A systems approach to ECD in Haiti through the Catholic Church

• In Event: Education systems strengthening: Lessons learned from programming in Colombia, Haiti, India, and Indonesia

Proposal

In Haiti, government structures to meet their children’s educational, nutritional, and health needs are absent, and children lack systems that enable their healthy, whole child development (WCD). Within Catholic parishes there are three settings of the social ecology where young children are in regular contact with individuals who affect their learning and development: home (lakay), school (lekòl), and church (legliz) or L3. Given this reality, the research arm of a Catholic University partnered with a select number of parish communities in the Diocese of Cap-Haïtien in Northern Haiti to meet young children’s (ages 0-6) holistic needs across the L3. The aim was not only to increase the prevalence of WCD messaging and behavior change within the school, home, and church, but also coordinate approaches to addressing across the L3 to ensure continuity of care across settings. This synchronization focused on five key themes and attached behaviors for caregivers of young children: responsive caregiving, positive parenting and discipline, nutrition, playful learning, and social and emotional development.

To measure whether the L3 system was being activated, in the Summer 2022, the University undertook a holistic, system-wide evaluation (Qualitative Impact Protocol). The Qualitative Impact Protocol (QuIP; Copestake et al., 2019), assesses the impact of interventions by collecting narrative statements from program participants. Through the use of open-ended and exploratory questions about changes in expected program outcomes, the QuIP aims to disentangle possible sources of influence by avoiding questions that are specific to the programs being evaluated.

The QuIP study was implemented in two L3 innovation communities and data collection occurred in June and July of 2022. To compose a sample of interviewees, parents, teachers/ school directors, and priests were invited to participate. A total of 48 individual interviews were conducted: 33 parents, 13 teachers/school directors, and 2 priests. Following the individual interviews, two focus groups were held in each community, one focus group for parents and one for teachers who participated in the individual interviews.

The results of this QuIP study and its implications for system strengthening will be presented during the panel discussion. The University found that participants, without being prompted, identified L3 activities as the cause of meaningful change in their own lives to support WCD for the children in their care. A majority of parents and teachers identified L3 training and support as changing their behaviors to be more supportive of WCD for young children. Parents, teachers, school directors, and other caregivers have changed their beliefs and behaviors to support WCD. Priests are very knowledgeable and supportive of WCD, but the translation of their knowledge and support into the homes and schools under their care and supervision needs to be strengthened. The church/legliz is implicitly supportive of WCD and has room to grow in taking explicit and concrete steps of action.

Author

• Kate Schuenke-Lucien, University of Notre Dame