Introduction
Millions of children and youth live on city streets across the globe, vulnerable to substance use, abuse, material and structural neglect. Structural resilience, the re-establishment of ...access to structural goods within a society such as housing, education, and healthcare following some interruption, provides an orientation for research and interventional efforts with street-involved children and youth (SICY). Further, a structural resilience framework supports organizing interactions between levels and sectors of a socio-ecology.
Methods
Following the expressed interests of Kenyan SICY, and consistent with emerging policy interests at national and global levels, we assess reintegration trajectories of Kenyan SICY (
n
= 227) participating in a new program intervention and model. The intervention combines two coordinated, parallel programs – one focused on the rescue, rehabilitation, reintegration and resocialization of SICY, and the other focused on empowering families and communities to provide better care for children and youth who are reintegrating from life on the streets to the broader community. Data were collected and analyzed from multiple stages across SICY involvement with the intervention.
Results
We found 79% of SICY participants reintegrated with the broader community, and 50% reintegrated with families of origin and returned to school. Twenty-five percent of participants reintegrated to a boarding school, polytechnical school, or began a business. Probability of reintegrating successfully was significantly improved among participants whose families participated in the family- and community-oriented program, who were younger, with less street-exposure, expressed more personal interests, and desired to reintegrate with family.
Discussion
To our knowledge, these are the first quantitative data published of successful reintegration of SICY to the broader, non-institutionalized community in any low- or middle-income country. Future research should (1) identify factors across socio-ecological levels and sectors contributing to health and developmental outcomes of reintegrated children and youth, (2) mechanisms to support SICY for whom the interventional strategy did not work, (3) methods to prevent street-migration by children and youth, and (4) system development to coordinate follow-up and relevant investment by institutions, organizations and community leaders to continue reintegration work.
Street-migration of children is a global problem with sparse multi-level or longitudinal data. Such data are required to inform robust street-migration prevention efforts.
This study analyzes ...longitudinal cohort data to identify factors predicting street-migration of children – at caregiver- and village-levels.
Kenyan adult respondents (n = 575; 20 villages) actively participated in a community-based intervention, seeking to improve factors previously identified as contributing to street-migration by children.
At two time points, respondents reported street-migration of children, and variables across economic, social, psychological, mental, parenting, and childhood experience domains. Primary study outcome was newly reported street-migration of children at T2 “incident street-migration”, compared to households that reported no street-migration at T1 or T2.
For caregiver-level analyses, we assessed bivariate significance between variables (T1) and incident street-migration. Variables with significant bivariate associations were included in a hierarchical logistical regression model.
For community-level analyses, we calculated the average values of variables at the village-level, after excluding values from respondents who indicated an incident street-migration case to reduce potential outlier influence. We then compared variables between the 5 villages with the highest incidence to the 15 villages with fewer incident cases.
In regression analyses, caregiver childhood experiences, psychological factors and parenting behaviors predicted future street-migration. Lower village-aggregated depression and higher village-aggregated collective efficacy and social curiosity appeared significantly protective.
While parenting and economic strengthening approaches may be helpful, efforts to prevent street migration by children should also strengthen community-level mental health, collective efficacy, and communal harmony.
