Experimental Design
The objective is to assess whether tele-counselling/mentoring sessions (as proposed) have any positive effects on women’s health and wellbeing and if yes, whether individual one-to-one counselling or anonymous group discussions (social support) is most effective in the current Indian setting.
Experimental Design Details
We plan to conduct a Randomized Control Trial among 1,200 women in various slums in Kanpur. Randomization will be conducted at the slum level. So, 60 slums will be randomly assigned to three treatment and control groups (20 slums each). The different treatment arms will be as follows:
Treatment Group-1:
400 women, randomly selected from the total 1,200 women selected from the 60 slums, will participate in regular tele-counseling and coaching sessions - focused on mental health, self-care, time management, the importance of having a proper schedule and ways to deal with the increased pressure in the household as well as domestic violence.
Treatment Group-2:
Another randomly selected sample of 400 women from 20 slums will participate in a weekly discussion group guided by the coach. The discussion group will bring together 4 to 5 women with the trained coach into a virtual meeting once a month at a pre-determined time (to be determined with participants) for two months. The participants will get an opportunity to share their troubles (maybe of being overworked or loneliness/isolation) with each other and share their experiences. The mentor or counsellor will moderate and guide the sessions.
Control group: 400 women from 20 slums will receive no treatment.