CLUSTER RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL (CRCT)

Background:  School violence is a worldwide phenomenon, yet very few school-based interventions have been empirically evaluated that aimed at preventing violence by teachers. This project aims to equip teachers with the skills and knowledge necessary to interact effectively with children. This is a two year program being implemented with the support of Konstanz University of Germany, focusing on developing competencies in the areas of communication, empathy, active listening, emotional regulation, and positive reinforcement. Teachers are trained to communicate clearly and effectively with children, understand their emotions and needs, and respond appropriately to challenging behaviors.

This project is an expansion of our pilot project on child abuse prevention in Pakistan “Interaction Competencies with Children – for Teachers (ICC-T)” that we just concluded in 8 schools at 4 sites (provinces) in Pakistan. The program has been tested and implemented in similar countries and was shown to be associated with less physical and emotional violence inflicted by trained teachers and improved teacher-student relations. The ICC-T consists of a 5.5-day training workshop for teachers that is delivered through local master trainers and is focused on providing teachers with practical information and tools to prevent the use of violent disciplinary strategies in class and improving their interaction competencies with children.

Key activities to be performed:

• Test the effects of ICC-T on teachers’ use of violence in secondary schools in Pakistan, assessed through students’ self-reported experiences of violence by teachers as well as teachers’ self-reported use of violence against students.
• Test the effects of ICC-T on students’ self-reported emotional and behavioral problems,
• quality of life as well as cognitive functioning.
• Identify implementation strategies to disseminate and promote the adoption of the intervention across Pakistan.
• All-risk and affected populations have timely access to culturally appropriate, gender and age sensitive information, services and interventions to promote safe hygiene practices.

Deliverables:

• Reports during intervention phase followed by interviews and group sessions with key stake holders after intervention results are available to help facilitate the incorporation of the intervention into the teacher training and school mental health programs.
• Half of the schools at each site will be randomly allocated to the intervention group, which will receive the ICC-T intervention, and the other half to the control group, which will receive no intervention. The study will involve three data collection phases: baseline assessment directly before the intervention (t0), and two follow-up assessments approximately 3 months (t1) and 12 months (t2) after the intervention.