“That was the best day of my life.”
Childhood transition and disadvantage.
Understanding the process of how young people living with disadvantaged experience change and development in their everyday lives is crucially important. Children and young people are often in constant transformation but that these transformations can be experienced differently by different groups of young people depending on the challenges they face in their lives.
Children and young people are often in constant transformation.
It can involve feelings of marginality, invisibility and searching for a sense of belonging.
The assumption that transition involves experiences of movement and change from ‘here’ to ‘there’ can be simplistic. During what psychologists call ‘liminal’ transition periods, young people with complex support needs and living with disadvantage can feel trapped or stuck in periods of stasis or inertia and they can experience a continued sense of chaos, confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety. It can involve feelings of marginality, invisibility and searching for a sense of belonging.