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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.
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A Bright Start: Improving childcare for disadvantaged families through Universal Credit
Support for childcare costs is different in each nation of the UK, resulting in a complex mix of reserved and devolved policies – evidence and data sources on children’s early learning, childcare needs, provision and usage also vary in each nation. This r
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Solomon Islands IDELA Baseline 2018
This baseline study provides an overview of young children’s skills and development in four provinces in the Solomon Islands. Save the Children’s International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) tool was used to measure child development an
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Niger Sponsorship Early Childhood Development Endline Assessment
Save the Children's Sponsorship-funded programs operate in 20 countries worldwide, and integrate health, education and protection to support the development of children from 0 to 18 years of age. The Sponsorship Program in the Maradi impact area of Niger
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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
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Unlock Every Child's Potential
Save the Children Thailand works to ensure every child attains the right to survival, protection, development, and participation. One key problem faced by migrant boys and girls in Thailand is their ability to obtain a strong start in life and enter basic
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Partnering for Early Childhood Education in India: Impact evaluation endline report
This report presents the results of an impact evaluation on the effect of a PVH Corp funded Save the Children intervention in Karnataka, India. The intervention sought to improve the quality of children's learning opportunities in Anganwadi centers (presc
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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
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Fëmijëria e Hershme: Promovimi i Sigurisë dhe Zhvillimit Socio-Emocional të Fëmijës
Children are part of the world they live in, which they interact with thorough emotions and actions. Before and after childbirth, children explore the world around them through their senses, experience phenomena, and develop relationships with their famil
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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
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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
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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
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International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA): Children attending kindergarten in Albania
This study aims to provide an IDELA baseline assessment that establishes the conditions at the onset of an Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) project against which future changes will be measured amongst the targeted beneficiaries. The project i