Surround caregivers with evidence-based knowledge on good parenting practices

Idea for Action Summary

From easy-to-remember messages peppered across the city, to weekly home visits from a community health worker, it is crucial that parents receive consistent messaging related to nutrition, stimulation, play and positive discipline, among other issues.

For examples on clear messaging, see ten core parenting practices, written by the International Step by Step Association, here.

Governments play important roles in selecting the information parents and other caregivers receive and in helping them process it and put it into practice. This is done by ensuring consistent, evidence-based messaging in national healthcare, preschool and other services; by reinforcing that messaging through parent coaches (as in Idea 1); and, importantly, through the training that the frontline workforce receives, and how that workforce delivers that content.

Additionally, governments and other stakeholders must support further research on the most important behavioural barriers for specific groups of parents to receive and act upon good parenting practices. This would allow us, as a global community, to refine messages to address the identified barriers and more effectively support and motivate parents to adopt these practices.