We’re pleased to share a recently released journal article on our study about father engagement and early childhood development in humanitarian settings, based on work in the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

This study examined how fathers interact with their young children in contexts of displacement and what happens when programs intentionally include them in parenting support.

Key findings include:

• Increased father engagement in play and interactions with young children

• Shifts in caregiving practices, including more responsive and supportive behaviors

• Reductions in harsh child discipline among participating fathers

• Evidence that fathers - often overlooked in ECD programming - can be meaningfully reached and engaged, even in highly constrained settings

Taken together, the results reinforce a point that still hasn’t fully translated into programming at scale: fathers matter - not just as secondary caregivers, but as central actors in children’s development.

They also point to something more pragmatic: targeted, relatively low-cost interventions can shift parenting behaviors, even in complex humanitarian environments.

At a time when resources are tightening across the aid sector, that’s not a trivial finding; it has real implications for how programs are designed and prioritized.

This study assessed a 6-month phone-based early childhood development (ECD) intervention for Syrian and Jordanian caregivers in Jordan

This study is a causal impact evaluation of Watch, Play, Learn (WPL), a program by Sesame Workshop that consists of videos that aim to bring playful early learning opportunities to children, especially those affected by conflict and crisis, via mobile phones. This study focused on the effects of WPL math and social-emotional skills content delivered to Venezuelan migrants and Colombian children living in communities in Colombia where families and children face challenges in accessing essential services, including early education. Implementation was led by the Colombia office of Innovations for Poverty Action.

This study is a causal impact evaluation of Watch, Play, Learn (WPL), a program by Sesame Workshop that consists of videos that aim to bring playful early learning opportunities to children, especially those affected by conflict and crisis, via mobile phones. This study focused on the effects of WPL math and social-emotional skills content delivered to Venezuelan migrants and Colombian children living in communities in Colombia where families and children face challenges in accessing essential services, including early education. Implementation was led by the Colombia office of Innovations for Poverty Action.

This study explores the personal, professional, and contextual conditions faced by early childhood education (ECE) teachers in under-resourced settings and how these relate to teacher responsiveness to professional development (PD): namely, teacher attrition (a sign of PD failure when occurring shortly after PD), take-up of offered PD, adherence to PD training/materials, and quality of implementation. We use data from six disadvantaged districts in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana and PD focused on implementation of a national, play-based curriculum. Descriptive statistics indicate that ECE teachers (n = 302) face a multitude of barriers to high quality teaching across the bioecological model. Multilevel mixed effects models find that teachers with low job satisfaction are more likely to leave the school within the academic year. Teachers with moderate to severe depression are less likely to attend PD trainings. Senior teachers and those with poverty risks are less likely to adhere to PD material. Teachers with many time demand barriers are more likely to adhere to material. They also implement the content at higher observed quality as do teachers with bachelor's degrees and early childhood development (ECD) training. Take-up of PD also predicts quality of implementation. Practice and research implications are discussed.