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Child friendly spaces impact across five humanitarian settings: a meta-analysis
Sabrina Hermosilla1, Janna Metzler1, Kevin Savage2
1Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, New York, 10032, USA.
Insights
Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) show inconsistent positive impacts on younger children's wellbeing in humanitarian crises. However, CFS programming does not benefit older children or improve community resource connections, necessitating a review of current approaches.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- International Development
- Humanitarian Studies
Background:
- Humanitarian crises severely impact children's wellbeing, increasing risks of violence, abuse, and developmental disruption.
- Psychosocial programming is a common response, but systematic reviews indicate a weak evidence base for its effectiveness.
- Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) are frequently implemented interventions in post-emergency settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the impact of Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) on children's protection concerns, psychosocial wellbeing, and developmental assets in humanitarian emergencies.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of CFS interventions across different age groups and geographical locations.
- To determine if CFS interventions enhance connections between children, carers, and community resources.
Main Methods:
- A comparative study involving 1010 children and 1312 carers across five countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, Iraq, Jordan, Nepal).
- Baseline and endline assessments (3-6 months post-baseline) measured protection concerns, psychosocial wellbeing, developmental assets, and community resources.
- Intervention effect sizes were estimated using Cohen's d, with pooled meta-analysis to summarize overall impacts.
Main Results:
- For children aged 6-11, site-level analyses showed significant impacts on protection, psychosocial wellbeing, and developmental assets in specific locations.
- Pooled analysis for 6-11 year olds revealed significant intervention impact solely on psychosocial wellbeing (d=0.18).
- For adolescents aged 12-17, site-level analysis indicated an impact on protection concerns in one location, but pooled analysis showed no significant overall impacts.
Conclusions:
- Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) can offer a protective and promotive environment for younger children, though inconsistently.
- CFS interventions demonstrate no significant impact on older children or in connecting them with community resources.
- A critical reappraisal of CFS programming strategies and quality assurance is essential for effective humanitarian response.
Background:
Humanitarian crises present major threats to the wellbeing of children. These threats include risks of violence, abduction and abuse, emotional distress and the disruption of development. Humanitarian response efforts frequently address these threats through psychosocial programming. Systematic reviews have demonstrated the weak evidence-base regarding the impact of such interventions. This analysis assesses the impact of Child Friendly Spaces (CFS), one such commonly implemented intervention after humanitarian emergencies.
Methods:
We completed baseline and endline (three-six months post-baseline) assessments regarding protection concerns, psychosocial wellbeing, developmental assets and community resources for a total of 1010 children and 1312 carers in catchment areas for interventions with humanitarian populations in Ethiopia, Uganda, Iraq, Jordan, and Nepal. We estimated intervention effect-sizes with Cohen's d for difference in mean difference scores between attenders and non-attenders - who proved comparable on baseline measures - by site. We then pooled findings for a meta-analysis summarizing overall impacts across domains.
Results:
Amongst children aged 6-11, significant intervention impacts were observed through site-level analysis for protection concerns (Ethiopia, Cohen's d = 0.48, 95% CI 0.08-0.88), psychosocial wellbeing (Ethiopia, d = 0.51, 95% CI 0.10-0.91; and Uganda, d = 0.21, 95% CI 0.02-0.40), and developmental assets (Uganda, d = 0.37, 95% CI 0.15-0.59; and Iraq, d = 0.86, 95% CI 0.18-1.54). Pooled analyses for this age group found impacts of intervention to be significant only for psychosocial wellbeing (d = 0.18, 95% CI 0.03-0.33). Among children aged 12-17, site-level analysis indicated intervention impact for protection concerns in one site (Iraq, d = 0.58, 95% CI 0.07-1.09), with pooled analysis indicating no significant impacts.
Conclusion:
CFS can provide - albeit inconsistently - a protective and promotive environment for younger children. CFS show no impact with older children and in connecting children and carers with wider community resources. A major reappraisal of programming approaches and quality assurance mechanisms is required.
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