Effectiveness of school-based intervention in enhancing mental health and social functioning among war-affected children.

Abstract Refugee youth have often experienced trauma during relocation and continue to face adversity in their host country in the form of acculturation stress, residence insecurity, social isolation, and experiences of discrimination. These experiences are associated with a significant risk of developing mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This cluster randomised trial aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based intervention that provides a manualized, trauma-focussed programme called Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) to target refugee and migrant youth and an In-Service Teacher Training (INSETT) programme to teachers. The study will consider the impact of the intervention on the mental health of adolescent refugees and their guardians who participate in the TRT programme. It will also consider the intervention's impact on the interrelationships between teachers and parents and teachers' cultural competence, as well as the social support and school belonging experienced by adolescents who do not participate in TRT but whose teachers receive INSETT training. Further details on TRT and INSETT, trial design and preliminary findings will be presented at the workshop.

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Project HASHTAG: testing a school-based intervention to improve adolescent mental health in Nepal and South Africa

http://isrctn.com/ ◽

10.1186/isrctn80690743 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Mark Tomlinson ◽

Christina Laurenzi

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

South Africa ◽

Adolescent Mental Health ◽

School Based Intervention ◽

School Based

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Enhancing resiliency and promoting prosocial behavior among Tanzanian primary-school students: A school-based intervention

Transcultural Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/1363461518793749 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 55 (6) ◽

pp. 821-845 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Rony Berger ◽

Joy Benatov ◽

Raphael Cuadros ◽

Jacob VanNattan ◽

Marc Gelkopf

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Primary School ◽

Mental Health Professionals ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Prosocial Behaviors ◽

Primary School Children ◽

Control Group ◽

School Based Intervention ◽

School Based ◽

Culturally Adapted

Children in Sub-Saharan Africa are living under chronic adversity due to poverty, serious health issues, physical and sexual abuse, and armed conflicts. These highly stressful conditions have deleterious effects on their mental health and socio-emotional adjustment. Since many children lack adequate access to mental health care, culturally adapted school-based resiliency programs could provide a resource to scaffold their development and promote their mental health. This study evaluated the efficacy of a universal school-based intervention in enhancing the resiliency of Tanzanian primary school children and cultivating prosocial behaviors. A total of 183 students from grades 4 to 6 were randomly assigned to either the 16-session “ERSAE-Stress-Prosocial (ESPS)” structured intervention or to a Social Study curriculum (SS) active control group. The original ESPS program was adapted by Tanzanians mental health professionals who modified the program based on local idioms of distress and indigenous practices. Students' resilience was evaluated before, after and 8 months following the intervention by assessing social difficulties, hyperactivity, somatization, level of anxiety, prosocial behaviors and school functioning as well as academic achievements and disciplinary problems. There was significant improvement on all outcome measures for the ESPS group compared to the control group post-intervention and at the 8-month follow up. The ESPS intervention was equally effective on most measures for students experiencing different adversity levels. The results indicate that a culturally adapted universal school-based intervention can be effective in enhancing Tanzanian students' resiliency and promoting prosocial behaviors. Should these results be replicated and found enduring, the modified ESPS could be a valuable mental health-promoting intervention in other low-income countries.

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