Sibling-Support for Adolescent Girls (SSAGE): A whole-family, gendertransformative approach to preventing mental illness among forcibly displaced adolescent girls

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Project Summary Forcibly displaced adolescents face increased risks for mental illness and distress, with adolescent girls disproportionately affected in part due to the heightened gender inequity that often accompanies forced displacement. Although the family unit has the potential to prevent mental illness and promote healthy development in adolescents, few family interventions have employed a gender transformative approach or included male siblings in an effort to maximize benefits for adolescent girls. Therefore, we propose to assess an innovative whole-family and gender transformative intervention—Sibling Support for Adolescent Girls in Emergencies (SSAGE)—to prevent mental health disorders among adolescent girls in Colombia who were recently and forcibly displaced from Venezuela. The proposed R34 study will adapt the SSAGE curriculum through human-centered design with a range of stakeholders, including Venezuelan refugees, Colombian returnees and relevant civil society organizations. The proposed study will then employ a hybrid type 1 effectiveness-implementation pilot randomized control trial (RCT) to test the program’s effectiveness and mechanistic pathways as well as to explore determinants of implementation in order to establish the feasibility, acceptability, and fidelity of SSAGE. To address these aims, we will enroll 180 recently arrived, forcibly displaced adolescent girls in an RCT and examine the program’s effectiveness on the prevention of mental illness (through reduction in anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, and somatization symptoms) one-month post-intervention. We will use contextually adapted and piloted measures to collect additional data on the hypothesized mechanistic pathways, including family attachment, gender equitable family functioning, self-esteem, and coping strategies. The implementation evaluation will employ mixed methods to assess the program’s feasibility, acceptability, fidelity and barriers and facilitators to successful implementation. Potential findings can support humanitarian program implementation, as well as inform policy to support adolescent girls’ mental health and to prevent the myriad disorders that can arise as a result of exposure to displacement, conflict, and inequitable gender norms in their households and communities.