You are here
Early childhood care and development (ECCD)
The first six years of a child’s life is a time of great promise and rapid change, when their developing brain is most open to the influence of relationships and experiences. However, millions of children across the world are at risk of not reaching their full potential because they do not get the care and stimulation they need in the early stages of life.
To achieve the SDGs and ensure that all girls and boys, especially the most deprived, are developmentally on-track we need to start early. Save the Children works with families and communities to help children to develop foundational learning skills in the years leading up to school. Save the Children also works with communities and partners to advocate for policies and practices that recognise the value of starting early and investing in cost-effective, inclusive quality approaches to ECCD.
Our goal is that all children will access quality inclusive early childhood care and demonstrate improved child development outcomes.
Save the Children’s experience shows that to reach the most vulnerable children, we need to go beyond preschools. High quality caregiving must be supported both in homes and in early learning centres to build strong foundations for young girls and boys. Moreover, rural, linguistic minority and refugee children need urgent support as they are falling behind. Save the Children works to address these gaps through targeted interventions, such as early learning programmes that support children’s learning at home in emergency and post-disaster settings, among remote and nomadic communities, and in areas where preschools are not available or accessible.
-
Signature Programme in DRC: The difference we've made
Save the Children's Health Signature Program in the Democratic Republic of Congo was designed in 2013 to join up solutions along the ‘continuum of care’, from late pregnancy to early childhood, covering all postpartum and neonatal stages, in deprived comm
-
Evaluation du Programme Signature de Sante en RDC, En Utilisant le MAA: Rapport d’évaluation
Save the Children's Health Signature Program in the Democratic Republic of Congo was designed in 2013 to join up solutions along the ‘continuum of care’, from late pregnancy to early childhood, covering all postpartum and neonatal stages, in deprived comm
-
IDELA: Fostering Common Solutions for Young Children
Evidence about the importance of learning opportunities in early childhood has been mounting in recent years, culminating with the inclusion of pre-primary education in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Despite the known benefits, global investment
-
International Development and Early Learning Assessment Technical Paper
Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) programs help ensure that young children fulfill their right to healthy development and education, and ultimately assist them in reaching their full potential. In the ECCD field, there are few international tool
-
Windows into Early Learning and Development
Windows into Early Learning and Development sheds light on what can be done to give all children the best chance in life in their first five years. Poverty, stunting, and lack of cognitive stimulation mean that nearly half of 3- and 4-year-old children in
-
Emergent Literacy and Math (ELM) Mozambique- Midline report 2016
One of Save the Children’s programmatic priorities is supporting children around the world with quality early childhood care and development (ECCD) programs. The focus is on strengthening school readiness skills so that young children are ready to enter a
-
Care for Child Development (C4CD) Plus: A pilot project for 3-5 year old children
Save the Children, in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Bhutan, implemented an innovative intervention to provide a quality parenting program which is “The Care for Child Development Program (C4CD) Plus”. The program aims to empower parents and
-
Bulding Brains: Early Stimulation for Children from Birth to Three
Now more than before, we know that the early years of a child's life are the foundation of human development and life-long learning. In the first year of life, 1 million new neural connections are formed per second. A child's brain is built, not born. Sav
-
Emergent Literacy and Math (ELM) Ethiopia: Endline report 2017
One of Save the Children’s programmatic priorities is supporting 4-6 year-old children around the world with quality early childhood care and development (ECCD) programs. The focus is on strengthening school readiness skills so that children are ready to
-
Inclusive Education: What, Why, and How: A handbook for program implementers
Inclusive education is one dimension of a rights-based quality education which emphasizes equity in access and participation, and responds positively to the individual learning needs and competencies of all children. Inclusive education is child-centered
-
Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD): Various modalities of delivering early cognitive stimulation programs for 0-6 year olds
Before young children can start to learn reading and math, they need to develop the physical, cognitive, language and social skills to use a pencil, follow a story and listen quietly to a teacher. That’s why Save the Children (SC) places such a high prior
-
Niger Sponsorship Early Childhood Development Baseline Assessment
This report describes the results of a baseline learning assessment of children attending five early childhood development centers (Jardin d'Enfants Communautaire; JEC) in the Maradi Region of Niger. All five JEC in the sample are participating in Emergen