Data Management Plan for "I AM Project"

The research project will bring together an interdisciplinary network of local art-based organisations, mental-health specialists, grassroots NGOs, art-therapists, psychosociologists and researchers in Niger, Chad and UK- to co- design and implement I AM workshops, aimed at developing educational capacity for promoting recovery and reintegration of children affected by the crisis in Niger and Chad. The project will document changes in children and young- people participating in the workshops, identify conditions needed for these transformations to occur. It will result in a toolkit and academic research papers to detail evidenced methods and approaches of of how I AM can be integrated into humanitarian education response at scale. In addition, the project will explore the logical pathways that link I AM activities with impact on children and young people’s psychological recovery and social reintegration. It will also identify and document the conditions needed for these transformations to occur. I AM responds to four key objectives: Assess the impacts of Boko Haram insurgency on the lives and mental health of children and young people. Explore how I AM project can foster hope, psychological resilience, and socio-emotional development in children and young people affected by the Boko Haram conflict. Inform the design and implementation of trauma-informed educational support programs aimed at facilitating reintegration of children and young people into school and society. Identify key challenges in applying the I AM project to mental health support and develop strategies to address these challenges effectively. Research Questions What are the impacts of the Boko-Haram insurgency on the lives and mental health of children and young people? In what ways can I AM foster psychological resilience, hope and socio-emotional development in children and young people affected by the Boko Haram conflict? How can I AM inform the design and implementation of trauma-informed educational support programs to help children and young people successfully reintegrate into school and society? What are the main challenges faced in applying I AM to mental health support and which strategies can be employed to address these challenges effectively? To achieve these aims and address the research questions the project anticipates the following in terms of data processing: Work with partners in Niger and Chad to identify target communities who will be invited to participate in the project.Work through partners in Niger and Chad to engage with the target community leaders (traditional and religious leaders) to identify families who will be invited to participate in the project. Individual families and participants will be invited to participate in the project and will provide informed consent as well as clear parameters for reviewing, updating, correcting and withdrawing their data. Local leads and partners in Niger and Chad will securely collect, process and store personal and multimodal data (name, age, further data to be decided with partners and communities) on participant communities, families and individuals, including children and young people (aged 9-16) to enable the project to engage with participants, elicit their views, follow their engagement, experiences, progress and completion, and the conditions which enable successful completion of various activities and engagements throughout the project. Local leads and partners in Niger and Chad will securely store and manage participant’s consent forms and personal data at the local level only, using this as a key to link to the anonymized shared data for longitudinal purposes. Only anonymized data will be shared by the local leads and partners in Niger and Chad, with the OU and other collaborators on the research team, for research purposes, to enable the project to achieve its objectives. Local leads and partners in Niger and Chad will be responsible for all notification, data management and compliance with local legal and ethical regulations.