Parent-Child interaction: a cross-context analysis

• In Event: Scaling up Playful Parenting: Implementation Research Early Findings

Proposal

As Playful Parenting interventions to go scale, the number of prospective beneficiaries – children and their caregivers – grows with each new geographic expansion. The implementation research study will examine to what extent the program impact remains strong as interventions scale up. As the study is still in early stages, the presentation will showcase the differences across contexts in caregiver-child interaction at the baseline stage, drawing on data from Bhutan, Serbia and Zambia. For Zambia, where the playful parenting program has been in place longer, the baseline assessment also shows notable differences between the geographic areas that have received the interventions, and comparison districts, indicating the potential relationship between the playful parenting intervention and outcomes.
The data to be shared during the presentation include child developmental outcomes, measured through the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool, the CREDI, and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire. Caregiver-child interactions are measured through the Mother-Child Interaction module and the HOME protocol across all countries. This presentation will focus on the baseline findings from Zambia, Serbia, and Bhutan, and compare and contrast the outcomes of children and caregivers at the outset of the playful parenting scale up program.
Initial caregiver and child survey data from Zambia show that caregiver knowledge and caregiver-child interaction is stronger in areas where parenting interventions had been present. In Bhutan and Serbia, data collection completed in October 2021, and early findings will provide a chance to examine the range of parent knowledge and interaction with children, as well as child outcomes, before the full roll out of Playful Parenting interventions.

Authors

• Rafael Eduardo Contreras Gomez, FHI 360

• Given Hapunda, Universty of Zambia

• Ksenija Krstic, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy