Children facing war: their understandings of war and peace

Özer, Serap; Oppedal, Brit; Şirin, Selçuk R.; Ergun, Gokce

doi:10.1080/17450128.2017.1372652

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Children living in humanitarian or challenged settings (such as refugee, conflict/post-conflict settings, or underserved areas) are at a greater risk of different vulnerabilities, including mental health and behavioural challenges [ 1 , 2 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of a Brief Family Skills Training Programme (“Strong Families”) on Parenting Skills, Child Psychosocial Functioning, and Resilience in Iran: A Multisite Controlled Trial

Haar

El-Khani

Mostashari³

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Caregivers have a key role in protecting children’s wellbeing, and, with appropriate skills, can prevent a multitude of negative social outcomes, particularly in challenged or humanitarian settings. Accordingly, the Strong Families programme was designed as a light touch family skills programme, with a focus of supporting caregiving during stressful situations. To evaluate the short-term impact of the Strong Families programme, we performed a time-convenience, randomized, controlled trial in Iran. A total of 292 families (63% from Iranian decent, 39% from Afghan decent, and 1% other), with children aged eight to twelve years, were recruited through ten centers in Iran and allocated to an intervention (n = 199) or waitlist/control group (n = 93). The two groups did not differ demographically at baseline. We assessed families prospectively, through three scales, PAFAS (parenting and family adjustment scales), SDQ (strengths and difficulties questionnaire), and CYRM-R (child and youth resilience measure). Caregivers in the intervention group improved (highly) statistically significantly on all but one PAFAS subscales (parental consistency, coercive parenting, positive encouragement, parental adjustment, family relationships, and parental teamwork), which was not noted in the waitlist group. On the SDQ, there were (highly) significant positive changes in scores in the intervention group on all sub-scales and the “total difficulty scale“, whereas the waitlist/control group also improved on three (prosocial, conduct problems, and hyperactivity) of the five SDQ subscales. Children originating from Afghanistan improved significantly on the overall resilience scale of the CYRM-R in the intervention group, but not in the waitlist/control group. Overall, all our stratified results of the different scales reflect an accentuated improvement in families with higher levels of problems at baseline. Our comparative results indicated a strong alignment of the strong families programme with its intended short-term impact, per its logical frame on parenting practices and family management skills, children behaviour, caregivers and children mental health, and capacity to cope with stress. We postulate that the potential nudging or diffusion of knowledge (cross-contamination between intervention and waitlist/control group) at the community level could explain improvements in the waitlist/control group on some indicators, however, further research on this is recommend.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of a Brief Family Skills Training Programme (“Strong Families”) on Parenting Skills, Child Psychosocial Functioning, and Resilience in Iran: A Multisite Controlled Trial

Haar

El-Khani

Mostashari³

et al. 2021

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These could include refugee, displacement or conflict/ post-conflict settings, rural or underserved areas where the level of stress is elevated. Children living in such humanitarian settings are at greater risk of different vulnerabilities including showing signs of mental health difficulties or behavioural problems [1,2]. This represents a long-term risk as many mental health problems begin in youth and are related to other poor health and developmental outcomes, such as violence, lower educational achievement and substance abuse [3,4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong families: a new family skills training programme for challenged and humanitarian settings: a single-arm intervention tested in Afghanistan

Haar

El-Khani

Molgaard³

et al. 2020

BMC Public Health

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Background: Children living in challenged humanitarian settings (including those in rural/underserved areas, the displaced, refugees, in conflict/post conflict situations) are at greater risk of mental health difficulties or behavioural problems, with caregivers acting as their main protective factors. While many family skills programmes exist, very few were developed for, or piloted in, low resource settings (settings with limited infrastructure, typical of humanitarian settings). We therefore designed a brief and light programme; the Strong Families (SF) programme, consisting of 5 h contact time over 3 weeks. We conducted a pilot study with the aim to test the feasibility of implementation, and a preliminary look at the effectiveness of SF, in improving child behaviour and family functioning in families living in Afghanistan. Methods: We recruited female caregivers and children aged 8-12 years through schools and drug treatment centres in Afghanistan and enrolled them in the SF programme. Demographic data, emotional and behavioural difficulties of children and parental skills and family adjustment measures were collected from caregivers before, 2 and 6 weeks after the intervention. Outcome was assessed through the SDQ (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), assessing children's behavioural, emotional, and social issues, and PAFAS (Parenting and Family Adjustment Scales), measuring parenting practices and family functioning. Results: We enrolled 72 families in the programme with a 93.1% retention rate (n = 67) for data collection 6 weeks post intervention. Mean age of caregivers was 36.1 years, they had 3.8 children on average and 91.7% of them had experienced war/armed conflict in their past. The average total difficulty score of the SDQ (ranging from 0 to 40, with scores above 16 being indicative of high problems) of the 72 children reduced significantly, from 17.8 at pretest to 12.9 at post-test and 10.6 at second follow-up, with no difference in gender and most noticeably amongst those with the highest scores at baseline. Likewise, PAFAS scores decreased significantly after the programme, again with caregivers with the highest scores at baseline improving most.

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“…Children living in such humanitarian settings are at greater risk of different vulnerabilities including showing signs of mental health difficulties or behavioural problems. 1,2 This represents a long-term risk as many mental health problems begin in youth and are related to other poor health and developmental outcomes, such as violence, lower educational achievement and substance abuse. 3,4 Further to the aforementioned direct impact on children, social inequalities resulting from political conflict such as family instability or security, poor caregiver mental health due to prolonged periods of stress further exacerbate the vulnerability faced by the children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong Families: A new family skills training programme for challenged and humanitarian settings: a single-arm intervention tested in Afghanistan

Haar¹,

El-Khani²,

Molgaard

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Background Children living in challenged humanitarian settings (rural/underserved areas, displaced, refugees, conflict/post conflict) are at greater risk of mental health difficulties or behavioural problems, with caregivers acting as their main protective factors. While many family skills programmes exist, very few were developed for, or piloted in, low resource settings (settings with limited infrastructure). We designed the brief and light Strong Families (SF) programme, consisting of 5 hours contact time over 3 weeks. We conducted a pilot study aiming to test the feasibility of implementation, and preliminary effectiveness of SF, in improving child behaviour and family functioning in Afghanistan. Methods We recruited female caregivers and children aged 8-12 years through schools and drug treatment centres and enrolled them in the SF programme. Demographic data, emotional and behavioural difficulties of children and parental skills and family adjustment measures were collected from caregivers before, 2 and 6 weeks after the intervention. Outcome was assessed through the SDQ (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), assessing children’s behavioural, emotional, and social issues, and PAFAS (Parenting and Family Adjustment Scales), measuring parenting practices and family functioning. Results We enrolled 72 families in the programme with a 93.1% retention rate (n=67) for data collection 6 weeks post intervention. Mean age of caregivers was 36.1 years, they had 3.8 children on average and 91.7% of them had experienced war/armed conflict in their past. The average total difficulty score of the SDQ (ranging from 0 to 40, with scores above 16 being indicative of high problems) of the 72 children reduced significantly, from 17.8 at pre-test to 12.9 at post-test and 10.6 at second follow-up, with no difference in gender and most noticeably amongst those with the highest scores at baseline. Likewise, PAFAS scores decreased significantly after the programme, again with caregivers with the highest scores at baseline improving most. Conclusions The implementation of a brief family skills programme was seemingly effective and feasible in a resource-limited setting and positively improved child mental health and parenting practices and family adjustment skills. These results suggest the value of such a programme and call for validation through further impact assessment and outcome evaluation.

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Children facing war: their understandings of war and peace

Cited by 12 publications

References 17 publications

Impact of a Brief Family Skills Training Programme (“Strong Families”) on Parenting Skills, Child Psychosocial Functioning, and Resilience in Iran: A Multisite Controlled Trial

Impact of a Brief Family Skills Training Programme (“Strong Families”) on Parenting Skills, Child Psychosocial Functioning, and Resilience in Iran: A Multisite Controlled Trial

Strong families: a new family skills training programme for challenged and humanitarian settings: a single-arm intervention tested in Afghanistan

Strong Families: A new family skills training programme for challenged and humanitarian settings: a single-arm intervention tested in Afghanistan

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