Impact of the Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers on Mentalizing in Orphans and Vulnerable Children in South Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers (MISC) is a mentalization-based intervention which aims to enhance caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness. MISC has demonstrated treatment effects on mental health problems of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in South Africa by working with Community-Based Organization (CBO) care workers as the point of intervention. Recent elaboration of mentalization-based theory points to alternate figures in a child’s early environment as critical resources for enhancing children’s mentalizing capacity. In this study, we evaluated the treatment effect of MISC on children’s mentalizing capacity at baseline and following 12-months of the intervention, controlling for the effects of age, gender, orphan status, socioeconomic status, quality of the home environment, and mental health difficulties at baseline. MISC and Treatment as Usual (TAU) groups were compared using a mixed model linear regression. Results demonstrated significant effects of MISC, time, and mental health difficulties on mentalizing capacity. To our knowledge, this study is the first mentalization-based caregiver intervention to demonstrate treatment effects on child mentalizing capacity, and MISC is the first mentalization-based caregiver intervention to focus on paraprofessionals as the point of intervention.