Geneviève Paquette
Scientific Director of GRISE and Full professor, département de psychoéducation, Université de Sherbrooke
Regular member
Training
- (2009) Doctorate (Psychoeducation). Université de Sherbrooke.
- (2004) Master's degree with thesis (Psychoeducation). Université de Sherbrooke.
- (1996) Bachelor's (Psychoeducation). Université de Sherbrooke.
Bio
With my psychoeducator degree in hand, I began working with young people with behavioural problems who had been placed in rehabilitation centres. I quickly discovered that these disturbing behavioural issues divert our attention from the life courses of this group of young people, whose experiences are marked by severe maltreatment that affects, not only their behaviour, but also, their development, relationships with others, personality, and even more importantly, their future prospects. When I was assigned for a longer period to an intensive care unit housing girls with aggressive behaviours, I noticed two things. First, these girls had all been sexually abused, and second, at the time, there was uncertainty about how to deal with sexual abuse and its consequences.
When I resumed my studies, I began to focus first on girls and sexual abuse, and then on the associated factors and consequences of childhood maltreatment in various vulnerable populations. My research aims to better understand how violence influences young people’s adjustment trajectories and how to prevent violence and its consequences, with a view to modifying the pathways of vulnerable populations and supporting the adjustment of these young people during various important transitions such as entry into adulthood and parenthood. In this sense, my work mainly falls within the scope of Axes 2 and 3 of GRISE.