Peer-reviewed article
Evaluating the Strong Families Programme in Lebanon: A Single-arm Study on Family Functioning and Child Well-being
Aala El‐Khani, Dina Idriss-Wheeler, Lamia Farhat, Ali Yassine, Shatha Darwish et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study evaluated the Strong Families programme, a brief family skills intervention, with 76 Lebanese families in high-stress settings affected by political instability and displacement. Using a pre-post design, researchers measured changes in parenting, parent-child relationships, and child behaviour problems. Families who started with higher difficulties showed the most improvement, while those with fewer initial problems showed smaller gains. The programme was found to be feasible and produced short-term improvements in family functioning and child mental health.
Key points
- Significant reductions in child conduct problems and total difficulties on the SDQ, with greatest improvements among children with high baseline difficulties
- PAFAS outcomes showed significant decreases in coercive parenting and improvements in positive encouragement and parent-child relationship
- Ceiling effect observed: families with lower initial difficulties showed smaller or non-significant changes
- No differences in outcomes between Lebanese and non-Lebanese participants
- High attrition was reported, though specific rates are not stated
Limitations
The study used a single-arm pre-post design without a comparison group, so improvements cannot be attributed to the intervention alone. High attrition is mentioned but not quantified, which may affect the reliability of findings.
Abstract
Families in Lebanon face compounded adversities, including political instability, economic collapse, and protracted displacement crises. These conditions place significant strain on caregiver-child relationships, which are critical determinants of child well-being. The Strong Families programme, developed by UNODC, is a brief, evidence-based family skills intervention designed for low-resource and high-stress settings. This study evaluated the programme’s feasibility and effectiveness in Lebanon. A single-arm pre-post design was employed. Seventy-six families with children aged 8–14 years were recruited through community-based organizations across Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and South Lebanon. Caregivers completed a demographic questionnaire, the Parenting and Family Adjustment Scales (PAFAS) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) at baseline (T1), post-intervention (T2), and six-week follow-up (T3). Despite high attrition, results showed significant reductions in SDQ conduct problems and total difficulties, with the greatest improvements among children with high baseline difficulties. PAFAS outcomes indicated significant decreases in coercive parenting and improvements in positive encouragement, parent-child relationship, and parental adjustment among the most challenged caregivers at baseline. Families with lower initial difficulties showed smaller or non-significant changes, suggesting a ceiling effect. No differences emerged between Lebanese and non-Lebanese participants. The Strong Families programme demonstrated feasibility and positive short-term impacts on family functioning and child mental health in Lebanon, particularly for higher-risk families. These findings support its scalability as a contextually adaptable intervention to strengthen resilience in humanitarian and fragile settings.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Strong Families programme: a brief, evidence-based family skills intervention developed by UNODC
- Population
- 76 families with children aged 8–14 years recruited through community-based organizations in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and South Lebanon; both Lebanese and non-Lebanese participants
Key finding
Significant reductions in SDQ conduct problems and total difficulties, with greatest improvements among children with high baseline difficulties