Clinical trial NCT05632237: Evaluation of a Family Strengthening Program Evaluation in Sierra Leone to Prevent Family Separation
Official title: Evaluation of a Family Strengthening Program Evaluation in Sierra Leone to Prevent Family Separation
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Parent-Child Relations
Emotion Regulation
Economic Problems
Parenting
Lead sponsor: Boston College
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Christian Alliance for Orphans
name: Helping Children Worldwide
name: Child Reintegration Centre
First posted: 2022-11-30
Enrollment: 226
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 9
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: In Sierra Leone, poverty and challenges with family functioning can lead to family separation, and children may go to live on the street or enter residential care institutions/orphanages. Helping Children Worldwide (HCW), a non-profit organization with over 20 years of experience in Sierra Leone, has developed a two-part Family Strengthening Program delivered by their program partners in Sierra Leone, the Child Reintegration Centre, to improve families financial literacy and attachment between caregivers and children, with the ultimate goal of preventing family separation. The hypothesis of this study is that the Family Strengthening Program program is effective at (1) changing parenting behaviors, (2) improving emotional regulation, (3) improving caregiver-child attachment, and (4) improving financial literacy in dyads consisting of children ages 9-13 and their caregivers.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion criteria:

1. Dyads must consist of a principal child (the one whose situation initiated their involvement with the Child Reintegration Centre) and their primary caregiver (as defined by the Child Reintegration Centre as the person in the family primarily responsible for the health and wellbeing of the principal child and is noted as such in their case file)
2. Primary child is ages 9-13
3. Dyad is actively participating in Child Reintegration Centre services (i.e., child must have been seen by the case manager in the last month)
4. Dyad lives in the Bo area.

Exclusion criterion:

(1) Family has been assessed by the Child Reintegration Centre to be in active crisis, i.e., specific concerns about the child being at-risk or unsafe (suspicions of abuse or neglect).

Primary outcomes:
measure: Caregiver and child change in emotional regulation as measured by the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation (DERS) scale
timeFrame: Baseline: Up to 2 months before intervention; Endline: Up to 2 months after intervention
measure: Change in child attachment as measured by the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA)
timeFrame: Baseline: Up to 2 months before intervention; Endline: Up to 2 months after intervention
measure: Change in caregiver- and child-reported use of punishment by caregiver
timeFrame: Baseline: Up to 2 months before intervention; Endline: Up to 2 months after intervention
measure: Change in self-reported economic well-being
timeFrame: Baseline: Up to 2 months before intervention; Endline: Up to 2 months after intervention
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change in child- and caregiver-reported parenting behaviors by caregiver
timeFrame: Baseline: Up to 2 months before intervention; Endline: Up to 2 months after intervention
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Bo
country: Sierra Leone
facility: the Child Reintegration Centre
Study officials:
References: