"Getting the world’s leading public health body to back guidelines supporting love and nurturing care was a feat of science and advocacy decades in the making" writes Annabelle Timsit, in an article on the World Economic Forum website. "In order to support kids, we must support their caregivers, because their love and care is what children really need to thrive."
World Economic Forum welcomes WHO ECD guideline and nurturing care approachThe authors of this article in Lancet Global Health (June 2020) recommend UNICEF revise its conceptual framework of malnutrition and death to align with the associated SDG goals and ensure children survive and thrive. The proposed revised conceptual framework recommends creating enabling environments at all levels and ensuring interventions address all five components of nurturing care.
All children surviving and thriving: re-envisioning UNICEF's conceptual framework of malnutritionThe Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action has produced a technical note on the protection of children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this brief is to support child protection practitioners to better respond to the child protection risks during a COVID-19 pandemic. View the note in multiple languages here.
Technical Note: Protection of children during the coronavirus pandemicA new WHO guideline provides global, evidence-informed recommendations on improving early childhood development through interventions that support responsive caregiving and early learning. Evidence shows that early childhood development is an outcome of healthy, nurturing interactions between caregivers and children, and as such, the guideline focuses on the needs of both the caregivers and young children. The guideline, intended for a wide range of stakeholders, also recommends integrating caregiving and nutrition interventions and supporting mental health. You can access related resources here.
WHO guideline on improving early childhood developmentThis paper from the Maternal and Child Survival Program on behalf of the Child Health Task Force takes an in-depth look at "thrive and transform" interventions -- such as uptake of nurturing care -- in relation to child survival interventions. It focuses on three African countries: Kenya, Senegal and Zambia, with further examples from Ghana and Rwanda.
Landscape analysis of survive, thrive, and transform interventions for childrenThis landmark report on child health and well-being is the first comprehensive, independent report looking at child health through the lens of changing climate and other existential threats, such as ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices. You can access related resources here.
A future for the world's children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet CommissionThe Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS has produced a brief on what donors, policy makers, implementers and civil society can do to deliver integrated support for children and adolescents affected by HIV and AIDS. Those who face social and structural exclusion must be prioritised if we are to achieve HIV targets and broader SDGs. The most vulnerable are beyond the reach of mainstream services – that must change. Combining services and support in a comprehensive programme achieves far more and uses fewer resources. The Nurturing Care Framework can transform the life course of these children.
Deliver an integrated approach for children and adolescents affected by HIV and AIDSUsing analysis structured according to the Nurturing Care Framework, this paper from BMJ shows that more efforts are needed to reduce inequalities in exposure to poverty, stunting, home stimulation and early education, in order to improve early childhood development. More investments are needed to improve and expand measures relevant to ECD in LMICs.
Inequalities in early childhood care and development in low/middle-income countries: 2010–2018
"Nurturing a child’s development today, to have an intelligent, creative and productive adult tomorrow, is increasingly the focus of every parent and pediatrician," writes Dr Digant Shastri, National President of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP), in the journal Indian Pediatrics. IAP is currently working with UNICEF to produce guidelines for its members.
Early childhood development – Pediatricians, the bridge between science and parentingWriting for the Daily Maverick, Director of Advocacy Aid Patricia Martin-Wiesner argues that achieving South Africa’s development vision in the next 25 years is possible if the country's leadership prioritises the inclusive and equal development of children. Nurturing care is a formula for transformative, inclusive growth and development.
Achieving South Africa’s development visionUnderstanding donor, government and out-of-pocket funding for early child development (ECD) is important for tracking progress. This paper, published in the British Medical Journal's Archives of Disease in Childhood, aims to estimate a baseline for the Nurturing Care Framework, with a special focus on childhood disability.
Accountability for funds for Nurturing Care: what can we measure?This overview of the NCF identifies avenues for innovation and collaboration in harmony with the field's clinical, scientific, and advocacy agendas. One avenue involves enhancing the alignment between health systems and human rights. A second avenue involves neurodisability professionals engaging with nurturing care as leaders, partners, and implementers.
Nurturing care framework for inclusive early childhood development: opportunities and challengesThe evidence for combined interventions is growing! In this systematic review and meta-analysis of early life interventions, the authors found that interventions that resulted in effects on linear growth (e.g., nutritional supplementation) were not significantly associated with effects on cognitive, language, or motor development scores. To ensure benefits for linear growth and neurobehavioural development we need to go beyond nutritional supplementation programming and include interventions targeting caregiving behaviour and learning opportunities that support the development of cognitive, language, motor, and social-emotional skills.
Do effects of early life interventions on linear growth correspond to effects on neurobehavioural development? A systematic review and meta-analysisA recent paper in The Journal of Nutrition recommends: "Expanding conceptual models of child development to include the 5 components of the Nurturing Care Framework", and says: "...health and nutrition alone may not be sufficient if children do not experience the learning opportunities, responsive caregiving, and security and safety that are part of the Nurturing Care Framework."
Conceptualizations of child development benefit from inclusion of the Nurturing Care FrameworkThis report, one year after the launch of the Framework, summarizes concerted efforts at national, regional, and global levels to disseminate the Framework and identify entry points in the health sector and beyond for implementation.
Dissemination and uptake of the Nurturing Care Framework since May 2018 This brief from the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatrics Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation explains the strategies, lessons learned, and way forward to ensuring nurturing care for children affected by HIV in Tanzania's Tabora region.
Integrated ECD interventions in HIV programs in TanzaniaThis brief, published by the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatrics Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, describes how health services are used as entry points to ensure nurturing care for children affected by HIV.
Integrating attention to ECD in HIV programs in Tanzania and ZambiaThis guidance note aims to catalyse country-level dialogue and action around health service delivery and systems strengthening, while also outlining complementary actions by other sectors. It is the first in a series to help with operationalization of the Nurturing Care Framework.
Operationalizing nurturing care for early childhood developmentThis report, published in the Journal of Public Health (February 2019), explores whether attention to nurturing care can promote developmental health and reduce developmental delays.
Community-based, integrated nurturing care in rural ChinaUpdating EWEC's progress towards the Survive, Thrive, and Transform goals, this report recommends implementing the Nurturing Care Framework as the first strategic priority towards achieving the goals for early childhood development.
2018 monitoring report for Every Woman Every Child global strategy for women's, children's and adolescents' healthThis paper considers nurturing care in crisis settings and argues that the most urgent need is: "the political will to recognize the need for young children to receive nurturing care and to implement the science at scale".
Paper for UNESCO on nurturing care in crisis settingsThe Nurturing Care Framework has been included in “The early childhood development reading list”, a “Top 10” list of recent books and reports in the field. Public service network magazine “Apolitical” describes the framework as a “must read” and “(an) evidence-based guide for anyone making policy relating to young children”.
Essential writings on early childhood developmentThis 20th anniversary edition features 26 articles from a parenting programme informed by the Gross National Happiness policy in Bhutan to community health workers’ use of technology to treat maternal depression in Pakistan. Highlighting innovations, the path to scale and emerging initiatives in the field, Early Childhood Matters is again guest-edited by international early childhood expert Joan Lombardi.
Early childhood mattersThe Nurturing Care Framework has the potential to improve the lives of millions of children worldwide and to boost the global economy by trillions of dollars, write two U.S. analysts, Peter Laugharn and Steve Davis, in an op-ed for the Seattle Times.
Seattle Times op-ed discusses nurturing carePapers authored by global researchers and practitioners in the field of Early Child Development, including academicians, funders, think tanks, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, cover topics related to costing and financing interventions that support ECD, shaping demand, supporting ECD in fragile contexts, capacity building, and transitioning to scale, with global programmatic experience.
Implementation research and practice for early childhood development – Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Special IssueA select group of strategies are identified that have shown success in reducing violence against children. They are: implementation and enforcement of laws; norms and values; safe environments; parent and caregiver support; income and economic strengthening; response and support services; and education and life skills.Available in six languages.
INSPIRE: Seven strategies for Ending Violence Against ChildrenThis Series considers new scientific evidence for interventions, building on the findings and recommendations of previous Lancet Series on child development (2007, 2011), and proposes pathways for implementation of early childhood development at scale. The Series emphasises 'nurturing care', especially of children below three years of age, and multi-sectoral interventions starting with health, which can have wide reach to families and young children through health and nutrition.
Lancet Series: Advancing early childhood development: from science to scaleThe International Step-by-Step Association's quality framework for services from birth to three years old.
ISSA quality framework2018-08-16
