Extended Abstract
Introduction
Rapid urbanization and industrialization in Iran imposed the complexity of living in a marginalized crowded environment with increased risk of addiction, depression, suicide, and many other problems. So coping with this condition requires different life skills and competencies to be resilient to the challenging living environment and maintain a healthy mental and social life. The World Health Organization defines life skills as “abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life”. The purpose of this study was to develop a package for life skills training with the aim of improving the cognitive-behavioral abilities of people living in marginalized poor areas. This package provides training in the three skills of self-awareness, effective communication, and emotion regulation with the aim to provide a platform for the entry and application of life skills in the real life of young people living in marginalized areas.
Method
The training package of individual skills in this research is designed based on cognitive-behavioral theory.
Stage 1: Interview with key informants
The first step was a field study and interviews with ten people including active NGOs, social workers, key informants, and local facilitators in four provinces regarding the training needs of adolescents and young women living in vulnerable areas. After the qualitative analysis of the interview data, the training needs regarding the skills needed for the target group were determined and prioritized. The nominal group method was used to identify the priority life skills needs. Three skills were identified as the first training priority. These three skills included self-awareness skills, effective communication skills, and emotion regulation skills.
Stage 2: Literature Review
After determining the training needs and prioritizing the necessary skills for the target group,
the literature review was done based on the related subjects.
Stage 3: Conducting a consultative meeting and preparing the initial draft
In order to develop the initial draft, a consultative meeting was held in one of the marginalized areas of Tehran, with the presence of social workers in that area for five months wherein three-hour weekly meetings were held, and then the initial draft of the training package was compiled. This package includes two training booklets; the instructor’s guidebook, and the participants’ workbook, which are organized based on active learning and cooperative learning methods. The training techniques used in this package include brainstorming, role-playing, games, discussions and debates, and activities in small groups and pairs.
Stage 4: Determining the reliability of the training package content
In order to expand the content of the training package, interviews were conducted with seven experts and activists in the field of mental health promotion including six women and one man, three with MSc degrees and four with PhD degrees, with an average age of 52 years old and at least 11 years of experience in the field of psychosocial health and social work. Then the content validity index and relative coefficient of content validity were measured and the content validity index of the package was examined
To determine the first three educational priority, the qualitative method of the Nominal Group were used. To determine CVI, CVR was interviewed with seven experts and activists in the field of mental health promotion
Data analysis
To calculate content validity, two measures including content validity index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR), as well as Excel software, were used.
Findings
The needs assessment was employed to determine the priority of educational needs, and the results showed that self-awareness skills, effective communication skills, and emotion regulation skills are the three most prioritized skills needed for the education of young women and girls in marginalized areas. The educational package was developed with the participation of experts and experienced people in the field of empowering women in marginal areas. Four sessions, once a week were considered for training each of the three skills. The results obtained from the panel of experts and activists in the field of health showed that based on the five-point Likert scale that was used to estimate the content validity of the educational package, the percentage of grades four to five compared to grades one, two, and three was one hundred percent, which means that the training package had a high validity level. The relative coefficient of content validity of the package was equal to 0.714
Discussion
One of the features of the educational package is that it is prepared based on the needs of marginalized women and youth. Among the advantages of this educational package, we can mention the attention to the culture and rhetoric of marginalized areas and the use of related literature, language and rhetoric that are familiar to people in marginalized areas, as well as the use of concrete examples related to the lives of women and young girls in marginalized areas. The educational package  also includes practical activities that people are required to do in between classes. Another feature of the educational package is the use of active learning and cooperative learning in education.
Ethical Considerations
In order to comply with ethical issues, after informing the participants about the purpose of the research and their voluntary participation in the research, the participants were assured that the obtained information would remain completely confidential. Also, after completing the questionnaires by the participants, a code was assigned to each questionnaire in the pre-test and post-test stages, and the names were removed from the questionnaires. This study has a code of ethics from the scientific research committee (IR.IAU.TNB.REC.140).
Authors’ contributions
All authors contributed to the research design and manuscript writing. NEN conducted the study and collected the data
Conflicts of interest
No conflict of interest was declared.
Acknowledgments
It is necessary to thank the efforts of the facilitators who have taken responsibility for training in this research, as well as the participants who contributed to this research.