Evaluation of an Early Childhood Parenting Programme in Rural Bangladesh‪.‬

INTRODUCTION The importance of care and stimulation of children, aged less than three years, has become especially critical as more children survive and their quality of life becomes a concern. Although still inconclusive, it appears that rapid growth in the brain during these early years may dissipate if unused (1). Various programmes are being implemented around the world with the objective of fostering conditions that optimize child growth and development (2). The most common programme in developing countries is a parenting education programme addressed to mothers with or without a child component (3). Its aim is to foster more mother-child interaction for the purposes of stimulation and nutrition. Although many parenting programmes are implemented by organizations in developing countries, few are ever evaluated (4), especially in South Asia (5,6). It is important to evaluate their effectiveness so that organizations which provide parent education to groups, similar to the one described here, can create an effective model. The present study contributes to this ongoing effort by evaluating the effectiveness of a parenting programme developed in Bangladesh for poor rural mothers. Using a post-test only intervention-control design, we evaluated outcomes, such as mothers' home stimulation and child vocabulary, along with the educational process used in parenting sessions.