Bridging the Gap between the Pressing Need for Family Skills Programmes in Humanitarian Settings and Implementation

Aala El-Khani, Rachel Calam, Karin Haar and Wadih Maalouf
Additional contact information
Aala El-Khani: Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Section, Drug Prevention and Health Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Division of Operations, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Rachel Calam: Division of Psychology & Mental Health, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9WL, UK
Karin Haar: Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Section, Drug Prevention and Health Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Division of Operations, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Wadih Maalouf: Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Section, Drug Prevention and Health Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Division of Operations, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 4, 1-7

Abstract: A supportive environment with nurturing caregivers is essential for the healthy development of children. For children who have been exposed to extreme stress, such as humanitarian contexts, the need for strong, healthy, nurturing caregiver relationships may assume even greater importance. Much research has been building to position family skills interventions as a key tool in encouraging safe and supporting relationships between caregivers and children, thus preventing many problem behaviours and poor mental health. While there is substantial evidence of the effectiveness of family skills interventions in high-income and stable contexts, evidence of interventions that have been tested in humanitarian and challenging settings, such as contexts of refugee and displacement, are far fewer. Despite the role that family skills interventions can play in protecting children from current and future challenges, there is a significant lack of such interventions being utilised in humanitarian settings. We put forward seven likely reasons for this lack of uptake. Furthermore, the Strong Families programme, a UNODC family skills intervention, is presented as an example of an intervention that aims to bridge this gap of interventions that meet the need for humanitarian and contexts of extreme stress. More research is needed to unpack the content, delivery mechanisms and reach of family skills programmes to further aid programme developers in investing in efforts that might provide significant sustained impact for families in humanitarian contexts.

Keywords: refugee; family skills; parenting; displaced population; war; conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2181/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2181/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:4:p:2181-:d:749701

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().