Parenting for Lifelong Health – the Sinovuyo Teen Program

Project outline

 

To date, 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, and 70 million more live with AIDS-affected caregivers within sub-Saharan Africa. Our programme of research has demonstrated heightened levels of physical, sexual and emotional abuse amongst children in AIDS-affected families. Despite increasing calls for intervention studies addressing child abuse in the developing world, no interventions or research have yet targeted this high-risk group of AIDS-affected children.

The ‘Sinovuyo Teen Program’ was developed by Oxford University, the University of Cape Town, WHO, UNICEF, and local NGO partners in South Africa in response to the need for a low-cost, evidence-based parenting programme aimed at preventing child maltreatment in low- and middle-income countries. The programme consists of 14 group-based sessions (complimented by home visits) that are typically delivered by community-based workers. The program has undergone three adaptation stages and has been tested in two pilot studies (N=300 participants) as well as a large-scale cluster randomised controlled trial in South Africa’s Eastern Cape (N=1100 participants, 40 urban and rural sites).

Findings show reductions in child abuse, increases in involved parenting, improvements in mental health, reductions in substance use and improvements in family budgeting and economic outcomes, using both child and caregiver reports. With UNICEF, we also conducted qualitative research that identified important considerations for culture and scale-up. 

The Sinovuyo Teen program forms part of the Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) suite of interventions. PLH is a collaboration of academics, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation and NGOs to develop and test non-commercialised parenting programmes for low- and middle-income countries. Through PLH, the manuals have been translated and adapted for implementation in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia and the Caribbean. The PLH manuals are available on the WHO website.

Website: http://www.youngcarers.org.za/sinovuyoteenstudy/

 

  1. Shenderovich, Y., Eisner, M., Cluver, L., Doubt, J., Berezin, M., Majokweni, S., & Murray, A. L. (2018). What affects attendance and engagement in a parenting program in South Africa? Prevention Science, 19, 977-986. DOI: 10.1007/S11121-018-0941-2
  2. Steinert, J. I., Cluver, L. D., Meinck, F., Doubt, J., & Vollmer, S. (2018). Household economic strengthening through financial and psychosocial programming: Evidence from a field experiment in South Africa. Journal of Development Economics, 134, 443-466. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.06.016
  3. Romero, R. H., Hall, J., Cluver, L., & Meinck, F. (2018). Can supportive parenting protect against school delay amongst violence-exposed adolescents in South Africa? Child Abuse & Neglect, 78, 31-45. DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.09.025
  4. Cluver, L. D.,  Meinck, F., Steinert, J. I., Shenderovich, Y., Doubt, J., et al. (2018). Parenting for Lifelong Health: A pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial of a non-commercialised parenting programme for adolescents and their families in South Africa. BMJ Global Health, 3. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000539
  5. Doubt, J., Bray, R., Loening-Voysey, H., Cluver, L., Byrne, J., Nzima, D., ... & Medley, S. (2017). "It has changed": Understanding change in a parenting program in South Africa. Annals of Global Health, 83, 767-776. DOI: 10.1016/j.aogh.2017.10.021
  6. Sherr, L., Macedo, A., Tomlinson, M., Skeen, S., Cluver, L. (2017) Could cash and good parenting affect child cognitive development? A cross-sectional study in South Africa and Malawi. BMC Pediatrics, 17, 123. DOI: 10.1186/s12887-017-0883-z
  7. Cluver, L., Meinck, F., Yakubovich, A., Doubt, J., et al. (2016). Reducing child abuse amongst adolescents in low- and middle-income countries: A pre-post trial in South Africa. BMC Public Health, 13, 56 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-016-3262-z
  8. Steinert, J., Cluver, L., Melendez-Torrez, G., Vollmer, S. (2016) One size fits all? The validity of a composite poverty index across urban and rural households in South Africa. Social Indicators Research. DOI:10.1007/s11205-016-1540-x
  9. Cluver, L., Lachman, J., Ward, C. L., Gardner, F., Peterson, T., Hutchings, J., Mikton, C., Meinck, F., Tsoanyane, S., et al. (2016) Development of a parenting support programme to prevent abuse of adolescents in South Africa: Findings from a pilot pre-post study. Research on Social Work Practice. DOI: 10.1177/1049731516628647
  10. Cluver, L., Meinck, F., Shenderovich, Y., Ward, C., Herrero Romero, R., Redfern, A., Lombard, C., Doubt, J., Steinert, J., Catanho, R., Wittesaele, C., De Stone, S., Salah, N., Mpimpilashe, P., Lachman, J., Loening, H., Gardner, F., Blanc, D., Nocuza, M., Lechowicz, M. (2016). A parenting programme to prevent abuse of adolescents in South Africa: A study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials, 17, 328. DOI: 1186/s13063-016-1452-8