The “Spaces for kids to be kids” project is a multi-country IKEA Foundation supported project to improve early childhood development (ECD). The project in India has been implemented since 2017, and aims to improve service provision and utilization and improve the coverage and quality of counselling and communication support to parents/caregivers to provide nurturing care and early learning opportunities to their children. The intervention covers select districts in the states of Maharashtra and Rajasthan. This evaluation seeks to assess whether the positive parenting intervention actually worked as intended, and to determine its strengths as well as areas for improvement, to inform scale up decisions by the government. This formative evaluation will use a cross-sectional mixed-methods design, involving both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis of both primary and secondary data sources. A quantitative survey will predominantly be used to assess to see changes in knowledge, attitude and practices of frontline functionaries regarding ECD, while qualitative methods such as key informant interviews, focus groups and case studies will be used to determine some of the more descriptive results. The findings from the evaluation will be used to inform the national and state level policy makers and programme planners about improving the quality of ECD services. As both the Maharashtra and Rajasthan State governments are planning for scaling up of this intervention across all anganwadi centres, the learnings and recommendations of this evaluation will be of great value. Furthermore, the findings will constitute important evidence for early child development in India, specifically positive parenting, which is still a relatively new area. (Note that this evaluation is also a mandatory donor deliverable.)
Year Published | |
Type | |
Joint | No |
Partner/s | N/A |
Consultant name | |
Agency Focal Point | Atishay Mathur |
Focal Point Email | amathur@unicef.org |
Managed by Independent Evaluation Office | No |
Geographic Scope | Country |
Country/ies |