Monthly Corner
Laura Hughston - Blog
Arnoux Mouafo Nopi & Dimitri Tsona Zapzi - Article
Prof. Wangari Mwai and Prof. Catherine Ndungo - BOOK
- Understanding Gender and Identity Through The Gender Dictionary
Publisher: Bleeding Ink Scribes
RAI SENGUPTA - gender-transformative evaluation tools
This synthesis draws on evidence from 17 humanitarian evaluations across diverse crisis settings. It identifies key feminist evaluation innovations across four domains - design, methods, analysis, and ethics - illustrating how feminist principles can be embedded throughout the evaluation process. It also surfaces broader shifts required at policy, institutional, and practice levels to realise the transformative potential of feminist approaches in humanitarian contexts.
The toolkit translates these insights into applied guidance for evaluators and organisations. It provides step-by-step support across the full evaluation cycle, including planning, design, methods, analysis, ethics, and dissemination. Drawing on global feminist evaluation practice, humanitarian guidance, and gender evaluation standards, it includes adaptable tools, participatory and arts-based methods, guiding questions, and templates for field application.
Ritu Dewan & Swat Raju - Article
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In Promises & Reality 2026 Citizen’s Review of Year 2 of the NDA-III Government. Coordinated by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, June 20, 2026. pp 94-100.
UTTHAN - Research Report
Traversing the path with women farmers in their fields and in our reflections/writings, a stark observation was the sheer lack of localized and regional vocabulary and terminology to adequately capture and communicate the understanding of climate change and mitigation strategies, informed by the unique experiences and needs of small and marginal women farmers. This is what propelled our research - to examine how women farmers perceive, express, experience, and respond to climate variability across
Our Research Report centres the lived experiences, generational knowledge, and resilience strategies of small and marginal women farmers from the coastal (Bhavnagar) and hilly (Dahod & Panchmahal) regions i.e two contrasting agro-climatic zones of Gujarat. Through their voices, the study reveals exactly how climate change intersects with gender, land rights, labour burdens, and food security.
Events
Vacancies
About the job
At Includovate, we are expanding our Pacific Research & Evaluation Talent Pool and inviting researchers, evaluators, consultants, and development practitioners to join a growing network of professionals committed to creating meaningful social impact.
As a feminist research incubator and certified social enterprise, Includovate works with partners including UNICEF, UNFPA, the ILO, governments, and development organisations across 23+ countries. Our work spans gender equality, social inclusion, health, disability, youth, climate, WASH, market systems, and other development priorities.
We are particularly keen to connect with experts from:
📍 Papua New Guinea
📍 Solomon Islands
📍 Vanuatu
📍 Timor-Leste
📍 Fiji
📍 Samoa
📍 Tonga
📍 Indonesia
📍 Australia
and across the wider Pacific region.
We welcome expertise in:
✓ Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning
✓ Gender Equality & Social Inclusion
✓ Health & SRHR
✓ Disability Inclusion
✓ Youth Development
✓ Climate & Environment
✓ WASH
✓ Market Systems Development
✓ Governance & Community Development
Whether your expertise lies in data collection, research, evaluation, technical advisory, facilitation, or team leadership, we would love to hear from you.
By joining our Talent Pool, you become part of a trusted network of professionals who may be considered for future research, evaluation, advisory, and consulting opportunities across the Pacific region and beyond.
🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eyF66S7H
Do Existing Support Programs Adequately address the Psychological Well-being Needs of Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of Children with Special Needs?
The question is – how can a broken Parent/Caregiver/Personal Support Person take care of a child/children with developmental challenges, as these children require extra support and attention?
Depression is one of the most prevalent mental health illnesses globally. Parental depression is on the increase, most especially for parents of children with developmental disabilities, compared to parents of children without disabilities. Parental depression can ‘steal’ the livelihood in all spheres of life of parents of children with developmental challenges. These parents need to be in a very good, mentally healthy state to provide the support and care needed for the children's healthy growth and development.
Following my earlier research on Policy Priorities for ageing adults with autism: Perspectives of Personal Support Persons, almost all Provinces in Canada have very excellent and appreciative support programs for children with developmental challenges. One critically and equally important support service which is conspicuously missing is an intentionally desired psychological well-being support program for the Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of these children. Available and current literature strongly suggest that the absence of any singular program to ensure that the Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of these children are sound and mentally healthy to shoulder the frustrations, stress, loss of self, and resource burden that they experience on daily basis to care and support their children with developmental challenges can result in long term psychological health distress, which could lead to an emerging public health concern.
This requires urgent critical attention for policy consideration because the fact is that even when Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons seem to have all the resources that the child will need, but lack a psychological balance can be more devastating to the child than the other way round. One enormous negative impact of parental depression is the loss of natural bonding between the child and the parents, which could disrupt desired family functions. And when these two key desired spaces are missing, all other resource investments cannot yield the desired outcomes for the child.
Key Words – Psychological Well-being, Mental Health, Depression, Parents, Children with Developmental Challenges
Key Messages
1. Caring for a child with a developmental challenge has a higher probability of affecting parents' psychological health.
2. Parents of children with developmental challenges are at a higher risk of suffering from anxiety and depression and may experience an increased risk of psychological health problems due to several related stressors, such as desired extra caregiver demands, financial and resource demands, loss of personal livelihood, including career and personal purpose, among others.
3. And if parental depression or psychological health-related problems are not recognized and/or treated promptly, it would have a devastating impact on the natural bonding between parents and the child, which would disrupt the family functions, hence leaving the child in the worst state despite available resources.
4. Parents of children with developmental challenges therefore equally need specialized designed psychological health programs to support their well-being, as parenting is a lifetime journey.
With the above picture depicting the daily traumatizing stress for a parent of a child with developmental challenges, it is proposed that there should be intentional specialized psychological health programs to support the mental well-being of these Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons.
Conclusion
Helping Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons feel more capable and effective in caring for their child with special needs may reduce the risk of depression. A specialized psychological health program for Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of children with developmental challenges would help them manage their own stress and feelings of isolation, thereby sustaining their psychological well-being to ensure smooth and desired parenting and caregiving to their children and family.
Conflict of Interest
The author declares that there was no conflict of interest in any way in writing this article, and hereby gives consent for publication of this article.
Reference
1. Hoyle JN, Laditka JN, Laditka SB. Mental health risks of parents of children with developmental disabilities: A nationally representative study in the United States. Disabil Health J. 2021 Apr;14(2):101020
2. Marquis SM, McGrail K, Hayes MV. Mental health outcomes among parents of a child who has a developmental disability: Comparing different types of developmental disability. Disabil Health J. 2020 Apr;13(2):100874.
3. Scherer N, Verhey I, Kuper H (2019) Depression and anxiety in parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0219888.
4. Arim, R. A profile of persons with disabilities among Canadians aged 15 years or older from the Canadian Survey on Disability, 2012. Catalogue no. 89-654-X-No.2015001. 2015. Statistics Canada. Ref Type: Report 607-618.
5. The Government of Saskatchewan. People living with disabilities. https://www.saskatchewan.ca/residents/family-and-social-support/peo... Accessed 01.04.2022.
6. Woodman A, Mawdsley H, Hauser-Cram P. Parenting Stress and Child Behaviour Problems within Families of Children with Developmental Disabilities: Transactional Relations across 15 Years. Res Dev Disabil. 2015; 36(1):264–276. pmid:25462487
7. Raina P, O’Donnell M, Schwellnus H, Rosenbaum P, King G, Brehaut J, et al. Caregiving process and caregiver burden: Conceptual models to guide research and practice. BMC Pediatr. 2004; 4(1):1. pmid:14723791
8. Olsson MB, Hwang CP. Depression in mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disability. J Intellect Disabil Res. 2001; 45(pt 6):535–543. pmid:11737541
9. Bagner D, Petit J, Lewinsohn P, Seeley J. Effect of Maternal Depression on Child Behavior. A Sensitive Period? J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010; 49(7):699–707. pmid:20610139
10. Ngo H, Shin J, Nhan N, Yang L. Stigma and restriction on the social life of families of children with intellectual disabilities in Vietnam. Singapore Med J. 2012; 53(7):451–457. pmid:22815013
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