HIAS Ecuador/Panama Project – MHPSS Knowledge Hub

ECUADOR | PANAMA

Integrating coping skills training into a group psychosocial intervention for migrant and host communities

PROJECT
OVERVIEW

HIAS, Columbia University, and University of Copenhagen is adapted, implemented, and evaluated an integrated psychosocial intervention approach to improve psychological wellbeing among forced migrants in Ecuador and Panamá. The intervention is designed to mobilize social support, build coping skills, strengthen community connectedness, and stimulate collective action to promote the safety and wellbeing of women in diverse communities across Ecuador and Panamá.

Contact: annie.bonz@hias.org

Study Design

Cluster-randomized feasibility trial

Participants

Displaced and host community women

Setting

Community sites providing services for forcibly displaced persons in Guayaquil and Tulcan, Ecuador, and Panama City and Panama West, Panama

The foundation for the intervention (‘Entre Nosotras’, English translation: ‘Among/between us’) is the HIAS community-based MHPSS curriculum. This curriculum already includes elements of psychological first aid and psychoeducation and was designed to be delivered in a group format. The input from the community consultation and intervention brainstorming workshops revealed that it was important that the intervention be interactive. Drawing from community participatory intervention methods from Ecuador and Panama, the intervention incorporates specific activities that provide an opportunity to cover the MHPSS material and concepts in the HIAS CB-MHPSS curriculum in an interactive and participatory manner. Most of these activities focus on mobilizing social support, strengthening social connectedness, and sharing common experiences and strategies for promoting safety and wellbeing.
In the experimental condition, there is an addition of more psychologically-focused, skills-based component and the Doing What Matters in Times of Stress coping skills guide. This is an intervention that is already extensively used by HIAS and would allow for the evaluation of a replicable and standardized WHO intervention.

“This program allowed the people of the community to realize they do have skills, talents, tools and that they can help their environment. It allows women to develop in a friendly and trusting environment, knowing that we are "Entre Nosotras".

Facilitator, Arraiján, Panama

STUDY PARTNERS

STUDY FUNDER

STUDY COLLABORATORS

Alejandro Angulo
Program Focal Point
HIAS

Alejandra De la Cruz
Program Officer
HIAS

Andrea Veronica Armijos Navarro, MSc
MHPSS Coordinator
HIAS

Arianna Moyano Morillo
Research Assistant
HIAS

Carolina Vega Legarda, MD
Regional Research Program Coordinator for MHPSS
HIAS

Claire Greene, PhD
Assistant Professor
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Lena Skovgaard Andersen, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Copenhagen Department of Public Health

Liliana Andrea Murcia, MD
Program Officer
HIAS

Lucia Benavides
Project Officer
HIAS

Maria Cristobal
MHPSS Regional Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean
HIAS

Maria Jose Lopez Alvarado, MSc
Research Assistant
HIAS

Maria Jose Noboa Muñoz
Research Assistant
HIAS

Maria Vergara
Research Assistant
HIAS

Wietse Tol, PhD
Professor
University of Copenhagen Department of Public Health

PUBLICATIONS and Products

Study Protocol: Evaluating the feasibility of a group psychosocial intervention for migrant and host community women in Ecuador and Panama: protocol for a multi-site feasibility cluster trial

Community-based participatory design of a psychosocial intervention for migrant women in Ecuador and Panama