Clowns Without Borders announces Sinovuyo Caring Families Project!

Clowns Without Borders South Africa is proud to be partnering with Ikamva Labantu (www.ikamva.org), the South African Department of Social Development, and the Universities of Cape Town and Oxford on a new project - the Sinovuyo Caring Families Project (http://www.cwbsa.org/sinovuyo).

Our aim is to develop and evaluate a parenting programme to reduce the risk of child abuse for childre ages 3 to 8 living in vulnerable families in isiXhosa communities around Cape Town. The Sinovuyo Caring Families Project is a 3-year project:

2012: Development of programme with community members and experts in the field of psychology, community development, and public health. This will include focus groups and interviews with caregivers and community health workers on the acceptability of evidence-based universal core principles found in parenting programmes around the world. We will also be testing the programme in the community with Ikamva Labantu.

2013: Evaluation of the Sinovuyo Caring Families Programme in a randomised controllled trial with 120 families. We will be examining the programme's impact on child and caregiver mental health and behaviour as well as whether the programme is feasible at a low-cost.

2014: Dissemination to other community organisations and regions. If the programme is successful, we will be training facilitators and organisations throughout Southern Africa in how to implement it in their communities.

This is an exciting opportunity for Clowns Without Borders to evaluating the impact of our work on our beneficiaries. It is also a wonderful integration of psychology, community development, and the arts.

Please stay tuned for updates from the project!

Many thanks to the Fell Fund, the World Health Organisation, and the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund for supplying initial funding to the project. To support us, please visit http://www.cwbsa.org/sinovuyo for more information!