Premium
Leveraging paraprofessionals and family strengths to improve coverage and penetration of nutrition and early child development services
Author(s) -
Tomlinson Mark,
Rahman Atif,
Sanders David,
Maselko Joanna,
RotheramBorus Mary Jane
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.12269
Subject(s) - business , mood , environmental health , economic growth , psychology , medicine , psychiatry , economics
Children need to be protected in intergenerational networks, with parents who have positive mood, resources to feed their children, and skills to promote early childhood development (ECD). Globally, more than 200 million children are raised annually without these resources. This article reviews the potential contributions of increasing coverage and penetration of services for these children, challenges to achieving penetration of services in high‐risk families, opportunities created by bundling multiple services within one provider, potential leveraging of paraprofessionals to deliver care, and mobilizing communities to support children in households at high risk for negative outcomes. We end with a number of suggestions for how to ensure the equitable scale‐up of integrated ECD and nutrition services that take into account current global priorities, as well as coverage and penetration of services.