Extracts from The Cost of the Troubles Study - Final Report (1999)

These extracts are taken from the book:

Final Report
The Costs of the Troubles Study
by The Costs of the Troubles Study (1999)
Paperback 72pp

Published:

Unit 14 North City Business Centre

Duncairn Gardens

Belfast

BT15 2GG

This publication is copyright The Cost of The Troubles 1999 and is included on the CAIN site by the authors and publishers. You may not edit, adapt, or redistribute changed versions of this for other than your personal use without express written permission. Redistribution for commercial purposes is not permitted.

After the ceasefires from 1994 onwards, a group of people from all sections of the population in Northern Ireland who had direct experience of being bereaved or injured in the Troubles were brought together to discuss their contribution to the new political situation. The widespread determination to have violence permanently ended seemed to be based on the unspoken recognition of the damage done by the violence of the Troubles. This group formed The Cost of the Troubles Study’, which became a limited company and a recognised charity. In partnership with academic researchers from the university sector, a study of the effects of the Troubles on the population was planned and initiated. The research is conducted in line with participatory action research principles. This means that the management structure involves a range of people with direct experience of the effects of the Troubles.

The Board of Directors was the executive body who ran the project. The Board met roughly on the monthly basis, and the Chairperson regularly called in to the office to keep in touch with the issues on an ongoing basis.

The Advisory Group for the project was formed with the establishment of the project and was composed of both funders and various others with relevant experience in this field of work.

· Aim of the Project

The two-year project set out to examine the nature and prevalence of the effects of the violence of the Troubles on the general population of Northern Ireland. The original proposal for the 2-year project detailed the work, which it aimed to produce:

The project’s succeeded in achieving all of those proposed aims through a number of interlinking projects.

This involved the creation of a database of deaths in the Troubles which records data on all those killed from 1969 to date. An analysis of the data on deaths was conducted in order to examine its relationship to other variables such as deprivation, geographic location and economic factors. The database was also used to calculate ward death rates and its analysis was published in two editions. An analysis of this database was published in two editions.

· Qualitative Data: The In-Depth Interviews

A series of in-depth interviews with a cross section of people throughout Northern Ireland was embarked upon, which served a number of functions. These interviews were to provide qualitative data on the range and diversity of people’s experience of the Troubles. Second, they were to provide subjective assessments of the effects of the Troubles on the range of people interviewed. Third, they were to form the basis for the questionnaire design, which was to be used in the survey. In all 75 interviews were conducted by the end of the project.

The aims of the survey were to establish the prevalence of emotional and physical sequelae arising out of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and to identify the needs (health, emotional, social, financial) of those affected. This involved administering a questionnaire to a representative sample of the population of Northern Ireland. The results of the survey were analysed and published in a report entitled ‘Report on the Northern Ireland Survey: the experience and impact of violence’ Mike Morrissey and Marie Smyth (full technical report; short version).

· Survey of Victims Groups

The Cost of the Troubles Study were commissioned by the Victims Liaison Unit to conduct a survey of current groups serving the bereaved and injured in the Troubles, in order to establish a good base of information and further government policy in this area. The survey aimed to compile a comprehensive list of all community-based and voluntary organisations whose aim is primarily or more broadly to serve the needs of those bereaved or injured in the Troubles. It also wished to ascertain how each of these two categories of organisation fund their current provision of services to this group in order to establish the long term funding strategies and to explore possible or actual gaps in services provided by these two types of organisation. The final report of the analysis of the survey was completed in February 1999 and presented to the Victims Liaison Unit.

This project was designed around focus group interviews with young people, which would then be illustrated by them through the medium of photography. The young people, in small groups explored their experiences of the Troubles and expressed themselves through photographic work, transcribed interviews and poetry. The resultant book is in its second edition, and the exhibition continues to be used by various groups raising issues about children and young people affected by the Troubles. In all the project lasted for five months, and the young people continued to work with the exhibition.

· Do You See What I See?

An exhibition of young peoples experience of the Troubles using their own words and photographs. The exhibition was created in partnership with young people from Woodvale Youth Group, Sunningdale Youth Group, Survivors of Trauma in North Belfast, The Alexander Park Project in Belfast, The Peace and Reconciliation Group and St. Eugene’s Primary School in Derry Londonderry and the Cost of the Troubles Study. Children and young people were interviewed or wrote about their experiences of the Troubles, their views and their hopes for the future. Belfast Exposed worked with the young people in Belfast in training them to take their own photographs, which were used to accompany the text of the book and exhibition.

The exhibition is composed of over twenty personal stories and excerpts from a further 55 stories. These are presented alongside powerful images and other findings of The Cost of the Troubles Study’s research in an exhibition which offers visitors the opportunity of exploring the worlds of others, their experiences of the Troubles, their sorrows, fears, ways of coping and the way their experiences have affected them.

· "The Festival of Trees"

Save the Children Fund invited The Cost of the Troubles Study to contribute a Christmas tree to the "Festival of Trees" at Aldergrove International Airport during Christmas 1998. Children from The Peace and Reconciliation Group in Deny Londonderry, Survivors of Trauma, WAVE and The Victims and Survivors Trust made Christmas decorations which carried messages about the effects of the Troubles on children. Statistics on the number of children killed in the Troubles and other background information was displayed alongside the tree which remained in the arrivals area throughout the Christmas period.

Work will begin in June 1999 on a 35 minute video film based on the work of the project, made by Northern Visions, and financed by the United States Institute of Peace.

Excerpts from all publications and the catalogue of the Do You Know What’s Happened? exhibition are posted on the CAIN website, http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/cts Lists of publications and ordering details are also provided on the website.

During the project period, The Cost of the Troubles team delivered a number of talks, workshops and conference papers which are detailed in full.

Over the past two and a half years the Cost of the Troubles project attracted a substantial amount of media interest, local, national and international, in both print and broadcast form.

A review of the original aims of the project and comments on how and if they were achieved.

The original proposal for the 2-year project detailed the work, aimed to produce a range of outputs, which are listed earlier in this report. These were as follows:

We have available the following feedback on the project work:

· formal written feedback on the exhibitions

· informal comments from participants and consumers of the project material

· deductions on the usefulness of the information generated by virtue of the demand for it, in terms of data requests and requests for publications, presentations and exhibitions complaints about the project work

Insofar as this can be gauged at this point, the project has at least succeeded in raising the issue of targeting social need and questioning whether present methods and approaches adequately target those affected by the Troubles. Within the life-time of the project, there is some evidence of the impact of the data. Sir Kenneth Bloomfield in his report to the Secretary of State writes, "I have been able to draw not only upon useful Government statistics, but also upon the work of the Cost of the Troubles Study, directed by Marie Smyth." The project also made detailed submissions to the Victims Commission and responded to the "We Will Remember Them" report by Sir Kenneth Bloomfield. The project was also involved in talks with the Social Services Inspectorate in the process of drawing together their inspection of services to those affected by the Troubles, and made a response to their report, "Living with the Trauma of the Troubles’ '".

To properly evaluate the scale and nature of any impact on public awareness of the work of this project is another project in itself. However, insofar as the project recognised the importance of media coverage in accessing public attention and took steps to impact on public attention through the use of the media, at very least the task was engaged with. Partly due to the political backdrop to the project, media interest in the field was consistent throughout the project period, although some of that interest may not have been coherent with the goals of the project at certain moments.

This involved the creation of a database of deaths in the Troubles which records data on all those killed from 1969 to date: the date of death, the age, gender, first and second name of the person killed, their home address and postcode, the address at which they were killed and its postcode, their occupation, religion, affiliation (i.e. whether they were a civilian, paramilitary or member of the security forces) and the identity of the agency responsible for their death. This database was checked with existing sources and subsequently ward codes and district council codes attached to the home addresses and incident addresses for purposes of analysis.

An analysis of the data on deaths was conducted in order to examine its relationship to other variables such as deprivation, geographic location and economic factors. The database was also used to calculate ward death rates. This exercise was originally primarily conducted in order to provide a sample frame for phase three of the research in which it is proposed to draw a sample of 3,000 people throughout Northern Ireland for the survey of population. However, an analysis of this database was published in two editions, entitled Mapping Troubles Related Deaths in Northern Ireland 1969-1994 (first edition) and Mapping Troubles Related Deaths in Northern Ireland 1969-1998 (second edition).

We embarked on a series of in-depth interviews with a cross section of people throughout Northern Ireland, which were to serve a number of functions. These interviews were to provide qualitative data on the range and diversity of people’s experience of the Troubles. Second, they were to provide subjective assessments of the effects of the Troubles on the range of people interviewed. Third, they were to form the basis for the questionnaire design, which was to be used in the survey.

In all 75 interviews were conducted by the end of the project. Since interviews were perceived to have a useful function for some interviewees, we continue to have requests to interview people. Some people feel the need to "tell their story" or have their story acknowledged by someone in a semi-official position, and we have, in part, filled some of this need for some people.

Arguably, the richest data on the experiences and effects of the Troubles in this project was collected in the in-depth interviews. However, it was anticipated that policy makers and others with a policy eye on these issues, might find a survey which ‘tested’ the wider validity and reliability of the qualitative data useful. Therefore, the qualitative data were collected and alongside being analysed and presented as qualitative data per se, they were also used to inform the design of a questionnaire.

The aims of the survey were to establish the prevalence of emotional and physical sequelae arising out of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and to identify the needs (health, emotional, social, financial) of those affected. This involved administering a questionnaire to a representative sample of the population of Northern Ireland. No existing questionnaire was adequate to the task, and it was necessary to develop an instrument for this purpose. To this end, a tripartite research strategy was employed:

Phase three also consisted of the dissemination of the results of all findings of the project. This included publications and launches thereof, exhibitions and tours thereof, talks and conference papers.

A group of young people involved in
'Do You See What I see?'

This project was stimulated by Joy Dyer’s approach to us requesting an internship. Joy found the project on the Internet and emailed asking for an internship. As was outlined earlier, the project was designed around focus group interviews with young people, which would then be illustrated by them through the medium of photography.

The objectives of the Project were:

• To highlight and increase NGO’s awareness of people’s experiences of the Troubles and the effects of those experiences on the young people.

• To advocate for European NGO funding and support of work with young people affected by the Troubles

• To empower the young people to develop their own views and present them in exhibition and workshop form.

• To increase the young people’s awareness of the experiences of young people in other community.

• To facilitate exchange between young people from both communities in the development and presentation of the multi-media workshop.

• To explore the needs of young people affected by the Troubles.

• To develop a set of advocacy materials that the young people can use in future projects.

The young people, in small groups explored their experiences of the Troubles and expressed themselves through photographic work, transcribed interviews and in the case of the young people from the North West, poetry. They received professional training from Belfast Exposed on how to use images powerfully to represent stories. They encountered young people from the other community in workshops and encountered the photographic and textual work of the young people both in the exhibition and in the book. The young people were also assisted by project staff to provide educational workshops for adults on the impact of the Troubles on children and young people. The resultant book is in its second edition, and the exhibition continues to be used by various groups raising issues about children and young people affected by the Troubles. In all the project lasted for five months, and the young people continued to work with the exhibition

The Cost of the Troubles Study were commissioned by the Victims Liaison Unit to conduct a survey of current groups serving the bereaved and injured in the Troubles, in order to establish a good base of information and further government policy in this area.

The survey had the following aims:

1. To compile a comprehensive list of all community-based organisations whose aim is primarily to serve the needs of those bereaved or injured in the Troubles.

2. To compile a list of organisations in the voluntary sector who offer services to this group as part of a broader range of services to the community.

3. To ascertain how each of these two categories of organisation fund their current provision of services to this group.

4. To establish the long term funding strategies of these two categories of organisation for funding services to those bereaved and injured.

5. To explore possible or actual gaps in services provided by these two types of organisation.

The survey was completed in January 1999. Analysis of the data collected was completed and a first draft of the report was presented to the Victims Liaison Unit at the end of January 1999, and the final report was completed in February 1999.