Social Group Work for Promoting Psychological Well-being of Adolescents Enrolled in Sponsorship Programs

Social Group Work for Promoting Psychological Well-being of Adolescents Enrolled in Sponsorship Programs Background: The death of data on adolescents highlighted in UN’s data disaggregation against the agenda ‘no one left behind’ calls for researches on ‘the second decade’. Besides, India as a country holding world’s largest adolescent population, studies and policies for developing competencies of adolescents are crucial to country’s development; and interventions instilling confidence to aspire a better future, into underprivileged adolescents are vital to mitigate inequity. Methods: This intervention study adopted a quasi-experimental design to measure the effectiveness of social group work in raising the psychological well-being of adolescents in Child Sponsorship programs. The intervention was designed in response to the information garnered through pilot study and administered to the Intervention Group (n=20). Conducted pretest and posttest for both Intervention Group and Comparison Group (n=20) using 42 item version of Ryff’s scale for psychological well-being; and data analyzed using SPSS. Results: Comparison between pre and post measurements carried out using paired sample t-test for intervention group and comparison group separately, gave out a p value < 0.05 for intervention group and, > 0. 05 for comparison group. Thus, it was proved that the psychological well-being of participants in intervention group was raised significantly due to the social group work intervention. Conclusions: Applying refined granularity, this research adds data specifically on adolescents enrolled in Child Sponsorship Programs, and sets a blue print for social group work to raise their psychological well-being. Proposing a conceptual framework for Child Sponsorship Programs, this study recommends further researches in all aspects of its functioning, and interventions at group, family and community levels, for the well-being and empowerment of marginalized adolescents.