Gede Foundation has been working to uphold the welfare of Nigerian children for more than a decade now through its education and skills acquisition projects. We are happy to announce that Gede has just signed a research contract with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Nigeria to broaden its support for Nigerian children.

CRS has awarded Gede Foundation a research grant in Developing an Approach To Community-Based Detection, Treatment and Referral Services for Vulnerable Children with Mental Health and Psychosocial Problems and their Caregivers. The grant is under the USAID funded Sustainable Mechanism for Improving Livelihood and Household Empowerment in Nigeria (SMILE) project and will last for 6 months.

The purpose of the research is to develop and validate locally appropriate screening tools for mental health conditions in order to inform an intervention aimed at reducing the impact of mental health conditions among vulnerable children served by the SMILE project. Recent research from Ghana has shown that the psychosocial support given to OVC needs to be tailored to their specific mental health challenges which, in turn, need to be screened in ways which are appropriate to their circumstances.

Gede Foundation and CRS hope that this research project will serve as catalyst in the delivery of appropriate mental health services to children in Nigeria, for we believe that mentally healthy children will eventually grow into generally healthy and sound leaders of the country.