DISCUSSION
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in China to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of group-based intervention on the social-emotional development of children in poverty-stricken areas. The positive findings indicated that the Care Group is scalable. Most importantly, the endline survey found that the Care Group had a sustained positive impact on the social-emotional development of children six months after the intervention was interrupted by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.