HAI Colombia Project

Heartland Alliance International (HAI) and La Universidad de Los Andes investigated the effectiveness of HAI’s community-based psychosocial support (PSS) group intervention. This intervention was developed through the Alianza Con Organizaciones Por lo Emocional (ACOPLE) program conducted in the Pacific Coast region of Colombia. ACOPLE leverages identified community leaders, called community psychosocial agents (CPAs), who are trained and supervised by psychologists to provide non-specialized community PSS, thereby strengthening social cohesion, coping, and resilience in their own communities. From 2010-2020, ACOPLE has provided PSS services to survivors of torture and trauma, primarily Afro-Colombian populations affected by violence and conflict. In recent years, in response to feedback from CPAs, HAI recognized the need to adapt the ACOPLE group intervention to better fit the evolving needs of participants by including a greater focus on peer support, community problem-solving, and culturally-based expressive activities.

The current research assessed the effectiveness of this adapted intervention among conflict-affected community members in Quibdó (Chocó), Colombia. The first phase of this work tested feasibility and fidelity of the adapted intervention through a pilot study. During the Covid-19 pandemic, community members participated in the pilot intervention using remote, hybrid, or socially-distanced in-person modalities. After a period of adaptation based on the findings from the pilot, the effectiveness of the finalized adapted model was measured using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology. This model could have global relevance in other countries struggling to build the capacities of communities to cope with the mental health needs stemming from ongoing and past conflict as well as systemic crime and violence.