
the child had shared this information with their social worker and that appropriate measures
were in place to protect and support him. The Deputy Director advised that the social worker
met with the child post interview and assessed his emotional wellbeing and safety as part of
the case management process.

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Appendix 12: Memo 2 to Ethics Committee

MODIFICATION REQUEST

For projects previously approved by the SBREC

A Modification Request should be submitted for all items listed below: IMPORTANT

1. proposed changes to the research protocol; a) Proposed modifications should not proceed until formal notification
2. proposed changes to participant recruitment methods; of modification approval has been received.
3. amendments to participant documentation and/or research tools’ b) Annual reports - annual progress reports should be up to date
before a modification request is submitted.
4. change of project title;
5. extension of the ethics approval expiry date / extension of time; and c) Indigenous peoples – modifications that involve or impact on
Indigenous peoples in Australia will also be reviewed by the
6. personnel changes (e.g., additions, removals, supervisor changes) Flinders University Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement
(OISE), which will impact Committee response time.
d) Contact Details – email SBREC if details change as Ethics is not
Submit modification requests to [email protected] linked to Student Two or Human Resources.

Typically, the Committee's response will be emailed to you in 1-2 weeks.

1. Project Information

Project Ethics Approval

7765 30/6/2018
No. Expiry Date

Project Facilitating Resilience in the Lives of Street-Involved Children in Manila, Philippines

Title

Principal
Researche Alisa Willis Email address: [email protected]
r

Annual Reports
Next annual report due?
up to date?

2. Extension of time

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2A Extension of Time Requested (if applicable)

Current Ethics Approval New Expiry Date

Expiry Date requested

2B Justification

3. Change of Project Title

3A Change of Project Title (if applicable)

Old project title:

New project title:

3B Participant Document Revisions

Please note: if the project title is changed, copies of all documents to be distributed to potential participants will
need to be revised to include the new title (e.g., email text, Letter of introduction, Information Sheet, Consent
Form). Please submit copies of the revised documents for review.

Revised Participant
Documents Attached?

4. Change of Personnel

4A Change of Personnel Summary (if applicable)

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 Add/ Full name & title Postal address Email address
remove

4B Conflicts of Interest

Comment on whether a conflict of interest may exist for any new personnel (e.g., role / relation to participant source). If yes,
explain how this will be managed.

4C Participant Document Revisions

Please note that if personnel are added and/or removed from a project that documents to be distributed to potential
participants will need to be revised to ensure that a current list of researchers is included (e.g., email text, Letter of
Introduction, Information Sheet, Consent Form).

Revised Participant
Documents Attached?

5. Modified Research Protocol

5A Revision of Research Protocol Table

Please indicate in table below what type of changes are proposed.

Select Options that Apply

Research Objectives
Revision, or addition to, research objectives (item D1c)
Research Method
− Revision of approved research method
− Addition to approved research method
Research Participants
− Addition of new participant group
− Exclusion of participant group already approved by
Committee

Consent

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 − Revised method for seeking informed consent from
participants
− New method for seeking consent
Recruitment Process
Change to approved process for participant recruitment
Research Tools
For example, survey, interview questions, focus group
discussion topics. Yes
− Revision of approved research tools
− New research tools
Documents / Information
5B Outline of Research Protocol Changes
For example, verbal script, email text, Letter of Introduction,
Information Sheet, Consent Form Provide a clear outline of changes and/or additions to
− Revision of existing documents / information the research protocol are being requested and
− New documents / information
explain why it is necessary to address the research
Other (if yes, please specify)
objectives (e.g, change to research objectives;
changes to recruitment process; change to research tools; addition of research tools etc).

The researcher has undertaken two child-led tours as per the original research proposal. The original
research method provided a useful amount of data regarding personal, relational and community
resources. However, the researcher found it difficult for children to understand and respond to
questions regarding cultural resources that may facilitate resilience.

As a result, the researcher requests that the Ethics Committee provide approval for a small
amendment in the research method. The researcher has worked with the interpreter to develop 6
“flash cards” with a Tagalog word on each card that denotes a Filipino value. The child will be shown
the card and then asked the following question:

“Can you explain what this Tagalog word means to you?”

“Can you tell me of a time in your life when you have used this Filipino value to help you survive
despite difficulties?”

The Tagalog words used on the cards are as follows:

- Pagtitiis – translated as “seeing things in perspective”

- Utang na Loob – debt of gratitude owed by children to their parents
- Pakikiramdam – being sensitive to others needs
- Pakikisama – patience and fortitude
- Bahala na – come what may, life will go on
- Amor Propio – self-esteem in relation to others

5C Participant Document Revisions

To ensure that informed consent can be obtained changes to the research protocol may need to be reflected in the

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documents to be distributed to potential participants.(e.g., email text, Letter of Introduction, Information Sheet, Consent
Form). Revised documents and/or new participant documents may need to be provided for review.

Revised Participant
Documents Attached?

6. Permissions / Other Ethics Committee Approvals

Please indicate whether any other ethics committee approvals and/or permissions need to be sought that are related to the
requested modification. If yes, please either (a) provide a copy of approvals and/or permissions OR (b) confirm that copies
will be submitted to the committee on receipt.

NA

7. Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples

7A Impact and/or involvement of Indigenous peoples

Please indicate whether the proposed modification will involve or impact on Australian Indigenous peoples.

YES

NO X

7B Explanation
IF the proposed modification involves or impacts on Australian Indigenous peoples, please explain how.

8. Burdens and/or Risks

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Could there be any potential inconveniences or risks to participants as a consequence of the modifications requested? If
YES, outline what they are and specify whether there will be any changes to anonymity and confidentiality assurances given
to participants, time commitments and research location. Please explain how you will reduce inconveniences and/or risks to
participants.

None

9. Document amendments and/or additions

New or Document Brief outline of changes made Attached

amended? yes/no

Addition of flash cards and questions as

Data Collection Protocol Yes
per above

Note: All new and modified participant documents must be submitted for review and approval

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