Providing children with a stimulating environment in their earliest years can benefit them throughout their lives. AKU’s Institute for Human Development (IHD) is conducting a study designed to furnish information that can be used to expand programmes that encourage parents to play and communicate with their young children in ways that promote their intellectual, emotional and social development.
UNICEF’s Care for Child Development (CCD) intervention package encourages “playful parenting” – an approach that sees parents communicate with their children even before they are able to speak, play developmentally appropriate games with them and encourage their questions and curiosity.
Under the Scaling Up Playful Parenting (SUPP) project, faculty will produce case studies of Care for Child Development programmes in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Syria. The studies will be based on focus group discussions and individual interviews. Researchers will also examine how CCD programmes can be adapted to meet the needs of parents and children in areas affected by conflict or a high burden of HIV/AIDS.
Preliminary investigations have revealed the existence of a wide range of standalone CCD programmes that are not integrated into government schemes and tend to be short-lived.
“Early childhood development interventions such as Care for Child Development represent one of the best ways to build strong, prosperous and stable societies,” said IHD Director Amina Abubakar. “The findings of our study will help policymakers and practitioners to determine how best to go about educating parents on caregiving approaches that help children to fulfill their potential.”
As part of the project, IHD is identifying individual programmes’ gaps and resource requirements, with a view to conducting capacity-building sessions for programme staff.
IHD’s capacity-building experience in East Africa includes trainings on the Science of Early Childhood Development.
IHD will also help universities in Kenya and Zambia to integrate playful parenting and key child development topics into degree and professional development programmes.
In addition, the Institute plans to build an online hub for early childhood development that enhances access to technical resources and experts, thereby empowering practitioners to scale up initiatives wherever they may be.
SUPP is funded by UNICEF, the Lego Foundation and the Aga Khan Foundation.