Marseille 2007
Marseille 2007
Abstract book
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Abstract #84  -  Adapting CHAMP for the South African context (2nd paper in CHAMP symposium)
Session:
  13.3: Champ (Satellite 4) on Monday @ 13.00-14.00 in PR Chaired by Arvin Bhana
Authors:
  Presenting Author:   Prof Inge Petersen - University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
 
  Additional Authors:  Prof Arvin Bhana, Prof Carl Bell, Prof Mary McKay,  
Aim:
To ensure that the adaptation of the original CHAMP program developed in the United States meets local needs within the South African context in terms of both content and the delivery process.
 
Method / Issue:
A focused ethnographic study involving four focus groups of 8-10 adult caregivers with 6 follow-up in-depth individual interviews informed the development of the initial adapted program. Formative evaluation of the pilot intervention involved a community-collaborative process of focus groups with program participants on each session.
 
Results / Comments:
The findings of the focused ethnographic study indicated the need to empower parents with knowledge about HIV/AIDS as well as improve the adult protective shield through strengthening parent-child communication and monitoring youth behaviour. Further, in the context of political, economic, social and cultural change, parents expressed a profound sense of disempowerment to protect their children, pointing to the need for renegotiated acceptable norms and practices related to the upbringing of adolescents. Moreover, a lack of trust and investment in community networks for facilitating social control indicated the need for structural and community level interventions to create a more protective social context for youth (Paruk et al., 2005). In response, the AmaQhawe Family Project developed an innovative participatory narrative cartoon-based manualized intervention. Through Psych-education interventions, it intervenes within the parent-child microsystem to strengthen key personal influences such as parent HIV knowledge as well as assertive and refusal skills in youth; and interpersonal influences such as parent-child communication, parental warmth and active monitoring of children through participatory psycho-educational exercises and role plays. Through parent and child groups the program aims to facilitate challenging of existing norms and the renegotiation of acceptable protective parental norms and practices on the one hand, and social action to create a more protective health enabling community context for adolescents on the other. Formative evaluation of the pilot CHAMP-SA program afforded participants the opportunity for authorial participation in the program to ensure authenticity of the cartoon narrative. Further the cartoon narrative was found to be a useful tool for the facilitation of critical reflection and consciousness-raising necessary for the renegotiation of health-enhancing adaptive social norms and practices related to parenting as well as the diffusion of these renegotiated norms.
 
Discussion:
Careful attention to social conditions and cultural contexts through ethnographic work as well as community-collaborative formative evaluation of the pilot CHAMP-SA program ensured that the adapted program was able to meet local needs. Of significance were adaptations which enabled the program to move beyond psycho-education towards impacting on normative behaviour and social action activities.
 
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