Scaling up Playful Parenting: Implementation Research Early Findings

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The LEGO Foundation Playful Parenting Initiative supports the scale up and sustainability of interventions that focus on the integration of play and early stimulation in parenting of children ages 0-3 in four diverse country contexts: Bhutan, Rwanda, Serbia and Zambia. In parallel to the implementation of the parenting programs, LEGO Foundation has engaged a research and learning partner to document and generate evidence and lessons learned about the scale up processes, decisions, and impact on a range of beneficiaries in the course of the scale up in each country. This panel presents the initial findings from this implementation research study, gathered during the first two years of the initiative. The implementation research examines outcomes at scale through the following questions:
1. What is the effect of playful parenting programs on caregiver and child outcomes at scale?
2. How do playful parenting programs understand and address community norms and father engagement around parenting?
3. How successful are playful parenting programs in building the capacity of the workforce providing service delivery to caregivers at scale?
4. What are the critical programmatic factors that bring playful parenting programs to scale?
5. What influence do systems and governments have on the ability to bring playful parenting to scale?
This study is grounded in the ExpandNet (WHO 2010) framework for understanding and assessing successful scale up, developed specifically for complex, multi-stakeholder processes that seek to take an effective innovation to the level of the national system. This framework places the emphasis of this study on the scale up strategies and processes of each program, and informs the research design across all of the research questions.
This panel is structured to present emerging evidence from baseline surveys across the four countries of implementation. The first paper presents an analysis of how frontline providers are trained for the Playful Parenting programs, applying a standardized observation tool to the content and method of training. It also includes the results of a knowledge assessment on parenting practices for young children, administered to providers before and after training. This analysis provides an understanding of how programs have approached the integration of play in parenting, and how they develop frontline provider capacity to support playful parenting among caregivers of children ages 0-3 years.
The second paper presents the voices of the frontline providers as they embark on the implementation of scaled-up parenting interventions. This presentation brings forth the surveys administered to random samples of providers in each country, seeking to understand how they engage with caregivers in home visits or group parenting sessions, how they assess their own confidence, and how they perceive the challenges to scale and sustainability. The quantitative information from the surveys is complemented with qualitative insights from in-depth interviews with a smaller group of purposefully selected providers in each country.
The third presentation turns to the level of child and caregiver outcomes, with baseline survey information on child outcomes and caregiver-child interaction from three of the four countries. This presentation will present child outcomes in LEGO Playful parenting programs, using different developmental scales: the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool in Zambia, Ages and Stages Questionnaire in Bhutan, and Caregiver Reported Early Development Index in Bhutan. The presentation also allows for a comparison across parent-child interaction using a standard questionnaire, as well as an assessment of parental knowledge of developmental outcomes
Finally, the fourth presentation examines the context in which the programs are implemented, including the community norms, measured through focus group discussions with community members and caregivers; and key informant interviews with government stakeholders, policy makers with a mandate to oversee early childhood development and parenting programs. This presentation will compare and contrast the similarities and differences in the enabling environment for scaling up playful parenting, that each of the programs must consider, as they roll out implementation and scale up in the post-COVID-19 environments.

Sub Unit

• Early Childhood Development SIG

Chair

• jill popp, LEGO Foundation

Individual Presentations

• Enabling environment for playful parenting in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic - Carina Omoeva, FHI 360; Frances Aboud, McGill University; Yvonne Cao, FHI 360

• Playful Parenting across programs: frontline provider training content analysis - Rachel M Hatch, FHI360; Frances Aboud, McGill University; Yvonne Cao, FHI 360; Rafael Eduardo Contreras Gomez, FHI 360

• Delivering Playful Parenting: the Voices of Frontline Providers - Rafael Eduardo Contreras Gomez, FHI 360; Carina Omoeva, FHI 360; Karma Choden, FHI 360; Frances Aboud, McGill University

• Parent-Child interaction: a cross-context analysis - Rafael Eduardo Contreras Gomez, FHI 360; Given Hapunda, Universty of Zambia; Ksenija Krstic, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy