P3.H155: Parenting With Love: a qualitative assessment of a community parenting intervention among refugees in Tijuana, Mexico

Background: A refugee crisis has been growing in the US-Mexico border with up to 700,000 new arrivals a year. Most refugee families flee from extremely dangerous circumstances and report high rates of stress, sadness, and anxiety. Parenting interventions have shown promise to improve parental mental health and parent-child interactions in refugees, but implementation evidence is lacking in Mexico.

Methods: From February to April of 2024, a pilot community parenting intervention was implemented using participatory design and a wedged-time randomized controlled format. First, focus groups were conducted among 35 refugees taking care of children 0-12 years-old in Tijuana to clarify needs and priorities and to co-create educational materials to support parenting in this unique context. Eight biweekly parenting workshops (2 hours per workshop) were delivered in Spanish to half of the 42 consented participants randomized to the first wave of intervention (n=21). The control group (n=21) received the same intervention during the second wave. Qualitative feedback through semi-structured interviews were completed until reaching thematic saturation (n=10) and analyzed using Dedoose 9.0. A hybrid inductive/deductive thematic analysis was conducted on deidentified transcripts.

Results: From the 10 qualitative feedback transcripts, 3 recurrent themes emerged: 1) most participants found the emotional regulation tools to be the most enjoyable and helpful; 2) sharing challenging experiences helped to build a supportive community; 3) participants who attended 3 or more sessions benefited the most of these workshops and wish they were longer.

Conclusion: Through a 4 week-long participatory community parenting intervention, refugee parents and child caregivers reported benefits especially in improved emotional regulation and a sense of community support. This low-cost intervention is feasible among refugees in Mexico and has the potential for scale-up.