Reintegration Research Update

Dr. Velazco continues Love146 research on reintegration in the Philippines. Last week Dr. Velazco traveled to the research site to train researchers in content analysis and come up with categories of perceptions.

Last week Dr. Velazco traveled to the research site in order to train the researchers in content analysis and develop categories of perception. Below is an excerpt from her report:
Background

This research is about children who were rescued from sex trafficking and reintegrated in their place of origin.

This research aims to come up with a reliable and valid tool measuring effectiveness of reintegration; implement a reintegration program; and use the constructed tool in evaluating the effectiveness of the reintegration program.

Phase 1 consists of constructing a tool based on perceptions of relevant populations of what is effective and ineffective reintegration. Phase 2 focuses on determining the reliability and validity of the constructed tool. Phase 3 implements a reintegration program and determines its effectiveness based on the constructed tool.

The research commenced in August 2009, with the formulation of the question to draw out the perceptions of relevant populations of what is effective and ineffective reintegration.  The subjects who were conveniently sampled from relevant populations consist of reintegrated children or children who know them, parents or relatives, and concerned NGOs and government authorities.

 The question was asked in 3 different ways in order to approach the topic from all possible angles and come up with a comprehensive list of perceptions. 

The 3 versions of the question were finalized with 3 local experts, 2 local adults,  and local children similar in characteristics to the intended subjects.

The researchers who were to gather the data were trained in data gathering.

Data was gathered from 11 areas of the research site covering 8 provinces.  The final subjects consist of 67 children (57 were reintegrated and 10 were siblings or friends of children who have been reintegrated); 16 parents; 9 NGO workers who worked with the reintegrated children; 5 government agencies workers; and 2 government officials, for a total of 99 subjects.

During her time at the research site Dr. Velazco guided the researchers through training in drawing up the distribution of subjects and content analysis. When the training was complete Dr. Velazco and the research team produced 62 different mutually exclusive non redundant categories of perception for analysis. The tool will be constructed based on these categories.

Source: Dr. Gundelina Velazco, Director of Aftercare