Practitioner – Jamie Lachman

I have over 15 years experience developing and implementing psychosocial interventions for children and their caregivers in areas of crisis throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

My research focus is on the transportability of evidence-based approaches across settings to improve child and family mental health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

As a research associate at the University of Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention, I am a co-Investigator on three postdoctoral studies: 1) Malezi ne Kilimo – Skilful Parenting and Agribusiness Child Abuse Prevention Study, a pilot cluster randomised controlled trial in rural Tanzania; 2) Parenting for Lifelong Health – Philippines, an adaptation and pre-post pilot of the Sinovuyo Caring Families Programme; and 3) Optimising Parenting Interventions, a pilot to develop a factorial design study in Cape Town by testing active parenting programme components based on effectiveness, cost efficiency, and scalability.

I am also a co-Investigator for the Sinovuyo Caring Families Project, a randomised controlled trial (n = 296) of an evidence-informed parenting intervention to reduce the risk of child maltreatment and improve child behaviour in low-income families with children ages two to nine in Cape Town, South Africa.

I am a graduate of the University of Oxford (MSc with distinction), Yale University (BA with distinction), and the Dell’Arte International School for Physical Theatre.

I am currently in the process of submitting a DPhil in Social Intervention as a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford Department of Social Policy and Intervention. My doctoral research examines the development and pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial (n = 68) as part of the Sinovuyo Caring Families Project in Cape Town.

I am also on the steering committee of the World Health Organisation and UNICEF initiative, Parenting for Lifelong Health. This initiative is focused on developing, testing and disseminating parenting programmes in low- and middle-income countries (http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/child/plh/en/).

As director and founder of Clowns Without Borders South Africa (www.cwbsa.org), I have developed and consulted on many community-based programmes in partnership with local and international NGOs in South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Kenya, South Sudan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Lebanon.

I am also a storyteller, banjo-player, singer-songwriter, clown, director, and facilitator.