Caregiver and family-focused interventions for early adolescents affected by armed conflict: A narrative review

Introduction: Armed conflict is damaging to children's emotional and physical well-being and blunts normal development trajectories when experienced during sensitive growth periods such as early adolescence, typically defined as 10–14 years of age. Caregivers play a critical role in building and strengthening resilience in adverse events across the life course. The purpose of this article is to identify and explore the existing evidence on caregiver- and family-focused interventions to improve adolescent health and well-being. Methods: A scoping review of peer-reviewed and gray literature on interventions to improve health and resiliency that engage young adolescents and parent/caregivers in low-and-middle income countries affected by conflict. Results: Of the 4698 articles screened, 14 articles detailing results from 12 interventions met the scoping inclusion criteria. Discussion: Interventions have historically aimed to address psychological difficulties associated with armed conflict while measuring early adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior outcomes and parenting quality outcomes. Future research should give additional attention to children's regulation of behavior by their parents and to the economic and safety issues that threaten the health and well-being of early adolescents and their families. Lastly, program developers should ensure that interventions are appropriately adapted to local cultural and geopolitical contexts by collaborating closely with local communities and stakeholders.