Preventing Violence by Teachers in Primary Schools in Haiti

NCT ID: NCT05081622

Last Updated: 2025-02-06

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 1064 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2021-11-15
• Study Completion Date: 2024-09-30

Brief Summary

Violence has severe and long-lasting negative consequences for children's and adolescents' well-being and academic functioning, which can hinder communities' and societies' economic growth. According to the Human Development Index, Haiti is one of the least developed countries in the world and the least developed in the Western hemisphere. Although Haiti has officially signed international and national laws aiming to protect children, preliminary reports suggest high rates of violence against children at schools. In addition to a lack of adequate training and supervision of teachers and an underdeveloped education system, attitudes favoring violence against children as an effective and acceptable discipline method and the lack of access to alternative non-violent strategies are likely to contribute to teachers' ongoing use of violence against children.

Notwithstanding, no school-level interventions addressing these factors to reduce violence by teachers have been scientifically evaluated in Haiti so far.

Thus, the present study tests the effectiveness of the preventative intervention Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T) in primary schools in Haiti. Previous studies have provided initial evidence on the feasibility and effectiveness of ICC-T to reduce teacher violence in primary and secondary schools in Tanzania and secondary schools in Uganda. This study aims to provide first evidence for the effectiveness of ICC-T to reduce violence and to improve children's functioning (i.e. mental health, well-being, academic performance) in a cultural setting outside of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Detailed Description

The study is designed as a two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial with schools (clusters) as level of randomization. The study will be conducted in the Northern department of Haiti. Six schools in each of the 6 included communes will be randomly selected, resulting in a total number of 36 schools.

In each commune, three schools will be randomly allocated to the intervention group (that will receive the ICC-T intervention) and three schools to the control group (that will receive no intervention). At each school, 28 students (stratified by gender) in the 4th grade of primary School (between 9 and 11 years of age) and all teachers (at least 13) will be recruited. Thus, the final sample will comprise at least 1008 students and at least 468 teachers.

The study will have two data assessment points: baseline assessment prior to the intervention and follow-up assessment six to 12 months after the intervention. In addition, feasibility data will be assessed in the intervention group at the beginning and the end of the intervention. Primary outcome measures are student- and teacher-reported physical and emotional violence by teachers in the past week. Secondary outcome measures include teachers' attitudes towards violence against students, children's emotional and behavioral problems, quality of life, and cognitive functioning.

Conditions

Violence by Teachers

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

ICC-T

5 days with 9 hours of training for teachers. Core training components include teacher-student interaction, maltreatment prevention, effective discipline strategies, identifying and supporting burdened students and implementation of the training materials into the school setting

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T)

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Core training components include teacher-student interaction, maltreatment prevention, effective discipline strategies, identifying and supporting burdened students and implementation of the training materials into the school setting.

A one-day ICC-T refresher workshop aiming to refresh and re-emphasize the key aspects of the intervention is implemented about 6 to 12 months after the initial intervention.

Monitoring condition

No intervention

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T)

Core training components include teacher-student interaction, maltreatment prevention, effective discipline strategies, identifying and supporting burdened students and implementation of the training materials into the school setting.

A one-day ICC-T refresher workshop aiming to refresh and re-emphasize the key aspects of the intervention is implemented about 6 to 12 months after the initial intervention.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Written informed consent (if underaged by parents & minors themselves)

Students: Enrollment in class 4 of primary school

Teachers: All teachers employed at the school

Schools:

• Public or community schools
• Mixed-gender schools
• Day schools
• At least 40 students in selected class/stream

Exclusion Criteria

Students and teachers:

• Acute drug or alcohol intoxication
• Acute psychotic disorder

Schools:

• Previous training on violence prevention

• Minimum Eligible Age: 7 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 70 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Konstanz

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

P4H Global

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Bielefeld University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Tobias Hecker, PhD

Assistant Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Anke Hoeffler, Prof. Dr.

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Konstanz

Locations

P4H Global

Cap-Haïtien, , Haiti

Countries

Haiti

Other Identifiers

ICC-T_CRCT_Haiti

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id