Leveraging Early Adolescence for Development: Longitudinal and Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Project Information

LEAD

Grant agreement ID: 101041741

DOI

10.3030/101041741

EC signature date 28 October 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 638 020,25

EU contribution

€ 1 638 020,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LEAD (Leveraging Early Adolescence for Development: Longitudinal and Experimental Evidence from Ghana)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Research on early adolescent interventions remains largely focused on high-income countries, even though 90% of the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents live in low- and middle-income countries. In these settings, many adolescents face risks such as school drop-out, family violence, and poverty. Parenting programmes show promise, but evidence is scarce.
LEAD explores early adolescence (10-14 years) as a critical window for intervention. This period, marked by major brain and social changes, presents both risks and opportunities to shape lifelong outcomes. LEAD builds on an existing cohort of Ghanain children who participated in a preschool intervention trial in 2015. During early adolescence, they were re-randomised to assess the impact of a novel parenting skills programme designed to support adolescent development. Data collection, including stress biomarkers,
will track children and parents at ages 13, 14.5 and 16 to determine whether adolescent-focused interventions can counteract earlier deprivation or enhance prior early-life investments.
LEAD will fill key knowledge gaps, including how interventions during adolescence interact with those in early childhood. While some studies suggest early gains persist through social-emotional gains, others indicate effects fade without sustained support.
Further, it will investigate the effects of a novel parenting intervention on adolescent, parent, and family functioning. Assessing cortisol levels will provide insight into how improved parenting influences adolescent stress in the short and long term.
LEAD is an interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars in economics, psychology, global health, and behavioural science. It aims to advance knowledge on human development across the lifecourse. By identifying whether adolescence
offers a second opportunity for intervention, this research can support policies that promote lifelong well-being.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

LEAD has four main objectives: (i) Develop a parenting skills intervention; (ii) Assess its causal impacts, with and without prior preschool exposure; (iii) Evaluate its equity effects on child development outcomes; and (iv) Analyse mechanisms for impact at child, parent, and family levels. The first 30 months have laid the groundwork for these goals.
1. Development of Parenting Intervention. We devoted substantial time to design an evidence-based, culturally appropriate programme that empowers Ghanaian parents in supporting adolescents. We conducted extensive formative research, incorporating insights from psychology, cognitive-behavioural science, and social sciences. We renamed the programme from TEEN+ to Pempamsie Family Program (PFP). Pempamsie is a well-known West African symbol meaning “united we are stronger,” highlighting the intervention’s family-strengthening focus.
2. Development of Data Collection Instruments and Analysis Plan. To rigorously assess intervention impacts and mechanisms (Aims ii-iv), we designed and field-tested parent and child questionnaires based on our thory of change.
We also published the pre-analysis plan to ensure research integrity in the Social Science Registry. We are currently developing survey questionnaires for the last round of survey.
3. Ethical Clearances. Ensuring ethical integrity, we secured approvals from University of Barcelona, Innovations for Poverty Action, and Ghana Health Services IRBs, along with clearance from the ERC ethics committee. In early 2026, we received a monitoring visit by the Ghana Health Services, which was satisfied about our practices in the field.
4. Survey Data Collection. Originally, recruitment was planned via phone, but new SIM card registration laws rendered many numbers inactive. This led to tracking challenges, requiring a shift to in-person recruitment. While resource-intensive, this approach improved engagement, ensured informed consent, and enhanced sample retention. Given this shift, we revised our survey timeline, incorporating a new pre-intervention baseline survey to improve statistical precision. Data collection
for the second survey round began in January 2025, with hair cortisol data collection starting in February. We completed both in June 2025. Survey data analysis is currently on-going. Cost and school data have been also collected.
5. Implementation of the PFP We successfully implemented group sessions for over 1,100 families across three regions in Ghana, strengthening parenting skills to support adolescent development, and
sent SMS to intervention families for around nine months.
6. Qualitative data. We collected the first round of qualitative data, which focuses on participants’ perspectives of the PFP. Preliminary analysis highlights positive effects.
7. Publications. We have published five articles and several others are at different stages of development. Seven others are currently submitted/under-review.
8. Outreach and communication of results. We have presented preliminary data in two conferences and we have more planned for the next months.
9. Spin-offs. I received a seal-of-excellence for a ERC POC in which i plan to test a video-based PFP for rural areas.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The PFP is an advancement in family support programmes. It is uniquely positioned as the first hybrid parenting targeting families with adolescents. The programme is innovative in its focus on urban populations in Africa, addressing distinctive challenges of urban families such as extended working hours, difficult commutes, unstable employment, reduced access to family networks and higher costs of living. It is also the first study of its kind in Ghana, expanding the evidence base.
The intervention's development followed a systematic five-step process, described in a manuscript currently under review in a journal. Originally conceived as purely digital, Pempamsie evolved into a hybrid model combining three manual-based group sessions for parents and adolescents with fortnightly SMS messages. This shift responded to emerging evidence about potential risks of fully digital programmes in contexts with low literacy and high parenting stress, alongside parents' expressed preference for in-person sessions.
The pilot study involving 52 parent-adolescent pairs demonstrated improvements in parental knowledge, stress reduction and decreased violence after eight weeks. However, some targeted areas showed no significant changes, leading to strengthening efforts in the final development phase. The
programme was further refined through expert feedback, including input from Ghana Educational Services, preparing it for large-scale testing in the LEAD study.
We are currently analysing baseline and midline data, and we will start hair data analysis in the fall of 2025. This data analysis will identify results and help finalising the design of the third round of questionnaires for data collection in 2026.

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