Summary description: Sugira Muryango is a home-visiting intervention designed to improve responsive parenting, promote play in early child development, and prevent violence in the home. Sugira Muryango’s 12 sessions are delivered weekly to engage male and female caregivers with active coaching on responsive caregiving, improved nutrition, hygiene, help-seeking behaviors, early stimulation, problem-solving, conflict resolution, stress management, and shared decision making.
**Access to the intervention manual: ** Access by request from author, please email: Theresa Betancourt, RPCA Lab (rpcalab_ssw@bc.edu)
Access to training: Access by request from author, please email: Theresa Betancourt, RPCA Lab (rpcalab_ssw@bc.edu)
Intended users/ Implementers: Trained and supervised non-specialist provider
Intervention format: It uses a manual curriculum divided into 12 modules, a welcome and closing session, and 3- and 6-month booster session, sequential 60 minute+ home-visiting sessions designed to be delivered by non-specialists.
Target population: Vulnerable families with a child 0-3.
Key innovative or differentiating features of this intervention: Sugira Muryango is flexible, in-home intervention for all family types (dual-headed, single-headed, teen mothers, multigenerational households, etc.) and has high male caregiver engagement with 70% of fathers attending all sessions in RCT. Also, building on the success from the RCT, from 2021–2023 the Sugira Muryango program successfully tested a multi-level implementation strategy – the Promoting Lasting Anthropometric Change and Young Children’s Development (PLAY) Collaborative – to create a platform for expansion and sustainment of Sugira Muryango via government social and child protection programs.
Summary of Evidence: In the RCT, Sugira Muryango has been found to be effective in decreasing child exposure to violent child discipline, reducing victimization to intimate partner violence among mothers, decreasing in mothers & fathers showing depression/ anxiety symptoms, increasing male engagement, caregivers providing more stimulating materials for children in the home (e.g., books), increasing caregiver engagement of playful activities with children, increasing care seeking for diarrhea and fever, increasing safe treatment of drinking water and improving children's motor, communication, problem-solving, and personal-social-skills (ASQ-3) 1 year after intervention delivery.
Different populations where the intervention has been used: Vulnerable families in Rwanda, Venezuelan migrant families in Colombia, War-impacted families in Sierra Leone, Refugee populations in New England (US)
Restrictions or requirements for its use: Material User Agreements are required to access the manual. A Licensing Agreement is required to use the intervention. Both are available free of charge. To request access please email: rpcalab_ssw@bc.edu
Requirements / qualifications for trainers and supervisors: Those interested in using the intervention should work with RPCA to identify experienced interventionists who can train others, or develop a plan to become a trained as a trainor.
Information provided by Theresa Betancourt on 8 November 2024. She is the Author, Principal Investigator.