Find your village: co-designing a community asset-based peer support intervention for wellbeing, social connectedness, and early child development among migrant families during the first 1001 days

BACKGROUND: One in five children born in England and Wales has a parent born in the Global South. Migrant families are often marginalised, experience adverse environments, lack social support, and have highly stressed pregnancies; their children are at risk of adverse long-term outcomes. Interventions to improve early child development are highly effective and cost-effective, but often do not reach marginalised communities effectively. OBJECTIVES: To develop an asset-based community peer support intervention to improve family wellbeing, social connectedness, and early child development, addressing one migrant community's strengths and needs in detail; and to articulate its transferability to different contexts. METHODS: This participatory mixed-methods approach to complex intervention design was co-produced with community partners. We constructed an ecocultural model of challenges to early child development in local Somali refugee families, integrating findings from public and professional consultations; systematic reviews of qualitative and quantitative evidence; and local qualitative research and epidemiology. We then collaboratively developed, refined, and prototyped a flexible asset-based peer support intervention to address potentially modifiable factors. RESULTS: The key transferable functions of this intervention are: reaching out to engage, enable, and advocate for families; organising group activities; and advocating for neighbourhood environment improvements. This has potential to improve wellbeing, child development, social connectedness, and relationships with agencies. CONCLUSIONS: This intervention is designed to mobilise migrant community assets, and improve wellbeing, developmental opportunities, and community connectedness, flexibly and transferably through local co-production. It requires evaluation for its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, and for potential to reduce inequalities and disrupt cycles of disadvantage.