Navigating Complexity: Responsive Adaptation Through the Evaluation of Intersectional Lived Experiences

• In Event: Poverty, Migration and Peace Building

Proposal

Data collection in the Syrian context is challenging due to the constantly changing political situation, ongoing violence, COVID-19 pandemic, and recent earthquake that hit northern Syria and Turkey. Moreover, the experience of being resilient to, and coping with, trauma is not static and program implementation must match this varied dynamic to meet the expressed needs of the communities with which the program works.
Trauma-informed programming in particular needs to be highly inclusive in considering the various experiences of intersectional identities, groups, and communities that are present in Northwest Syria. Adaptive implementation that incorporates this feedback is possible when complexity-aware monitoring principles are integrated within a learning and adaptative management strategy. For the Syria Education Program (SEP), implementation centers on the systematic uptake of findings and other evidence-based practices to understand the program’s impacts on children from various groups, as well as to improve the quality and effectiveness of the activities that SEP implements.
SEP gives children, caregivers, and teachers a sense of accountability over program outcomes by continuously seeking their feedback on how interventions have impacted, or might impact, children’s emotional resilience. This ongoing analysis of participant feedback informs program adjustments in response, as well as future strategic planning to align programming with emerging needs.
SEP conducts a quarterly Strength and Difficulty Questionnaire (SDQ) among students, caregivers, and teachers and ensures the inclusion of Internally Displaced Persons to measure the impact of the intervention and assess changes in individual and community resilience strategies.
Assessing data from previous quarters, SEP identified 21 areas that were frequently reported as “improved” or “needs to be improved,” such as fear, bullying, children’s social relationships, and distraction. As a result, each of these areas were included in a booklet that features guidelines, instructions, and recommendations for school staff and caregivers when dealing with such cases. SEP used the SDQ results to identify strengths and difficulties impacting children as per their age group, gender, and disability, to establish appropriate interventions in response to children’s specific needs. For example, findings from the SDQ indicated that younger children (aged 5 to 8) were more likely to exhibit difficulties with peer relationship building, and that children in grade 4 were more vulnerable to bullying, poor self-image, and an increased awareness of discrimination. As a result, the program tailored the psychosocial support (PSS) intervention to address these needs, rather than offering a generic or homogenous PSS program to all children.
The SDQ also revealed a 50% decline in children under the category of “high emotional and behavioral challenges” over the course of four years. This could indicate a positive shift in their mental health and wellbeing, and as well as successful interventions. The involvement of wider communities in the evaluation process is designed to help situate trauma sensitivity in the larger community context in which children are located, by providing a more holistic understanding of the social and emotion needs of children and their wider communities.

Authors

• Abdulkader Alaeddin, Chemonics International

• Reham Jabbar, Chemonics International