For those of you who have been following Gede’s project with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) on the Validation of Mental Health Screening Tools for Vulnerable Children as part of the Sustainable Mechanisms for Improved Livelihoods and Household Empowerment (SMILE) Project, we are happy to report that as of the end of October 2016, the team has made good progress in the validation process.

A total of 25 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to review the screening tools on Depression, Behaviour Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder have been completed in 12 communities in 4 LocalGovernment Areas in the Federal Capital Territory. Another set of 2 FGDs were facilitated on Resilience. FGDs were facilitated in Hausa or Pidgin English – the languages into which the screeners were translated. The participants to these FGDs were male and female children aged 12 to 17 years old, enrolled in the SMILE Project, through the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that work with CRS for the project. They are, (i) Catholic Action Committee on AIDS, (ii) Elohim Foundation, (iii) Justice Development and Peace Commission, and, (iv) Society for Community Development.

With the completion of the FGDs (plus transcription) and the final review of the translated screeners, our team of researchers and clinicians will soon go back to the communities to validate the screeners with a target of 400 respondents.

Please come back for more exciting updates.