Reintegration of Children Into Family-based Care in Uganda

Summary

The proposed study will be an individually randomized controlled trial with children (age 1 to 13 years at the time of screening for inclusion in the study) living in residential care, reintegrated back into family-based care, in Uganda. It is designed to evaluate the impact of adding a household-based parenting program to a standardized reintegration package that includes individualized case management support and a reunification cash grant, aimed at improving the reintegration of children living in residential care back into family-based care. The study population will include children living in residential care facilities (RCFs) in Mpigi, Mukono, Masaka and Greater Masaka districts in Uganda.

Study participants will be randomized to one of two arms of the study: the comparison arm and the intervention arm. The target sample size is 640 children with 320 in each arm of the study. Children assigned to the comparison arm will receive a standard reintegration package that includes individualized case management support and a reunification cash grant. Those in the intervention arm will receive the enhanced reintegration package that includes individualized case management support, reunification cash grant and a parenting intervention. Data will be collected at baseline (while the child is still living in the RCF), 6 months post-placement and 12 months post-placement.

Data will be collected in the local language by a project trained local data collection partner on the following six domains of reintegration: Child health and development, Psychosocial health and wellbeing of the child and primary caregiver, Protection and safety of the child, Caregiver-child relationship, Child's and caregiver's sense of social and community belonging, Education access, quality, and achievement (where age-appropriate).

The sources of data are a) interviews with primary caregiver, b) interviews with RCF caregiver, c) interviews with older children (8-13 years of age), d) standardized assessments of child cognitive functioning for all the study children, and e) focus groups and interviews with participants, parenting facilitators, and case managers.

Conditions

• Parenting

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Standardized reintegration package

Participants assigned to this comparison arm will receive a standardized reintegration package that includes individualized case management support and a reunification cash grant Individualized case management will consist of a caseworker-developed individualized care plan with routine caseworker visits at the household level. Home visitation will begin during the family assessment and preparation stages and continue throughout the 15-month post-reunification follow-up period. For the cash grant, the family of each enrolled child will receive a reunification cash grant in the Ugandan Shilling equivalent of $125, administered in two equal disbursements. It is designed to offset the cost of child care.

BEHAVIORAL

Enhanced reintegration package

Participants assigned to this arm will receive an enhanced reintegration package that consists of the parenting program, individualized case management, and the reunification grant. will be delivered at the household level by project trained parenting facilitators. The program will consist of approximately 13 bi-weekly sessions, which will be delivered over the course of 7 months. The individualized case management and the reunification grant will be similar to those in the comparison arm.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Makerere University

  collaborator OTHER

• Westat

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Eileen Ihrig, MSW · Catholic Relief Services

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

1 Year

Max Age

13 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-12-07

Primary Completion

2019-06-30

Completion

2019-10-01

Countries

• Uganda

Study Locations