Abstract
Background: The dearth of data on adolescents highlighted in the UN's data disaggregation against the agenda 'no one left behind' calls for research on 'the second decade'. Moreover, India is a country with the world's largest adolescent population, and as such, studies and policies for developing competencies of adolescents are crucial to the country's development; interventions instilling confidence to aspire to a better future in underprivileged adolescents are vital to mitigate inequity. Methods: This intervention study adopted a quasi-experimental design to measure the effectiveness of social groupwork in raising the psychological well-being of adolescents in child sponsorship programs in Kerala. Forty adolescents from a Child Sponsorship Program (CSP) center in Kochi were recruited for the study. Those suggested by the CSP center considering their poor academic performance and behavior problems were allocated to the intervention group and the rest to the comparison group. The intervention was designed in response to the information garnered through a preliminary study and administered to the intervention group (n=20). We conducted pre-test and post-test for both the intervention group and comparison group (n=20). Results: Comparison between pre- and post-measurements carried out using paired sample t-test for the intervention group and comparison group separately gave a p-value of <0.05 for the intervention group and >0.05 for the comparison group. Thus, it was proved that psychological well-being of participants in the intervention group was raised significantly due to the social group work intervention. Conclusions: Applying refined granularity, this research adds data specifically on adolescents enrolled in child sponsorship programs and sets a blueprint for social groupwork to improve their psychological well-being. Proposing a conceptual framework for child sponsorship programs, this study recommends further research in all aspects of its functioning, and interventions at group, family, and community levels, for the well-being and empowerment of marginalized adolescents.
Highlights
Assigning a “combined focus on the individual and the society” (Alissi, 1982:10), social group work (SGW) stands out as a quintessential method in the social work domain
Alternative hypothesis set was; H(a): There is a significant difference between the psychological well-being (PWB) levels of participants before and after the SWG intervention
Effect of SGW intervention on all the six components of PWB were tested separately against hypotheses; H(1) : There is a significant difference between autonomy of participants before and after the SGW intervention; H(2) : There is a significant difference between environmental mastery of participants before and after the SGW intervention; H(3) : There is a significant difference between personal growth of participants before and after the SGW intervention; H(4) : There is a significant difference between positive relations of participants before and after the SGW intervention; H(5) : There is a significant difference between purpose in life of participants before and after the SGW intervention; H(6) : There is a significant difference between self-acceptance of participants before and after the SGW intervention
Summary
Assigning a “combined focus on the individual and the society” (Alissi, 1982:10), social group work (SGW) stands out as a quintessential method in the social work domain. An extant investigation into well-being trajectories; “pleasure, engagement and meaning, suggests that engaging and meaningful activities may have stronger influences on well-being than pursuing pleasure” (Schueller and Seligman, 2010:253) These conceptions second researchers’ stand in adopting Ryff’s PWB model for intervention studies with specific objectives such as finding true self, gaining mastery over environment, creating meaningful relationships, achieving autonomy, finding meaning in life, and attaining personal growth in promoting one’s well-being (Schlegel et al, 2009). Methods: This intervention study adopted a quasi-experimental design to measure the effectiveness of social groupwork in raising the psychological well-being of adolescents in child sponsorship programs in Kerala. Proposing a conceptual framework for child sponsorship programs, this study recommends further research in all Invited Reviewers version 1
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