In Peru, Supporting Child Caregivers collaborates with a tertiary hospital in Lima called the Instituto Nacional Materno Perinatal-Maternidad de Lima. In collaboration with two infant-parent mental health clinicians, Rocio Luna de las Casas and Pierina Traverso, Supporting Child Caregivers conducted first an infant-parent mental health workshop and second a Newborn Behavioral Observation training for health workers at the hospital in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

In addition, Dr. Elizabeth Levey and the Asociación Civil de Proyectos en Salud are running a National Institute of Mental Health-funded project which Supporting Child Caregivers has helped with. The project aims to train home-visiting health workers of the La Maternidad hospital in an intervention for pregnant teenagers and study the efficacy of the training. Dr. Levey’s randomized controlled trial is designed to include the families of pregnant teens in this intervention in order to enhance the support of teen mothers in caring for their infants. The intervention starts during pregnancy and includes 2 visits by the health worker during pregnancy and 8 visits by the health worker between birth to 6 months postpartum. Health workers were trained in person in February of 2020. Once the pandemic hit Peru, a feasibility assessment was conducted to determine whether the health workers could conduct the intervention remotely. Upon gathering data about access to technology, we determined that it would be feasible for health workers to do the intervention virtually, so the intervention was modified as such.

In December 2020—while the home visitors learned to navigate the process of conducting their intervention on WhatsApp and on Zoom—the recruitment of pregnant adolescents for the study began. By July 2021, the study expects to have enrolled 60 adolescents. 

Dr. Levey has also presented its work at many renowned global conferences in 2021; for more details click here.