1Building a Culture of Early Literacy into Parenting Practices for Indigenous People: A Process Documentation in ICDP of CHTDB

Dr. Happy DasMd. Shahriar ShafiqMd. Kamal Pasa

22 January 2016

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Care and stimulation of children 0 to 8 years is important for improving their quality of life and survival.

It is a critical stage as rapid growth in the brain during these early years may dissipate if unused.

Parenting education program addresses to mothers for fostering child growth and development.

Some 48% of children under 5 years are moderately or severely malnourished that is strongly associated with lower cognitive and language development.

Background

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Illiterate parents are often uninformed about the need for stimulating experiences to enhance development.

Article 27 of CRC states that State Parties shall take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to fulfill the right to an standard of living adequate for his/her physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.

Care and stimulation of children 0 to 8 years is important for improving their quality of life and survival.

It is a critical stage as rapid growth in the brain during these early years may dissipate if unused.

Background (cont…)

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Parenting education program addresses to mothers for fostering child growth and development.

In Bangladesh, there have parenting education in limited areas and those programme components are not updated in culture specific ways.

ICDP project of CHTDB in collaboration with UNICEF is providing interventions to the project beneficiaries from a range of services in the areas of health, nutrition, hygiene, education, protection and communication for development.

Background (cont…)

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The education interventions include early learning and pre-primary education for 3-5 years and parenting education targeting 0-5 years.

Para Worker deliver parenting education session to make parents aware of developmental needs of children and allow them to support children’s development.

The program was designed with 12 sessions for one year mainly on early childhood development supported by other sessions on parenting motivation, children rights, nutrition, health and hygiene issues.

Background (cont…)

6 Modification Process

Modified to strengthening its current parenting education component for indigenous population at the hills.

Modification comprised of three steps –

1) review of parenting education program

2) update of Parenting Education components

3) validation of updated materials

7 Modification Process (cont…)

Step 1: Review of parenting education programReview was done in three phases

First phase: Collection and review of a number of materials

related to parenting with especially considering the context of Bangladesh.

Pointing out the key facts including strengths and weaknesses of the parenting program of other providers to get help for developing a strong and effective parenting education component considering the real factors of implementation areas.

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Second Phase:Visited the program areas in order to investigate

the current practices as well as to understand the challenges of the program.

Conducted Focus Group Discussion (FGD), Key Informants Interview (KII) and Observation with the key stakeholders.

A qualitative study protocol was developed to collect data.

Modification Process (cont…)

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Third Phase: Interview of the selected respondents through

telephone in order to be clarified on some of the specific issues using separate structured questionnaire.

The issues for telephonic discussion were drawn based on the initial findings of the visit.

Thus, empirical study identified challenges, limitation, training need gap of key field staff, and expectation of target population with their programmatic and social basis, and also shows pathways of cultural appropriate ways of programme intervention.

Modification Process (cont…)

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Second step: update of Parenting Education components Development of the guidance notes on parenting

education of ECD part within Para Worker’s Handbook 1.

The preliminary findings indicate that, the current sessions are not enough user friendly, not well articulated and not in line with the local context.

Rewrite of the previous sessions to make that more user friendly for the para workers.

Modification Process (cont…)

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Second step: update of Parenting Education components Added the areas of child development that are missing

in the current ECD part of the ICDP Para Worker Handbook to integrate the theme of building a culture of early literacy in the home.

The raeas added are- Child’s Language Development and Mother Tongue; Children’s Engagement in Family Activities; Story Telling; Discuss on Para Centre’s Experience with children; Children with Special Needs Accidents and First Aid for your Children Preparation for Schooling

Modification Process (cont…)

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Second step: update of Parenting Education components Moreover, it added revise and rewrite of some

additional things for courtyard meeting-

Complete Session plans with Facilitators’ Notes for Para Workers, ECD part’

Inclusion of local folk and tales in each session to make it culturally sensitive,

Supporting IEC Materials: A Flip Chart for the Courtyard Meeting (New One),

Session plans with Handouts for the Master Trainers, ECD part.

Modification Process (cont…)

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Third step: Validation of updated materials Try-Out Workshop for Finalizing the Developed

Guidance Notes and IEC Materials on Parenting Education.

Involve different stakeholders across the district, upazila and para center level staff of ICDP including parents, Para Worker (PW) and Senior Para Worker (SPW) in try out workshop.

Made tryout in the field, FGD with ICDP staffs and demonstrated within the workshop participants.

Finalization of the guideline and materials according to try-out findings.

Modification Process (cont…)

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A commitment to using parenting education as a mainstream delivery mode

There need to look at the current parenting education (PE) component from a holistic perspective i.e. to look at comprehensive parenting package including vertical and horizontal articulation of health, nutrition, stimulation, protection and behavioral communication issues;

Should take initiative for the capacity development of the Para Workers through in-service training opportunities Arranging Cluster Meeting focusing on academic discussion.

Arranging Cluster Meeting focusing on academic discussion.

Recommendations

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Adapt effective strategies to ensure the participation of fathers, mother-in-laws and other family members so that the disseminated messages are actually practiced at the home background.

Should produce separate parenting education manuals for the target groups like other nationally available programs.

Should take initiatives to use and develop teaching-learning materials that are locally available for the sessions.

It is suggested to make a simple monitoring tool/ strategies instead of sporadic monitoring by which the practice at home level can be assessed easily.

Recommendations

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Thank You