Table 2 Implementation science domains examples/quotes captured in qualitative interviews with YRI facilitators

Acceptability

▪ “[The youth] have confessed that they really need this.” (MBF1)

▪ “Those who are attending the YRI, they are, they really been helped with kind of managing their anger, things that has to do with violence.” (MBF4)

▪ “Because I am seeing it, the testimonies, with these guys that I am training, how it has changed their lives, how it has mold their lives.” (MKF5)

▪ “It's made a huge impact in the life of the participants we are dealing with presently....So by the time you are done with them 6 weeks, all of them, their mindsets will change. Their perspective about life will change. And you'll notice those people were going around to be change agents because we don't want to just train them and leave them. They need to be change agents in their communities.” (FBF2)

▪ “And also for them, because before we set this, we asked their consent, ‘Would you be okay with this time?’ And they are the ones that gave us the time that we are dealing now” (FBF1)

Adoption

By the participants:

▪ “Some of them are even practicing it now at home... If you leave them now, you come after a day or tomorrow, you ask them to explain how they use a particular activities, how they use those techniques those skills to calm down their situation.” (MKF5)

▪ “Even when we meet in the street they just tell me, ‘Oh I just notice something about that pot of boiling water and I used this skill that you taught me. I used stop, think, and speak. I used fun activities to interrupt my bad mood that I had’. So that alone is a success for me.” (MBF1)

By the facilitators:

▪ “Not just the participants now, but even with the facilitators, most of us, we are transformed.” (MKF6)

▪ “After the training, in fact, we have, we began to use the words, the safe place, we began to use the rock in the shoe, even the parables. We began to use all these words now, like um connecting them to ourselves and anything we want to say, we began to, we began to use the words we've been used in the training … The more I keep talking to them, I'm also talking to myself. The more we keep facilitating training them, we're also training ourselves.” (FBF2)

▪ “I take myself as a case study. I was, in that emotional stress before, but since the sessions and the facilitators we’re using its somehow useful to me.” (MBF2).

▪ “And the training helps me how to manage my anger, you know, when I'm angry, things that I shouldn't do and things that I should do to calm myself … The training have helped me to control my feelings.” (MKF4)

▪ “I really hope that the same thing that I received for the training, my participants also receive.” (FBF1)

Appropriateness

▪ “They got the parables so well and for our participants up to this point, like I don't think there's been any parable that they are finding difficulty to explain in a different way because it is so clear. So and it was surprising to me.” (MBF4)

▪ “Well some of the things were like the parables. When I look at the sessions, I look at the parables, they are like educative, especially when the parables are given in the dialect that everybody can understand in Krio.” (MKF6)

▪ “They are people that the really need what we are taught, who really need to be taught about these things. How to change their feelings, how to change the way they are behaving, the traumas they have, the past things that happens to them, which they think they have lost everything they are nobody. So we learnt how to bring these people back.” (FKF2)

Feasibility

Skills:

▪ “I was really prepared to come and give this message to these people that I was taught over there. Because I have an impact.” (FKF2)

▪ “Challenges are sure to come, they are inevitable. But if you get prepared for them, you can overcome them. So I'm very prepared for any challenge to come my way because I know I have gone through the manual and even if I have a problem with any of the topics in the manual I will know how to tackle that particular problem.” (MBF1)

▪ “So for doing that over and over again for two weeks, it really helped us. So the training became part of us. So now you feel ready, you feel prepared to deliver it to the youth.” MBF4)

▪ “So I'm very prepared for any challenge to come my way because I know I have gone through the manual and even if I have a problem with any of the topics in the manual I will know how to tackle that particular problems” (MBF1)

Time:

▪ “The time is okay. The 90 minutes will be exceeded at times but you won't exceed more than 10 minutes. The 90 minutes duration is okay. There are times in sessions when you are just below the 90 minutes a bit. And also the number of these per week is ok. Because some of these guys are students, some of them are teachers so we are just working with their time, so it's okay. Yeah, it's good for us.” (MKF5)

Resources:

▪ “Well everything went perfectly because even when we are here we don't strain or struggle for anything. They always give us what we have a per diem, food, the lodging.” (FKF2)

▪ “Thinking of accommodation, transportation, this, that, everything's okay. [The] salary was surprising, because it was more than the way I was expecting and I believe then we were expecting” (MKF4)

Scale/Spread

▪ “Every youth we that have got this training, out of 100 percent, 90 percent of them are telling us that they are also conducting the YRIs. So it's like when they learn one, that single individual, will also impart the knowledge to more than two, three or four people … I just hope that such training with continue to thousands of Sierra Leoneans because I believe that if one third of Sierra Leoneans got such training believe me life would change.” (MKF4)

▪ “The models we are using them they are using it to teach other people. So I really changed their life” (FKF2)

▪ “Because we need this type of training. We have gone through a lot, considering the war, the Ebola, the mudslides so there are many people out there that needs these trainings. Whether you are farmer or a business man, this particular training is very important for every Sierra Leonean, it's important … If it's organized on the radio, it would be nice so everyone has access to it.” (MKF5)

▪ “They say wow, this program is good. And they want to take this program to the radio station.” (MKF2)

▪ “[The youth] are even proposing to us that we spread it across the entire country.” (MBF1)

▪ “It important that the YRI is being extended to other communities, other districts.” (MKF6)

▪ “One of things will do is like to have more young people been trained, to have more young people trained as facilitators as well as supervisors. So when once more people are trained as facilitators and supervisors, you will notice that the message will actually spread.” (MKF6)

Reach/Access

▪ “I think that this message that I heard over there will be also important to these people here.” (FKF2)

▪ “The youth readiness intervention is presently dealing with the feelings, the emotions. Right? And when you look around 90-95 percent of our youth are going through these feelings and emotions.” (FBF2)

Fidelity

Supervision and fidelity monitoring

▪ “We can go out as facilitators, we can do our job. But many a times, if people go out without supervisors they will tend to do otherwise, you know. But if there is a supervisor there, they will be helping them, coming around. Then they know there is somebody on top that is watching them, you know following them.” (FBF2)

▪ “We go through the handouts before going and also we have session debriefing, you know. But otherwise, naturally we can deliver. We can deliver. It's just going through them, there were some things will escape us and the supervisors will like help us” (FBF2)

▪ “Because if we didn't have the supervisors out there, only rely on what we were taught in Freetown, we are human. We are bound to forget. So, the supervision here is good because it keeps us on our toes and it has been a lot to us that keeps our memory fresh for the next day, for proper delivery.” (FKF4)

▪ “If the supervisor is not there to correct you, you think oh, you're Mr. Right, everything that you see is right. So no, the YRI would not be successful, but [with] the supervisor, the YRI will be successful.” (MBF2)

▪ “The goal of supervision is to see that the facilitators deliver the right sure. Is to make sure that the facilitators are on the right track. That they should not forget what to deliver and how to deliver it.” (FKF4)

▪ “The goal {of supervision] is to make sure that you deliver exactly what you were trained to do.” (MKF5)

Organizational climate

▪ “So I felt at home, felt I've met a family … I believe after the YRI training, after this intervention, we will continue as a family.” (FBF2)

▪ “Initially, when we started the training, it was like everybody was new. I had no friend there. Only my colleagues from my same organization. But as the time goes on … I was like, ‘Wow, this shows that I have a very big family and I'm so proud of that’” (MBF1)

▪ “Also from the training I learned how to build a good cohesion. Because working with people from different organizations, well it's very good, and it has really helped me because they share their own knowledge and things so that really helped me a lot. And working with people that are not my age has really helped me because of the experience they've had over the years.” (MBF1)

▪ “We are all from different organizations. I enjoyed the partnerships so much. That you see somebody from Restless Development being paired with somebody from Caritas, somebody from Caritas being paired with somebody from BRAC. There is that coordination. There is that collaboration. So I enjoyed that most” (MKF6).

Leadership

▪ “I mean our supervisors now, they are very good. They like go really in depth because they understand what the YRI really means and all of the contents in the manual.” (MBF1)

▪ "My supervisor facilitates my welfare. Supposing, let's say, there is something that I should have from either Caritas or GIZ or whoever that I don't. I ensure I report back to him so he will facilitate as to how I will get it and that is happening correctly” (MKF6)