Towards preventing child maltreatment at scale – the PLH-SUPER study

• In Event: Towards preventing child maltreatment at scale

Abstract

Objectives: Parenting programmes have strong evidence for preventing violence against children, and for preventing and treating children’s externalising and internalising disorders. Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) is a suite of parenting programmes that are suitable for low- and middle-income contexts. Following randomised trials in South Africa, PLH for Young Children and PLH for Teens are being rolled out widely in over 20 countries around the world. Delivery of programmes in routine practice or at scale is often accompanied by a loss of effectiveness, and the Scale-Up of Parenting Evaluation Research (SUPER) study aims to take advantage of this massive roll-out. Initial findings from PLH-SUPER in South Sudan and Montenegro are presented, along with the methods of the larger study.

The SUPER study will explore the following questions: why and how are programmes taken up? What are their prospects for sustainment? What adaptations are made, why, and how does this affect outcomes? To what extent are effects similar to those observed in the randomised controlled trials of these programmes? What are the programme costs when taken to scale?

Proposed methods include qualitative interviews with: donors who fund delivery of the programmes, decision-makers who adopt the programme, staff who deliver the programme, and those who train and support programme delivery. Effects will be monitored using pre-post data collected by implementing partners. Questionnaires must necessarily kept short, and items were selected from longer questionnaires to allow parents to report on their use of positive and harsh parenting (the ICAST, the Parenting Young Children Scale, the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, the Parenting Scale); their child’s externalising symptoms (the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire); and their depression (the CES-D); on their sense of efficacy (Parenting Efficacy); their parenting stress (the Parenting Stress Scale).

Initial results from South Sudan and Montenegro found that programmes had high attendance and enrolment rates, and demonstrated reductions in harsh parenting and improvements in positive parenting. This suggests that loss of effect may not be inevitable, but more studies are needed to explore the conditions under which continuing effectiveness may be maintained.

Authors

• Yulia Shenderovich, University of Oxford
  Presenting Author

• Roselinde Janowski
  Non-Presenting Author

• Inge Wessels, University of Oxford
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jamie Lachman, Universities of Oxford and Glasgow
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lucie Cluver, Univeristy of Oxford
  Non-Presenting Author

• Frances Gardner, Wolfson College, Oxford
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lulu Ngcobo, Clowns Without Borders South Africa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Judy Hutchings, Bangor University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kufre Okop, University of Cape Town
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hlengiwe Sacolo, University of Cape Town
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sam Bojo, Catholic Relief Services South Sudan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Felix Monday, Catholic Relief Services
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ida Ferdinandi, UNICEF Montenegro
  Non-Presenting Author

• Margiad Williams, Bangor University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marie Pueffel, University of Bremen
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mark Tomlinson, University of Stellenbosch
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel Oliver, Catholic Relief Services
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Ward, University of Cape Town
  Non-Presenting Author