The Little Book for Parenting Programs: Applying behavioural science to increase caregiver engagement

Parenting programmes are a key pillar of early childhood development (ECD) policy across the world. There is widespread evidence that these programmes can improve key ECD outcomes, such as children’s cognitive, language, motor and social emotional development. Their impact, however, naturally depends on the level of parental engagement with the programme. Unfortunately, programmes often encounter challenges with low levels of parental engagement. With funding from the Bernard van Leer Foundation, and researched and written by CUBIC and the Busara Center, The Little Book for Parenting Programmes seeks to increase the impact of parenting programmes by approaching parental engagement issues through a new lens – behavioural science. Behavioural science can offer a fresh perspective on potential barriers to parental engagement and solutions which can address these barriers, and thus increase a programme’s impact.