Building and Sustaining Interventions for Children: Task-sharing Mental Health Care in Low-resource Settings

Building and Sustaining Interventions for Children (BASIC): Task-sharing mental health care in low-resource settings builds on our 15-year history of collaborations with research partners in Kenya, prior NIH-funded work that identified mental health needs of orphaned children in low- and middle-income countries, and iterative and collaborative intervention adaptation and testing using a task-sharing approach, to address these needs.Our goal is to identify locally sustainable implementation policies and practices (IPPs) that lead to effective implementation of task-shared evidence-based treatment (EBT) delivery (a locally adapted version of Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Pamoja Tunaweza in this study) in 2 governmental sectors in Kenya. Both sectors were identified by our Kenyan partners as potential platforms for scale- up-Education via teacher delivery and Health via community health volunteer (CHV) delivery. Both Education and Health may be viable sectors for mental health care delivery, but the IPPs that predict implementation success and intervention effectiveness in either/ both sectors are unknown. This study identifies con-textually relevant, practical, and actionable IPPs that can inform implementation planning, while also assessing child outcomes and intervention costs in both sectors. The recent devolvement of the Kenyan government (leading to more local decision-making), the launch of a National Mental Health Policy, and our Kenyan partners' empowerment work building enthusiasm for TF-CBT are converging to create a local climate in which BASIC could become part of the county plan, if evidence-based guidance for implementation, using mostly existing resources, existed. The trial design is an incomplete stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial (SW-CRT) including 40 schools and the 40 surrounding villages. The school and the surrounding community are considered a "village cluster." Each of the 40 "village clusters" has 1 team of teachers and 1 team of CHVs delivering Pamoja Tunaweza, resulting in 120 trained lay counselors in each sector, who provide TF-CBT to 1,280 youth and one of their guardians, across seven sequences of the SW-CRT. Site leaders are enrolled for data collection (up to 80), but do not provide services. The study uses a novel method, qualitative comparative analyses (QCA), that holds potential for substantially advancing the field of implementation science. QCA leverages the rigor of quantitative approaches and the detail of qualitative approaches, and allows for complex causality and equifinality (i.e., an outcome can be reached by multiple means). Study aims are: 1) Identify actionable IPPs that predict adoption (delivery) and fidelity (high- quality delivery) after 10 sites in each sector implement TF-CBT (sequence 1). Use identified IPPs to (Aim 1a) guide implementation planning support for subsequent sites and to (Aim 1b) generate testable hypotheses about IPPs as causal mechanisms; 2) Test mechanisms of implementation success in both sectors across all 7 sequences; and 3) Test TF-CBT effectiveness (i.e., mental health outcomes; functioning) and cost in both sectors. This research has important implications for implementing an evidence-based treatment in low-resource settings, including the US.