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The objective was to establish how stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) conceptualize child mental health impact. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 stakeholders from disadvantaged urban communities in Kenya, South Africa, Turkey and Brazil. Participants represented education, welfare and health care agencies; as well as community and religious groups. Data were analysed through a thematic approach and three related themes were identified. Impact was defined as a process of change, with child-centred outcomes and measures that were broader than mental health symptoms improvement. Beneficiaries were identified at child, family, community and service level. Participants wished to see strategies that ensured sustainability of impact, namely child mental health policy, stakeholder engagement, interdisciplinary working, and capacity-building for all stakeholder groups. Child mental health service transformation in LMIC, especially in areas of deprivation, needs to build on existing resources and strengths by co-producing psychosocial outcomes with a range of professional and community stakeholders. Impact on children's mental wellbeing can be achieved through a co-ordinated strategy that involves designated policy, capacity-building, and interdisciplinary networks with meaningful community involvement.

In South Africa, most children in care have been removed from homes characterized by violence, abuse, poverty, and neglect, with many of these children often exposed to multiple traumatic events. Research points to a strong causal association between child trauma and attachment difficulties. Poor attachment increases children's risk for a range of externalizing behaviors, with related negative consequences for the child in both the short and long term. Addressing attachment difficulties of children who have experienced disrupted care is therefore vital. This paper reflects critically on the usefulness of eConnect, a trauma informed and attachment-based programme in such cases. It reports the interview-facilitated insights of 11 child and youth care workers (CYCW) from a care facility in Johannesburg, South Africa, who completed the eConnect programme in 2021. The first interviews were conducted in the last eConnect session (2021); follow-up interviews were done in 2022. The resulting insights allow evaluation of the contextual fit of eConnect for CYCW in SA and understanding of which programme aspects had enduring uptake. They nudge continued sensitivity to situational and cultural dynamics to optimize programme efficacy and best enable care workers. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Implications for practice: Scrutinize roleplays and training materials to ensure cultural translatability, inclusivity, and relevance for diverse caregiver backgrounds. Explore ways to integrate trauma-informed programmes into existing family support initiatives within residential care settings. Recognize challenges associated with online programme delivery in under-resourced contexts, such as technical difficulties and power outages. Tailoring a programmes delivery mode to local conditions enhances practicality and ensures the programme's usefulness in real-world contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging adults facing chronic socioeconomic stress, especially depression, lack comprehensive research on resilience factors. This study analyzed digital diary entries (n = 338) from 57 individuals aged 18–24 in a South African township from July 2021 to April 2022. Participants highlighted relational, community, and cultural supports regardless of risk levels. Both high and low-risk groups faced challenges like financial instability, limited education, health threats, and lawlessness. However, institutional resource scarcity disproportionately affected higher-risk individuals, worsening issues like infrastructure deficits and violence exposure. Family and peer support emerged as crucial, especially for higher-risk participants. Individuals living in higher risk emphasized collective action and stranger support during infrastructure failures. These findings suggest that greater risk exposure may reinforce reliance on traditional, community-focused coping mechanisms, indicating the importance of studying differential resilience factors among young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is limited evidence on how intergenerational trauma and resilience are perceived by children, especially in Majority World Countries (MWC). We established such perspectives among 73 children and youth in Brazil, Kenya, South Africa, Pakistan and Turkey. Children interviewed older adults, kept diary fieldnotes, and shared learning in focus groups. Data were integrated through a thematic codebook. Four themes reflected deprivation of safety needs and family challenges, especially for girls, which shaped older adults' resilience. Children related accounts to their experiences, to generate intergenerational learning. Implications of the findings are considered in the context of intercultural shared trauma and resilience. Contributions to the intergenerational field: Children can draw strength from intergenerational narratives to build their resilience in the face of future adversity. The emotional impact of intergenerational narratives can have more impact on children than conveying information or advice. A multi-method approach can be adapted for different age groups to elicit intergenerational perspectives. Children can make an important contribution as co-researchers in intergenerational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth in structurally violent environments emphasise hope when explaining their resilience. Even so, the multisystemic resources that enable hope (also over time) are relatively underreported for African young people. In response to this gap, we report a qualitative study that identified the hope-enabling resources that contributed to the resilience of two samples of African youth aged 15–24 and living in the township of eMbalenhle, South Africa. Using Draw-Write-Talk methodology, the 2017 sample (n = 30; M age = 18.6; 56% male youth) and 2018 sample (n = 7; M age = 18.4; 85% female youth) generated visual and narrative data of their experiences of hope enablers. A thematic analysis showed that a multisystemic mix of contextually relevant resources typically explained youth capacity for hope in the face of structural violence. Four resources informed this mix: personal strengths, faith-based beliefs, positive personal relationships, and tangible sources of inspiration. This contextually relevant mix, and its putative durability over time, has implications for how psychologists and policymakers support youth in structurally violent contexts to be hopefully resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is scant understanding of what supports African emerging adults who are not in employment, education or training (i.e., NEET) to show resilience to NEET‐related challenges. This article narrows that gap by reporting an iterative phenomenological study with nine African emerging adults (mean age: 23.44; 66% female) who were NEET for the 18‐month duration of the study and living in a resource‐constrained community in South Africa. We interviewed each young person three times (June 2021; December 2021; June 2022). A reflexive thematic analysis of these interview transcripts showed that being NEET is a multifaceted challenge. Supported by a mix of personal, relational and environmental resources, young people managed this challenge by resisting or recuperating from destructive coping mechanisms and believing in a successful future self. These findings point to the importance of young people and their social ecologies (families, peers, service providers and policymakers) recognising and enacting their co‐responsibility for resilience to the compound challenges of being NEET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The qualitative community embraces transparent dialogue through sharing knowledge to improve rigour and develop new initiatives. In this paper, we recognise there are many complexities within qualitative research, leading to important debates. We explore the benefits and challenges, as well as the practicalities and technicalities, of conducting research that 1) employs multiple methods within the qualitative paradigm, 2) is interdisciplinary, and 3) examines a sensitive research topic 4) with a vulnerable group of participants. Specifically, when research is also 5) cross-cultural and 6) utilises participatory techniques. Through our discussion, we draw upon an existing project and examine the complexity of designing and completing intra-paradigmatic mixed methods research with children from different sociocultural contexts, underpinned by interdisciplinary perspectives, in a complex area like mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, child and youth mental health needs are largely unmet, especially in resource-constrained settings. Youth are uniquely placed to provide mental health support, but there is limited evidence on what their role should involve. The aim of this study was to establish how youth themselves conceptualized the peer support worker role. We captured the perspectives of 45 youth from Pakistan and South Africa. Focus group discussions were analyzed through a thematic codebook framework. Key findings indicated how youth can improve their mental health care, as well as those of their peers, by recognizing early signs of mental health concerns, developing adaptive coping mechanisms, strengthening social relationships, and mobilizing additional resources through advocacy and mediation. Peer support can be enhanced by skills such as lack of judgement, empathy, encouragement and good communication. Peer support workers can play an important role in promoting children’s mental health, particularly in resource-constrained settings. Such posts should be clearly defined, incorporated within existing service systems, and provided with adequate funding, training and supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children living in resource-constrained environments have high levels of unmet psychosocial needs. Through participatory focus groups, we juxtaposed the views of 55 children aged 7–10 years from resource-constrained settings in South Africa and Pakistan, with those of 96 service providers, focusing on available sources of psychosocial support. Children largely relied on individual and relational resources, with limited awareness of structural supports. Service providers focused less on children's capacity, instead viewing schools and community-based resources as essential sources for psychosocial support. Children's agency and capacity should be recognized and bolstered to inform service planning, community-based interventions, and systemic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little knowledge on how children perceive psychosocial supports and seek help in resource-constrained settings. The aim of this study was to establish these perspectives among 22 children aged 7–10 years living in a disadvantaged community in Kenya. Children discussed available resources in response to three scenarios of common life stressors. Focus group discussions were subjected to thematic analysis. Children regularly sought internal and relational (family and peers) rather than external structural resources when faced with adversities. Their unique knowledge of their needs, environment and required supports should inform the development of interventions and services through developmentally appropriate participatory methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on integrated data from focus groups and diary entries, we explored the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on child well‐being for children from five Majority World Countries. We focus on the disruptions the pandemic caused, the adjustments made in response to these, and children's vision of a post‐pandemic world. Underlying children's experiences of loss, boredom and concerns about educational progress, was an awareness of systemic inequalities that disadvantaged them or others in their community. Findings have implications on capturing children's voices through introspective and dialogical approaches that transcend cultures and for the development of preventive and responsive interventions during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of the visual image to foster reflection and to mobilise individuals and communities into action coupled with its capacity to bridge language and cultural divides has made the inclusion of visual methods (VMs) increasingly popular in resilience research as well as in research on sexual violence. In spite of this popularity, VMs are not beyond criticism and there have been calls to scrutinise the efficacy of VMs in research. Our aim, in this article, is to reflect critically on the usefulness of VMs to increase understandings of resilience processes in girls with child sexual abuse histories. We also consider the effectiveness of VMs in initiating social change by following up on audience members who viewed a screening of digital stories that dealt with the CSA experiences of adolescent girls. Our findings suggest that VMs are effective in creating greater awareness of resilience processes but in terms of initiating social change, dissemination of outputs produced through VMs requires greater consideration and clearer guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]