Participatory adaptation of an early childhood development parenting program in Kenya

• In Event: Governance, systems and policy for ECE programming

Proposal

Behavioral parenting programs can have lasting positive effects on child-caregiver relationships, especially when implemented during a child’s early years. The results of over one hundred randomized trials from across the world have shown that parenting programs can improve relationships between parents and their children, strengthen parenting knowledge and attitudes, and increase use of positive parenting and non-physical discipline techniques, among other benefits (Gardner, 2016). Parenting education programs are important and impactful. The big question is how to design and implement a parenting program for maximum impact?

Is it effective to transport a parenting program model that has been proven effective in one context to another? Or is it better practice to develop a program model locally that is catered to a particular context and culture? Alternatively, can a program be adapted based on community partnership and input?

This paper presents the process of transporting a tested parenting program for Early Childhood Development (ECD) from Uganda to Kenya and working with communities of parents, teachers, and stakeholders to adapt the program to better fit with local needs.

Plan International, with support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, has been working in southwestern Kenya for six years implementing a Community-Led Action for Children (CLAC) approach with the goal of enhancing access for young children in vulnerable communities to a continuum of opportunities for learning and development. The CLAC approach starts with a strengths-based, problem-oriented parenting program, delivered by trained health-workers, pre-school teachers and community volunteers. Initially, the parenting program used a 12-session manual for ECD and maternal wellbeing developed for Plan Uganda. This program, according to a community-based, cluster randomized trial (Singala, 2015), had positive effects on young children’s cognitive development, maternal wellbeing and the caregiving skills of participants, and had been identified as a low-cost intervention with potential for scale (Black, 2015).

Transporting this intervention model into a new context in rural Kenya was undertaken initially with very limited adaptation to local circumstances and conditions. While research suggests that “transported” and locally developed parenting interventions can be equally effective, and is inconclusive on the need for extensive adaptation of imported interventions (Gardner, 2016), feedback from parents and group facilitators indicated the need for a thorough revision. This feedback prompted the development of a survey to capture the opinions of facilitators and parents. Results showed that the Ugandan model isolated low literacy parents and failed to address a number of high-concern areas for parents and caregivers in southwestern Kenya.

In an effort to be responsive to the needs of target parents; to reflect emerging external directions in ECD (such as the Nurturing Care Framework); and to respond to Plan’s commitment to incorporate a gender equality approach in all our ECD work, Plan International worked with parents, caregivers, teachers, healthcare workers, and other stakeholders to revise and expand the parenting program manual. This presentation will take conference participants through our participatory research approach which was used as the basis of this revision process, and which included a survey, interviews, focus group discussions, design workshops, and pilot testing. It will highlight key findings and discuss the outcomes of the adaptation, including its impact on the sustainability and self-sufficiency of the CLAC parenting program.

Author

• Rose Mae Fishman, Plan International USA