Globally more than 250 million children under the age of five are not developmentally on track due to numerous factors, such as extreme poverty, chronic malnutrition, and a lack of access to basic services and early learning opportunities. Among these children, some experience developmental delays and disabilities. Early detection is critical to ensuring that children with developmental delays who can benefit from early intervention services receive these services early, and within a timeframe that is critically beneficial to their long-term development. Yet, most countries have weak early detection and early intervention services for children with developmental delays or disabilities. Therefore, Save the Children developed an integrated monitoring and counselling tool to support optimal child growth and development (M-GAD), targeting children aged 6 weeks to 60 months.

In the M-GAD tool, children’s holistic needs are considered, providing service providers with a one-stop-shop for screening and detection according to the child’s age. Moreover, the M-GAD tool provides guidance for action after the screening, through both targeted at-home play activities for caregivers to try, as well as noting when a referral for further follow-up is required. The M-GAD tool was first piloted in 2024 with frontline health workers in a Growth Monitoring and Promotion project in Vanuatu, in the Pacific Region, with plans to pilot M-GAD in other regions and countries.  

The M-GAD tool contains two documents:

Flip chart (for health workers/service providers)

Take-home booklet (for caregivers)

Each document is available in PDF and Adobe InDesign file format. The M-GAD tool is available in English, French, and Bislama. To facilitate understanding of the M-GAD tool and uptake, there are several complementary resources including:

M-GAD Brief

Piloting Considerations 2-pager

M-GAD Orientation Slide Deck

Note: if your country office or organization is interested in piloting the M-GAD tool, please contact the disability team at disabilityinfo@savethechildren.org