Poster #213 - Impact Evaluation of a Family Skills Intervention for Left-Behind Children in Rural China

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social Policy

Integrative Statement

The massive labor force migration in China has led to a large number of left-behind children (LBC)— 10 million—in the rural areas. These children tend to experience long periods of separation from their parents, lack supervision for schoolwork, communication with parents, emotional support from parents, and are at risk for poor development. The One Sky Project applied a Responsive Care Model to rural villages in Yexian, Henan province. The Responsive Care (family skills) Model is based on a theory of change which posits that, as family caregivers respond to children with greater warmth, sensitivity, consistency and rich language in their interactions, child’s developmental status gradually improves. In particular, as left-behind children become more attractive interactional partners, they will engender increased and continued attachment and engagement of grandparents. The increasingly positive adult skills will replace their neglectful (or harsh, inconsistent) adult behaviours toward the children. The children’s development, including and especially their brain development, can proceed positively and optimally.
The project comprised village-based family skills training for parents and grandparents and playgroups for young children aged 0 to 6, in rural communities. Parent mentors and early childhood teachers were trained to implement its curriculum, emphasizing responsive care in caregiver-child interaction. For the evaluation, 30 matched pairs of treatment and control villages were followed over a two-year period. The aim is to assess changes in attitudes and behaviors of caregivers of young children aged 0 to 6 and improvement in cognitive and social-emotional development outcomes of targeted children.
A parent-child interaction index and parenting style questionnaires are used to assess sensitivity, responsiveness and language interactions in addition to the ASQ 3, and ASQ-SE at baseline, midpoint and endpoint. The HOME questionnaire was also administered at endpoint. For the preschoolers, a culturally adapted Chinese Early Human Capability Index was used for children aged 3 to 5.
We use lagged dependent variable regression as our base methodology, controlling for covariates, and we apply an instrumental variable and propensity score matching approach to deal with treatment take-up and systematic attrition respectively. In addition to analysing the average treatment effects, we identify heterogeneous treatment effects, necessary given the diversity of the sample population.
We find positive effects of the programme on warm parenting (0.2 standard deviation) and interaction with family (0.3 standard deviation). Given the focus of the programme on adult-child interaction, these results are in accordance with the expectations. We also find that the parents’ score for building, toys, books and teachers is larger in treatment preschools than in control preschools. Turning to child development, we find a positive effect of 0.2 standard deviation on the total ASQ-3 score, in particular on the domains of gross-motor and personal-social skills, and of 0.1 standard deviation on ASQ-SE. For the eHCI, we find an effect of 0.2 standard deviation on the total score, mainly through a positive effect on the cultural knowledge and physical domains. The programme also improved readiness to learn of the children above three years old through enhancing their writing skills.

Authors

• Emilie Berkhout, Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD)
  Presenting Author

• Fan Bu, China Development Research Foundation
  Non-Presenting Author

• Guirong Li, Henan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shaoping Li, China Development Research Foundation
  Non-Presenting Author

• Menno Pradhan, University of Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary Young, China Development Research Foundation
  Non-Presenting Author