2-144 - Global Challenges and Child Development: Program Implementation, Evaluation and Sustainability in High-Risk Settings

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Access to quality early childhood development and parenting programs remains limited across the globe. Our aim is to elucidate programmatic, evaluative and operational attributes of programs that have been successfully implemented in fragile and high-risk settings.

The symposium will feature exemplars spanning the Latin American, Middle Eastern and European regions. The first paper will present a parenting intervention implemented by the Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha in Centers for Child Development across target municipalities in Colombia that focuses on family engagement and resilience. The second paper will focus on the integrative approach to early childhood education in AEIOTU Centers for Child Development in Colombia, funded through public-private partnerships. The third paper will present a parenting intervention by the AÇEV Foundation adapted and implemented by the Arab Resource Collective in Palestinian refugee camps and other marginalized communities in Lebanon. The fourth paper will describe the experience over the last two decades of the Early Years programs, based in Northern Ireland, that have provided high-quality childcare for children across political divides.

Each paper will address the following questions: (1) How does the program contextually approach early childhood education, development, and family engagement, and what are the challenges and opportunities to its implementation? (2) What data has been collected to measure the program’s impact on children and families, and what are key barriers and enablers to program evaluation? (3) What is the role of inter-sectoral partnerships in the sustainability, scalability and quality of these programs? The discussion will highlight implications to strengthen global programming.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Pia Britto, UNICEF

Individual Presentations

• Parenting Intervention to Build Resilience Amongst Caregivers of Young Children Living in Fragile Contexts in Colombia - Presenting Author: Lina Maria González Ballesteros, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Ana María Ortiz Hoyos, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Alejandro Díaz Oramas, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Felipe Bolivar, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Jose Flores, Yale School of Medicine; Anna Zonderman, Yale Child Study Center; Liliana Angelica Ponguta, Yale University

• Impact Evaluation of the Mother and Child Education Program (MOCEP) in Refugee Camps and Marginalized Communities in Lebanon - Presenting Author: Ghassan Issa, Arab Resource Collective; Liliana Angelica Ponguta, Yale University; Lara Aoude, Arab Resource Collective; Cosette Maalouf, Arab Resource Collective; Kaveh Kaveh Khoshnood, Yale School of Public Health; Abir Awar, Arab Resource Collective; Sawsan N Nourallah, Arab Resource Collective; Anna Zonderman, Yale Child Study Center; Liliya Katsovich, Yale Child Study Center; Nancy Shemrah Fallon, Yale Chid Study Center; Christina C. Moore, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware; Rima Salah, Yale Child Study Center; James Leckmann, The Child Study Center and the Departments of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology, Yale University

• Impact Evaluation of the the AeioTu Program in Colombia among Low-Income Children - Presenting Author: Milagros Nores, NIEER; Raquel Bernal, Universidad de los Andes

• Building a Culture of Respecting Difference: Lessons from Northern Ireland - Presenting Author: Siobhan Fitzpatrick, Early Years Ireland; Paul Connolly, Queen's University Belfast; Pauline Walmsley, Early Years Ireland