Evaluation of a Group-based Parenting Intervention for Early Childhood Development

President and Fellows of Harvard College

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Child Development

Treatments: Behavioral: Parenting program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06165315

ISERC/JOOTRH/736/23

Details and patient eligibility

About

This implementation research study aims to evaluate the impact and implementation of a group-based parenting program for improving early child development and caregiver outcomes. This study is enrolling primary caregivers with children 0 to 24 months of age to promote caregiver knowledge and skills about nurturing care for young children and support caregiver psychosocial wellbeing. Parenting groups will leverage existing community group networks and be facilitated by trained volunteers for 20 total sessions (groups will meet twice a month for 10 months). ChildFund Kenya and its community partners will implement the program in Busia and Homabay counties. The research study design will involve a cluster-randomized controlled trial and a qualitative implementation evaluation. This research is being led by Emory University with funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Full description

This research has two study components and aims. First, a cluster-randomized controlled trial will be used to quantitatively estimate the effectiveness of the parenting program on early child development and caregiver outcomes. For the research study sample, villages in Busia and Homabay counties were randomly selected and randomly assigned in each county to either the intervention or waitlist control group. Villages in the intervention group will receive the parenting program first, while villages in the control group will receive the program after the completion of the research study. In total, 64 villages have been selected into this study. Then in each village, 10 primary caregivers with children 0-24 months of age will be enrolled into the study for a total of 640 caregiver-child dyads. A caregiver survey and observational assessment of early child development skills will be administered to study participants at baseline and endline to evaluate changes in outcomes between groups over time. Second, and following the completion of the program, qualitative in-depth interviews will be conducted with participants and various stakeholders (e.g., program participants, parenting group facilitators, community health volunteers, ChildFund program staff) to understand their roles and experiences with the parenting program as well as the challenges and successes to inform future implementation. This qualitative implementation evaluation will seek to identify the barriers and facilitators to program impact, quality delivery, scale-up, and sustainability.

Enrollment: 620 estimated patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• primary caregiver of a child aged 0-24 months at the time of enrollment
• the household resides within the geographic boundary of the village that was sampled into the research study
• primary caregiver provides informed consent for themselves and their child to participate

Exclusion criteria

• none

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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620 participants in 2 patient groups

Parenting Program

Experimental group

Description:

This community-based group parenting program aims improve caregiver knowledge, attitudes, and practices on nurturing care to ultimate improve early childhood development. A secondary aim of the program is to support caregiver psychosocial wellbeing. The curriculum covers various topics relating to responsive caregiving, early learning, child protection, maternal and child health and nutrition, and caregiver mental health. Intervention will be delivered through existing community group networks. Each parenting group will comprise of 10 caregivers that will be facilitated by trained volunteers.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Parenting program

Waitlist-Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Villages in the control group will not immediately receive the parenting program. Instead, they will receive whatever standard of care services are delivered at the community-level (e.g., routine services from community health volunteers that are primarily focused on maternal and child health and nutrition). After endline data collection is completed for the trial, then villages in the control group will receive the parenting program.