Sealing the Past, Facing the Future: An Evaluation of a Program to Support the Reintegration of Girls and Young Women Formerly Associated with Armed Groups and Forces in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Th is paper reports on an evaluation of a program in Sierra Leone that sought to support the community reintegration of young women and girls formerly associated with armed groups and forces. In the absence of baseline data, we used locally-derived indicators of reintegration and village timelines to conduct a retrospective cohort study of the progress of 142 girls and young women towards achievement of community reintegration following their experience of abduction. Although girls and young women in both intervention and comparison communities had made progress towards integration, the intervention was associated with improved mental health outcomes and higher ratings on some aspects of marriage quality. For those who had found the greatest challenges in reintegrating, the intervention additionally appeared to support community acceptance and inclusion in women's bondo activities.

Sexual and gender-based violence in areas of armed conflict: a systematic review of mental health and psychosocial support interventions

“…As many participants turned out to have achieved these indicators before implementation of the program, sub-analyses focused on matching intervention and comparison participants who had not achieved reintegration outcomes prior to program implementation. These analyses showed significantly more girls in the intervention condition achieving integration outcomes on five out of six indicators, including schooling, community acceptance, inclusion in traditional women’s initiation societies, cessation of drug use, and attainment of “steady head” (a locally developed indicator of mental stability), but not marriage [40]. …”

“…Furthermore, 4 out of 7 studies [37-40] evaluated combined interventions, e.g. medical and psychosocial interventions.…”

“…Similarly, there is consensus on the importance of assessing the possibility to collaborate with traditional healers [13]. The study by Ager and colleagues [40] described here represents one of the few quantitative studies that actually investigates the effectiveness of traditional cleansing ceremonies on locally derived indicators of wellbeing. Such research is crucial to strengthen evidence and provide accountability to stakeholders in real-life settings.…”

The impact of the school-based Psychosocial Structured Activities (PSSA) program on conflict-affected children in northern Uganda

“…This is a key construct of the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings (IASC, 2007), and of conceptual analyses of recovery mechanisms from the Psychosocial Working Group (PWG, 2002, 2003; Boothby, Wessells, & Strang, 2006) from which such guidelines heavily draw. Increasingly, field studies are documenting this dynamic between social reconstruction and personal well‐being (Ager, Strang, & Abebe, 2005; Ager, Stark, Olsen, Wessells, & Boothby, 2010b). Such literature has a major impact on our necessary understanding of the role and value of interventions in post‐conflict contexts.…”

Understanding How Solidarity Groups—A Community-Based Economic and Psychosocial Support Intervention—Can Affect Mental Health for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Democratic Republic of the Congo

“…However, few studies have examined the impact of interventions that include economic activity to improve mental health for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. A retrospective cohort study in Sierra Leone found that an intervention that included loans and skills training significantly improved “steady head” (a local term for mental stability; Ager, Stark, Olsen, Wessells, & Boothby, 2010). Similarly, baseline data from a community-based trial in Eastern DRC demonstrated that livestock or animal assets may buffer the impact of mental health symptoms (Glass, Perrin, Kohli, & Remy, 2014).…”