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Abbreviations & Acronyms
- ECCE
- Early Childhood Care and Education
- ECD
- Early Childhood Development
- ECE
- Early Childhood Education
- HIC
- High-Income Countries
- LMIC
- Low- and Middle Income Countries
- PDSA
- Plan Do Study Act
- SDG
- Sustainable Development Goals
- TOC
- Theory of Change
- UN
- United Nations
- UNICEF
- United Nations Children’s Fund
- WHO
- World Health Organization
Key Terms
Active Ingredients: These describe the content, delivery and factors that support the intervention’s effectiveness or success.
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Behavior Change Techniques:
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Information: provision of new information about the link between behavior and child development, causes and consequences, and instruction on how to perform the behavior.
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Materials: materials that beneficiary families would not normally possess or buy on their own are provided in order to facilitate behavior change.
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Media: use of any form of media to bring about behavior change, including TV advertisements, flashcards, and organization of role plays and dramas.
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Performance: includes modelling or providing demonstrations, actual rehearsal or practice of a targeted behavior in the intervention setting, providing feedback on performance, contingent rewards, and/or identification of cues to action.
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Problem Solving: includes identifying facilitators and barriers of a targeted behavior, as well as solutions to overcoming barriers.
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Social Support: leveraging support from various members of the society/community to bring about behavior change; includes motivating peers, family members or authority figures to encourage parents to engage in behavior change.
Dosage:
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Frequency: Describes how often an intervention is delivered (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly)
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Intensity: Describes how long each contact for an intervention lasts (e.g., 30 minutes, 2 hours)
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Duration: Describes for how long the beneficiaries will participate in an intervention (e.g., 6 months, 1 year).
Early Childhood Development: The gradual development of cognitive, language, socio-emotional skills from conception to eight years of age.
Fidelity: The extent to which a programme is implemented as intended.
Integration: The process of implementing an intervention into a platform and system (e.g., implementing a parenting intervention in a Community Health Worker platform)
Interventions: The term used to describe the program or strategy that is being delivered (e.g., parenting intervention, preschool intervention).
Logic Model: This is a planning tool that describes all of the different ingredients needed to implement an intervention, monitor progress and evaluate impact.
Inputs: Describes the ingredients of the intervention (e.g., curriculum, play materials, radio spots)
Outputs: Describes the Actions (e.g., activities such as training, home visits, classes) and Participants (providers, beneficiaries, champions) involved in the intervention.
Monitoring Indicators: Describe the indicators used to track the Inputs and Outputs of the intervention (e.g., how many providers attended the training, did knowledge improve after training, is the intervention dose delivered as intended)?
Outcomes; Describe what the intervention is intended to change in the sohrt, medium and long term. These outcomes should be measurable.
Multisector Coordination: Multisector approaches require coordination across sectors, ideally with unifying national policies anchored in nurturing care. Features of effective multisector coordination include shared vision and purpose, consistent messaging on early child development for families and communities in programs, leadership, clear communication between sectors, defined roles and responsibilities, relationships of trust between partners across sectors and agreed accountability and governance structures. In humanitarian responses, coordinating mechanisms can ensure each sector is responding to the holistic needs of young children.
Platforms: A term used to describe the service or context from which the intervention is delivered. A platform may be a service (e.g., primary healthcare facility) or it may represent a context (e.g., community, media).
Quality: Features of a good quality intervention: active ingredients (what children and caregivers need), cultural relevance, supportive relationships (children and caregivers, caregivers and frontline workers, frontline workers and services, services and communities), effective behaviour change techniques, appropriate delivery and dose.
Quality Improvements: In learning how to optimize a programme in real-world settings, it may be necessary to integrate intentional modifications to the implementation to overcome barriers, improve fidelity or re-calibrate fidelity with the goal of achieving intended benefits for children.
Responsive Care: The ability of the caregiver to respond to a young child’s signals in a timely manner and appropriately for the child’s stage of development.
Scale: The scaling-up of services refers to the process by which effective, evidence-based, affordable interventions reach more people, equitably and in a manner that can be sustained. In addition to increased coverage, the scope and quality of scaling-up can encompass new interventions and innovations, new beneficiaries, and depth of services in the existing portfolio. The process of scaling up is not fixed, but flexible, allowing for adaptation and reform to new evidence, shared learning, government and partner context and responsiveness to a changing environment and demand.
Stunting: A commonly used indicator of chronic undernutrition defined as a low height for child age that is more than two standard deviations below the age and gender norms for typically growing children.
Systems: This describes the organization or structure that supports a platform and interventions; for example, the Health System, Education System, Social Protection System, Child Protection System, Nutrition and Agricultural Systems. The systems is made up of components and processes including workforce, training and supervision, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and communication, and leadership.
Theory of Change (TOC): is a conceptual figure that maps out what is the intervention (Strategy), how the intervention will work by showing what processes is the intervention intended to change (Targets) and by changing these targets, what is the intervention ultimately trying to improve (Outcomes). Together these components of the TOC help to explain how an intervention works.