Interventions for promoting reintegration and reducing harmful behaviour and lifestyles in street‐connected children and young people

Background Numbers of street‐connected children and young people run into many millions worldwide and include children and young people who live or work in street environments. Whether or not they remain connected to their families of origin, and despite many strengths and resiliencies, they are vulnerable to a range of risks and are excluded from mainstream social structures and opportunities. Objectives To summarise the effectiveness of interventions for street‐connected children and young people that promote inclusion and reintegration and reduce harms. To explore the processes of successful intervention and models of change in this area, and to understand how intervention effectiveness may vary in different contexts. Search methods We searched the following bibliographic databases, from inception to 2012, and various relevant non‐governmental and organisational websites: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); MEDLINE and PreMEDLINE; EMBASE and EMBASE Classic; CINAHL; PsycINFO; ERIC; Sociological s; Social Services s; Social Work s; Healthstar; LILACS; System for Grey literature in Europe (OpenGrey); ProQuest Dissertations and Theses; EconLit; IDEAS Economics and Finance Research; JOLIS Library Catalog of the holdings of the World Bank Group and IMF Libraries; BLDS (British Library for Development Studies); Google, Google Scholar. Selection criteria The review included data from harm reduction or reintegration promotion intervention studies that used a comparison group study design and were all randomised or quasi‐randomised studies. Studies were included if they evaluated interventions aimed to benefit street‐connected children and young people, aged 0 to 24 years, in all contexts. Data collection and analysis Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Data were extracted on intervention delivery, context, process factors, equity and outcomes. Outcome measures were grouped according to whether they measured psychosocial outcomes, risky sexual behaviours or substance use. A meta‐analysis was conducted for some outcomes though it was not possible for all due to differences in measurements between studies. Other outcomes were evaluated narratively. Main results We included 11 studies evaluating 12 interventions from high income countries. We did not find any sufficiently robust evaluations conducted in low and middle income countries (LMICs) despite the existence of many relevant p