An Integrated Community-based Home Visitors Program improves Early Childhood ‎Development in West Bank, the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Abstract
World Health Organization’s Nurturing Care Framework highlights five components of nurturing care for ‎early childhood development (ECD): responsive caregiving, security and safety, opportunities for early ‎learning, good health and adequate nutrition. The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s National Strategy for ECD ‎and Intervention recognizes these needs and the service gaps in West Bank, especially at community level, ‎where young children and their caregivers are at increased risks for toxic stress due to protracted military ‎occupation, poverty, violence and restricted movement. There is a need to adapt existing approaches to ‎reach mother-infant dyads at risk. Since 2010, World Vision (WV) have collaborated with the PA Ministry of ‎Health (PA-MoH) to train female community health workers (CHWs) to deliver timed, behavioural change ‎communication on health and nutrition for the First 1000 Days to pregnant (PWs) and postpartum women ‎through scheduled home visits. This community-based approach is known as Timed and Targeted ‎Counseling (ttC). Cognizant of the unmet needs for nurturing care, from 2017-19, WV tested “Enhanced ‎ttC” (EttC) which integrated ttC with capacity building in early childhood stimulation (ECS) for caregivers ‎and psychosocial support to mothers. WV subject matter experts provided additional training to female ‎CHWs, who delivered EttC during scheduled home visits to PWs until their infants’ first birthday. These ‎CHWs were also trained to facilitate group sessions at the local clinic or community venues to reinforce ‎caregiver capacity in ECS. ‎
Description
Keywords
Integrated Community , Early Childhood
Citation