A FrameWorks Institute Communications Toolkit: Reframing early childhood development and learning

Reframing Early Childhood Development and Learning is a communications toolkit for building public support in Kenya for better child development policies and programmes. This collection of research, recommendations and sample communications is designed to help child development advocates increase public understanding of:

• What’s at stake in improving outcomes for all of Kenya’s children;
• How young children’s brains develop;
• The broad range of stakeholders, from government officials to early learning advocates and providers, who support young children’s health and skills development; and
• Which policy-based solutions can best ensure that Kenya is meeting children’s developmental needs.

This toolkit, sponsored by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and based on collaborative research with UNICEF, the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and the Africa Early Childhood Network, models how to apply the FrameWorks’s Institute’s evidence-based recommendations to advocacy communications about early childhood development and learning. Materials include:

• Strategic framing recommendations that research shows will improve the effectiveness of messages about early childhood development and learning
• Sample communications that demonstrate how to apply the recommendations to communications practice
• Deeper research that illustrates why strategic framing is key to effective communications with members of the public.

To elevate the importance of early childhood development and learning, experts and advocates need framing strategies that have the power to spark new, more productive engagement with these issues. Whether used to develop a major communications campaign or to inform talking points for a one-on-one conversation – or for something in between – the resources in this toolkit will help child development advocates become more effective communicators. Feel free to borrow toolkit language verbatim – no citation or special permissions are needed – or to adapt language to meet your unique communications needs.