Experimental evaluation of a group based psychosocial intervention for primary caregivers with young children in communities exposed to violence in Colombia
Presented by:
Andrés Moya
Department of Economics
University of Los Andes
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
12:00 pm-1:30 pm
(different day)
On-line via Zoom
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We report the results from the impact evaluation of a group-based psychosocial support program that seeks to restore maternal mental health as a primary objective by itself, but also as a pathway to foster healthy child-parent attachment bonds and protect early childhood development among families exposed to violence and forced displacement. The program was implemented in Tumaco, Colombia a municipality torn by decades of on-going violence. One month after the program concluded, we find positive effects on indices of mental heath, child-parent relationships, and early-childhood development. More importantly, these effects persists and become larger in the medium run (at the 8-month followup). Unfortunately, we also find that the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic eroded progress in maternal mental health and early child-parent relationships. Results signal to the need and feasibility of psychosocial interventions in fragile and conflict-affected settings, but also on the importance of complementing psychosocial interventions with standard economic programs to fully address vulnerabilities and overlapping risks in these settings.