Art as Healing: A Community-informed Art-based Programme (CiAbP) for Reintegrating Ex-offenders Into Society in Nigeria

Art as Healing: A Community-informed Art-based Programme (CiAbP) for Reintegrating Ex-offenders Into Society in Nigeria

The goal of this pilot experimental study is to test a community-informed art-based programme in improving community members trauma from crime and to aid the reintegration of ex-offenders into society.

The main question it aims to answer are:

• What is the feasibility in terms of recruitment, retention, adherence to the intervention and communities/victims' satisfaction with CiAbP to promote healing and improve the successful reintegration of ex-offenders into society?

Participants will be randomly allocated into two groups. The first group, the intervention group, will receive the Community-informed Art-based programme (CiAbP). The second group will receive government intervention involving media messages from the National Orientation Agency devoid of CiAbP. The CiAbP. sessions will cover relevant aspects of art, such as photo story, story telling, poetry, and drawing in tackling trauma and negative attitudes towards ex-offenders reintegration.

Researchers will compare CiAbP group with the media orientation group to see if there are differences between a change in attitude towards ex-offenders' reintegration at base line, end of intervention and three months follow up.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Community members with previous experience of trauma
• Aged 18+ years and are residents in areas including Lagos/Delta states and its environs.
• Able to give informed consent,
• Speak the English language,
• Able to partake in baseline, pre-, post- and three-month follow-up data collection.

Exclusion Criteria:

• The exclusion criteria are those not meeting the study's inclusion criteria.