Research Project awarded £4.3m funding to improve the mental health of African children with developmental disorders.

May 2020

A collaborative initiative of international researchers received funding from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) to improve wellbeing and mental health of children with developmental disorders and their caregivers in Ethiopia and Kenya.

SPARK project (SuPporting African communities to increase the Resilience and mental health of Kids with developmental disorders and their caregivers) aims to develop and evaluate context-appropriate care models for families with children with developmental disorders with the help of local communities. The project is a collaboration between King’s College London, Oxford University, Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and Aga Khan University in Kenya and the World Health Organization (WHO) and is co-led by Dr Rosa Hoekstra from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London and Prof Amina Abubakar from Aga Khan University.

Find out more https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/research-project-receives-43m-to-help-improve-mental-health-of-african-children-with-developmental-disorders