February 2022 – ECDAN Knowledge Fellow, Denise Bonsu, with support from her mentor, investigated home visiting programs that became increasingly used for service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research shows that the early childhood workforce plays a critical role in promoting young children’s physical, social, and cognitive development, especially during the first 1,000 days of life (WHO et al., 2018). Community Health Workers (CHWs), for example, are defined as health aides who act as a critical link between their communities and primary healthcare services and are instrumental in delivering essential services to young children and their families (CDC, 2019; Perry et al., 2014). During COVID-19, there was an increased reliance on CHWs to help prevent the spread of the virus in their communities (Westgate et al., 2021). However, despite these workers’ essential role, they face challenges (e.g., limited training and professional development opportunities, lack of personal protective equipment) that have made it difficult for them to carry out their roles during the pandemic (Ballard et al., 2020).
By looking at different country models, the project highlights different promising approaches that have been used to support members of the home visiting workforce during COVID-19. A country profile was developed for ten different countries.
Together, the resources aim to:
- Highlight the different measures in place to promote the overall well-being of the home visiting workforce during COVID-19.
- Provide policymakers and program managers with different promising approaches for supporting the home visiting workforce that can be tailored to their specific context.
- Increase the global knowledge base on supporting the home visiting workforce during times of crises.
The ten country profiles developed were informed by desk reviews and key informant interviews with home visiting program directors, public health officials, CHWs, ECD specialists, and researchers. Each profile includes an overview of the promising approach, the enablers and barriers to implementation, and lessons that can be learned to further support this workforce during times of crises and beyond.
Country Profiles
Acknowledgements
Dr. Aline Simen-Kapeu and Yang (Tingting) Rui was the mentor for this project. The following individuals provided invaluable support in the development of the platform: Elisa Altafim, Ayat al Aqra, Patrick Aylward, Émile Bobozi, Alexandra Valeria Maria Brentani, Ghada Abu ElRous, Svetlana Jankovic, Anthony Kunnumpurath, Eduardo Marino, Ana Paula Gomes Matias, Brian Mundackal, Kennedy Oruenjo, Cheick Oumar Ouattara, Christian Rusangwa, Thais Sanches, Amy Sene, Dorian Traube, Claudia Vidigal, Frances Vulivuli, and Katelin Wilton.
References
- Ballard, M. et al. (2020). Prioritising the role of community health workers in the COVID-19 response. BMJ Global Health, 5(6), 1–7. https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/6/e002550
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Community Health Worker (CHW) Toolkit. https://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/pubs/toolkits/chw-toolkit.htm
- Perry, H., Zulliger, R., & Rogers, M. (2014). Community Health Workers in Low-, Middle-, and High-Income Countries: An Overview of Their History, Recent Evolution, and Current Effectiveness. Annual Review of Public Health, 35(1), 399–421. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182354
- Westgate, C. et al. (2021). Without Community Health Workers, the Global COVID-19 Response Could Fail: Community health workers have played a vital role in global health efforts. Think Global Health. https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/without-community-health workers-global-covid-19-response-could-fail
- World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, & World Bank Group. (2018). Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development: A Framework for Helping Children Survive and Thrive to Transform Health and Human Potential. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/781de51d-4cef-482e-bb3b-c2b3becf3c9f/content