Fortalecendo Laços (Strengthening Ties)
The ties between caregivers and children are crucial for child development. It is therefore urgent to find effective tools for their main caregivers: their mothers and fathers. The Fortalecendo Laços program is innovative because it uses a mobile app to remotely train mothers through videos. This innovation has an extra bonus – the strategy has the potential to be implemented at scale.
Problematic
In recent years, digitalization and other technologies have been growing progressively in the region, but not without resistance. While there currently are digital tools and contents oriented to guide mothers in the upbringing of their children, there is still not enough evidence about the effectiveness of virtual sessions as training strategies. It is necessary to generate knowledge that helps improve caregiver-child interaction quality and frequency. It is also critical to learn about the viability of scaling up these programs.
Solution
This program seeks to take advantage of the best of three worlds: technology, home visits, and group meetings. Fortalecendo Laços offers a virtual training program designed to strengthen interactions between mothers and their children, as well as to keep mothers informed of the potential positive impacts that quality interactions can have on their children’s development. The program includes a home visit by a facilitator, who tapes the mother-child interaction. In addition, a group session is conducted to inform mothers about the importance of interactions. Next, personalized videos are sent via WhatsApp with animations that include information and comments about the positive interactions observed by the facilitator.
Evaluation and Impact
Evidence to be collected will provide information on the viability of scaling.