‘Caring for the Caregiver’ in low- and middle-income countries: multi-country validation study

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Caregiver wellbeing in the context of COVID-19: evolving strategies to assess and respond to an evolving global crisis

Proposal

In accordance with evidence from the Lancet (2016), programmatic recommendations in UNICEF’s Programme Guidance for Early Childhood Development, and in line with the Nurturing Care Framework, preventive support for caregiver health and emotional well-being is key to optimal child development. Efforts to help children are unlikely to be successful unless they also provide support for the children’s caregivers. Yet there is currently very little support for caregiver emotional well-being in resource-constrained low- and middle-income countries.
In order to tackle this issue, UNICEF is developing a Caring for the Caregiver (CFC) training module in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand and Harvard University, and with the support of the LEGO Foundation. The CFC module aims to build front-line workers’ skills in strengths-based counselling to increase caregivers’ confidence and help them develop stress management, self-care and conflict-resolution skills to support their emotional well-being. CFC also engages families and communities in support of caregivers’ emotional well-being.
A prototype (working version) of the CFC module was designed by a mul¬ti-disciplinary group of experts in 2019 and is currently being validated through implementation research in eight countries – Bhutan, Brazil, Malawi, Mali, Rwanda, Serbia, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. The validation process, which will conclude in Q2 2021, consists of in-country testing, adaption and learning, as well as expert review of the CFC prototype from a global technical advisory group. At the impact level, this study aims to understand whether implementing CFC reduces parenting stress and, in doing so, supports improved nurturing care and parenting practices. Through implementation research, the study also aims to better understand the: i) the feasibility and effectiveness of the CFC training in building the core competencies required to deliver the package; ii) the delivery of CFC and its alignment with the intended delivery approach; iii) the integration of CFC support with other routine services, such as Care for Child Development, Infant and Young Child Feeding programmes etc.; and iv) the challenges and enablers to implementing CFC as perceived by frontline workers and families. The learnings from this implementation research will help inform the finalization of the CFC module in 2021, as well as future work and implementation in other countries and contexts.
While the validation study is ongoing, this presentation will provide an overview of the validation process – including the theory of change and M&E framework; highlight initial learnings from testing CFC in selected countries; present the key content revisions to the CFC package; and outline next steps for the finalization and roll out of CFC. In terms of the initial learnings from the process thus far, the presentation will largely focus on lessons learned from CFC trainings and adaptation workshops at the country level based on pre- and post- training evaluations, and learnings from how countries are embedding the CFC approach within existing capacity and system strengthening efforts.

Author

• Radhika Mitter, UNICEF