Creating Opportunities Through Mentoring, Parenting and Safe Spaces - Democratic Republic of Congo (COMPASS)

Creating Opportunities Through Mentoring, Parenting and Safe Spaces - a Randomized Controlled Trial in Democratic Republic of Congo

The study is a randomized controlled trial of COMPASS, an intervention for adolescent girls in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The study design will employ a two-arm randomized controlled trial where girls will be enrolled at the same time and randomized to receive a basic package of services, which includes life skills education and access to mentors in safe spaces, or the basic package plus a structured parenting intervention for girls' caregivers. An experimental design will be used to evaluate the relative impact of the parenting initiative in addition to the safe space program for girls. In addition, qualitative research will address additional questions of acceptability, processes of change and best practice.

Groups in North and South Kivu will be randomized so that every group is randomly designated as a group that will either roll out the core intervention or the intervention plus caregiver component. Groups that do not receive the parental intervention during the study will receive the intervention when the study is complete to reduce communal jealousies.

The intervention, the COMPASS program, will involve a structured intervention for girls between the ages of 10-14 that is intended to engage adolescent girls, those who are influential in their lives, service providers and other stakeholders, with the ultimate goal of co-creating environments in which girls are valued and safe. The program is centered on establishing or supporting community-supported safe spaces for girls where they can come and gather among themselves and participate in a structured life-skills curriculum. In addition to the safe spaces for girls, the COMPASS project will also implement structured activities for the parents and caregivers of participants.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Domestic Violence; Sexual Assault; Interpersonal Relations; Marital Status
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: COMPASS; Behavioral: COMPASS plus parenting

Detailed Description

The study will examine the relative impact of the parenting initiative in addition to the program for adolescent girls. The study will seek to determine whether the structured intervention with girls' parents has an added impact on outcomes improve girls' safety and well-being. Research will focus on unpacking the components of the program in order to determine which components or combination of components have the most impact. This research will include a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches to establish a foundation for good programming that supports adolescent girls' safe and healthy transition into adulthood.

The study assessment will employ a mixed methods approach with most data collection occurring at pre-test/baseline and post-intervention, although a qualitative assessment will also be performed at the intervention midpoint as a process indicator. Quantitative survey methods will be used to evaluate attitudes towards a host of topics related to physical and financial assets and health-related behaviors. Survey questions will be administered using Audio Computer Assisted Self-Interviewing (ACASI) and Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). Quantitative methods will be used to yield statistical measures of the scale of changes in attitudes, skills, and behaviors due to the intervention.

Qualitative methods will include in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with girls, their family members and mentors, as well as participatory methods with girls to assess topics such as self-esteem, empowerment, and resilience.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1633
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10168
      • International Rescue Commitee

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 10 years to 14 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• female
• aged 10-14
• give informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

- cognitive impairment

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: COMPASS; The COMPASS program will involve a structured intervention for girls between the ages of 10-14 that is intended to engage adolescent girls, those who are influential in their lives, service providers and other stakeholders, with the ultimate goal of co-creating environments in which girls are valued and safe. The program is centered on establishing or supporting community-supported safe spaces for girls where they can come and gather among themselves and participate in a structured life-skills curriculum.	Behavioral: COMPASS; COMPASS (Creating Opportunities through Mentoring, Parental involvement and Safe Spaces) is a program for 10-14 year old girls in Eastern DRC. The program is a structured intervention that is intended to engage adolescent girls, through life skills training and establishing or supporting community-supported safe spaces for girls where they can come and gather among themselves and participate in a structured life-skills curriculum.
Experimental: COMPASS plus parenting; In the COMPASS plus parenting intervention arm, girls will receive the COMPASS intervention, and In addition to the safe spaces for girls, the COMPASS project will also implement structured activities for the parents and caregivers of participants. The study will examine the relative impact of the parenting initiative in addition to the program for adolescent girls. The study will seek to determine whether the structured intervention with girls' parents has an added impact on outcomes improve girls' safety and well-being.	Behavioral: COMPASS plus parenting; The COMPASS plus parenting intervention is the core COMPASS intervention, plus activities for the parents and caregivers of participants.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Sexual violence in the past 12 months	A binary composite representing any form of sexual violence in the previous 12 months, which included self-reported forced sex, unwanted sexual touching, or coerced sex	12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in baseline prevalence of early marriage	This study will use a questionnaire to measure changes in the percentage of girls who self-reported being married from the pre-test to post-test evaluation.	12 months
Change in baseline prevalence of interpersonal relationships	This study will use a questionnaire to measure whether there is an increase in study participants' average number close friends from the pre-test to post-test evaluation. Girls will also self-report sources of emotional support such as comfort in discussing problems with a trusted female adult and comfort discussing topics such as education, marriage, puberty, pregnancy prevention, HIV/AIDS, and financial plans with caregivers	12 months
Change in baseline prevalence of physical abuse	This study will use a questionnaire to measure whether the percentage of girls who self-reported experiencing beatings within the past 12 months decreases between the pre-test and post-test evaluation	12 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Columbia University
• Collaborators: Department for International Development, United Kingdom; International Rescue Committee
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Lindsay Stark, Associate Professor of Population and Family Health

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Falb KL, Tanner S, Ward L, Erksine D, Noble E, Assazenew A, Bakomere T, Graybill E, Lowry C, Mallinga P, Neiman A, Poulton C, Robinette K, Sommer M, Stark L. Creating opportunities through mentorship, parental involvement, and safe spaces (COMPASS) program: multi-country study protocol to protect girls from violence in humanitarian settings. BMC Public Health. 2016 Mar 5;16:231. doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-2894-3.
• Seff I, Falb K, Yu G, Landis D, Stark L. Gender-equitable caregiver attitudes and education and safety of adolescent girls in South Kivu, DRC: A secondary analysis from a randomized controlled trial. PLoS Med. 2021 Sep 28;18(9):e1003619. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003619. eCollection 2021 Sep.
• Stark L, Seff I, Asghar K, Roth D, Bakamore T, MacRae M, Fanton D'Andon C, Falb KL. Building caregivers' emotional, parental and social support skills to prevent violence against adolescent girls: findings from a cluster randomised controlled trial in Democratic Republic of Congo. BMJ Glob Health. 2018 Oct 19;3(5):e000824. doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2018-000824. eCollection 2018.
• Stark L, Seff I, Assezenew A, Eoomkham J, Falb K, Ssewamala FM. Effects of a Social Empowerment Intervention on Economic Vulnerability for Adolescent Refugee Girls in Ethiopia. J Adolesc Health. 2018 Jan;62(1S):S15-S20. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.06.014.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: June 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 1, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 24, 2015
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 4, 2015
• First Posted (Estimate): March 10, 2015

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 8, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 6, 2018
• Last Verified: February 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Adolescent Health; Democratic Republic of Congo; Sexual Violence
• Other Study ID Numbers: AAAO6612

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED