Promoting Positive Caregiver Engagement with HDIF

Organisation: Human Development Innovation Fund (funded by UKaid)
Service: User Research, Content Co-Creation, Distribution and Impact Analysis

The Challenge:

Ubongo’s work focuses on teaching kids the skills they need to succeed in school and in life. However, young kids learn the most from the behaviour of the adults around them, so to be fully effective, we also need to invest in teaching parents the skills and mindset that will help them better support their child’s learning – especially in early childhood.

In fact, data compiled by the Rauch Foundation found that 85% of the brain is developed by the time a person is 5-years-old. So the relationship formed between caregivers and children, especially during the first five years, is incredibly important, not only for a child’s health and physical well-being but also for cognitive and socio-emotional development.

Consequently, it is through parents and caregivers that we can truly help children develop critical early cognitive skills so that they are well equipped to succeed when they start school. There is still a great need for caregiver education in Tanzania. Many parents and adults value discipline and obedience, and focus on their children developing early academic skills (such as writing letters) without realizing that much of early learning comes through play and interaction. They may thus may unknowingly curtail the development of their children through common practices like corporal punishment, silencing questions, and stifling curiosity and creative expression.

The Partnership:

HDIF aims to identify and support innovations that have the potential to create social impact in education, health and, water, sanitation and hygiene across Tanzania. HDIF is a key funder for our preschool show Akili and Me, that aims to prepare 3 to 6 year-old for success in the first grade by teaching them pre-literacy skills, numeracy, socio-emotional learning, and other skills. With funding from the Human Development Innovation Fund (funded by UK aid) Ubongo created three series of caregiver engagement media for TV, radio, and online platforms, that enable parents to help their kids reach their developmental potential.

In order to find the most effective way to communicate with parents and inspire them to engage with their children, Ubongo’s research team hosted an initial focus group with parents to provide a baseline understanding and provide a clear direction for studying the most effective way to communicate with parents and inspire them to engage with their children.

The team also did street interviews with parents waiting for the bus, knocked on doors and invited parents to our office to test our ideas and plans throughout the creation process and provide valuable feedback on content. We also hosted groups of children in our office and spoke with children in the neighbourhood to gather as much information as we could from our core audience.

We took feedback from parents concerning the values they want to see in their children:

• Academic success
• Being respected and respectful children

However we found a disconnect between the intended and perceived impact of caregiver and parents’ actions and their actual impact on children.

The team consulted organizations with extensive experience working with parents such as, C-SEMA, Parenting Africa Network and Save the Children. And also conducted literature reviews on parenting books and parenting manuals written by internationally acclaimed parenting experts.
Using the information we collected we created a series of three public service announcements for Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) on different caregiver engagement topics, each with a different target audience and message.

1. “Tunakujenga” (We Build You): This series of public service announcements focused on the importance of early childhood education in the household, and how parents are children’s first teachers. It included a wide range of topics from supporting your child’s efforts, to understanding that young babies are very aware and always learning. These videos were very well received by engaged parents, but we had some pushback from parents who argued that discipline is most important for children.
   Link video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDTAGupo7uI
2. “Fimbo Hailei” (The Rod Doesn’t Raise a Child): In response to parents’ emphasis and focus on discipline we produced a series of videos about positive parenting and alternatives to corporal punishment.
3. “Learning by Playing”: We created these short tips for parents with specific and practical ideas of how to engage with their children, targeting highly engaged parents who’ve connected with us on social media. All tips were produced for radio, TV and Facebook in both Kiswahili and English.

The Impact:

These three sets of content were broadcast for 1 year and very well received by audiences. Research conducted in partnership with IPSOS Tanzania found that over the period of 1 year, parents who watched Akili and Me on TV increased by 8% in positive parenting behaviors when compared to the general population, and those who both watched on TV and listened on radio increased by 18%. The chart above shows changes in caregiver engagement indicators after 1 year of broadcast (from survey of a 2000 person nationally representative sample).