About Project SAMA
SAMA was a three-year research project (Jan 2020-June 2024) that worked with young people and other stakeholders to co-produce and feasibility test universal, school-based interventions to support the emotional well-being of school-going adolescents in India.
Why was this research needed?
India has the largest number of adolescents in the world (243 million). Globally, and in India, adolescence is a time when emotional well-being can change. It is estimated that 1 in 5 school-going adolescents live with anxiety, stress and / or depression.
There is a need to both protect and enhance the emotional well-being of adolescents so they can flourish. School is central to the lives of adolescents, shaping their emotional well-being in complex ways. Project SAMA aimed to harness the potential of schools to promote the emotional well-being of adolescents.
What were the aims of Project SAMA?
The aim of SAMA was to develop and test school-based interventions to provide Indian adolescents with information and strategies to take care of their emotional well-being and to improve school cultures, including teacher and parent mental health literacy to support the well-being of its young people. Our ultimate goal was to promote emotional well-being and reduce the prevalence of anxiety and depression in school-going Indian adolescents.
Project SAMA took a systems approach, recognising the various ‘systems’ which shape adolescent well-being. Building on international evidence, we co-produced and feasibility tested four interventions to work synergistically across school systems to benefit young people.
How and where did we working?
Adolescents have remarkable potential to be creative agents of change in their schools and communities. Youth participation was therefore central to Project SAMA. We had a diverse Youth Advisory Board working closely with us across the three years, and we worked extensively with young people in the co-production of SAMA interventions. A central component to Project SAMA was participatory filmmaking, led by young people, to represent the issues that matter to them around well-being and school. This, and our linked social media campaigns, gave young people a local-to-global platform to advocate for what they want from research and from a health-promoting school.
Project SAMA was based in Bengaluru, Karnataka and was jointly led by the University of Leeds (UK) and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS, Bengaluru, India). The field work was based in the Bengaluru South and the Kolar districts of Karnataka, India, and was delivered across eight work packages (WPs).
What did we plan to achieve across our three years?
Year one
In Year one we, co-produced four interventions with Indian young people, parents, teachers and mental health professionals (which included policy makers and representatives from Indian health and education departments) incorporating international evidence and existing effective interventions where available.
Our four co-produced interventions (WP1-4) worked synergistically targeting various stakeholders, consisting of:
Project SAMAs various stakeholders and interventions
Key:
WP2: Intervention 2 - SAMA with Teachers
Built teachers knowledge and skills to understand and promote emotional well-being in schools.
WP1: Intervention 1 - SAMA with Youth
Helped young people (14-18yrs) understand and manage their own emotional well-being, especially anxiety and depression.
WP4: Intervention 4 - SAMA with Parents
Equipped parents with knowledge about adolescent emotional well-being and how they can build positive communication with their child regarding their well-being.
WP3: Intervention 3 - SAMA with Schools
Promoted positive school culture where young people and staff work together to protect emotional well-being in school.
WP5: Implementation Research
Promoted school research in India and identify implementation facilitators and barriers across our intervention components.
WP6: Health Economics
Feasibility tested a health economics assessment in preparation for a future effectiveness trial.
WP7: Research-to-Policy
Built connections between youth voice and youth policy on school well-being.
WP8: Film-making and Social Media Campaigns
Helped the local community to understand the challenges and capacity of their young people.
Year two
In Year 2, Project SAMA feasibility tested the simultaneous delivery, by lay counsellors, of the four co-produced interventions in eight secondary schools. WP5 focused on implementation science to help the ‘soft landing’ of the interventions in schools. We investigated the cost implications and health economics of the SAMA interventions (WP6) and learned how to increase use of evidence and youth voice on school emotional well-being programmes in Indian health policy (WP7).
Year three
In Year 3, Project SAMA extended its work to the communities in India to learn about what Project SAMA needed to do to improve its interventions, so that we can build towards a trial to determine if the interventions are effective. We also shared young people’s perspectives and our learning with a range of stakeholders and communities.
(For more details see our see our project timeline).
See the full study protocol for ethics, design, and methods.
This project has gained ethical approval from the University of Leeds Faculty of Medicine and Health Research Ethics Committee and NIMHANS Ethics Committee (Behavioural Sciences Division) and is fully consistent with the terms of the GDPR and other current data protection regulations.
Project SAMA Management Group
Dr. Siobhan Hugh-Jones (University of Leeds)
Professor Janardhana Navaneetham (NIMHANS)
Dr. Pavan Mallikarjun (University of Birmingham)
Professor Poornima Bhola (NIMHANS)
View our data sharing policy for research participants
This document outlines the various ‘types’ of data that we collected on project SAMA, who has permission to see and use this data, what guidance we are following to help us keep good care of our participants data, and much more…