The Family Strengthening Intervention for Early Childhood Development and Violence Prevention (FSI-ECD+VP) has been tested and scaled in post-genocide Rwanda, where it is known as Sugira Muryango. Now the team at the Research Program on Children and Adversity (RPCA), founded by Theresa S. Betancourt at Harvard and later expanded at Boston College, is adapting FSI-ECD+VP for use in Sierra Leone.
The intervention, which aims to reduce family violence and boost early childhood development in families facing extreme poverty and post-conflict challenges, has been put through the ADAPT-ITT framework, a sequential process to adapt evidence-based interventions. FSI-ECD+VP has been tested in Sierra Leone through a mixed methods open trial, for an initial assessment of feasibility, acceptability and potential scaling pathways.
RPCA has a particular focus on the long-lasting effects of war on society. In Sierra Leone it runs the Intergenerational Study on War-Affected Youth (ISWAY), a study of former child soldiers and other war-affected youth in Sierra Leone, which has been ongoing since 2002. The study has followed 529 male and female children impacted by Sierra Leone’s Civil War (1991-2002), and a majority of the sample were children associated with armed forces and armed groups (CAAFAG). The most recent wave of ISWAY data collection included a sample of participants who have become parents of young children under the age of seven. This data was used to investigate the relationships between parental stress (related to past war experiences and more recent hardships), parental mental health, parenting practices and child development.
Children exposed to war-related violence can have changes in emotion regulation and mental health problems in adulthood. This may shape the way they parent and care for their own children, potentially affecting children’s development. In the context of the intergenerational impact of war, it is especially important to promote violence reduction and healthy family functioning and child development, especially in the earliest years of life. One of the more consistent findings of ISWAY is that toxic stress exposure is linked to poor mental health that is worsened by daily hardships, low social support and low access to schooling and life opportunities. These hardships pose challenges for parenting practices and family functioning. These are the kinds of challenges that FSI-ECD+VP is designed to address.
Join Lauren Pisani, Associate Director for Research at RPCA, and Melody Martin, Deputy Director of Early Childhood Development & Primary Education at Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, for a discussion of research findings, policy implications and scaling potential, hosted by Marlies Morsink, Thrive Deputy Programme Director.
Speakers
Associate Director for Research, Research Program on Children and Adversity (RPCA), Boston College
Dr Lauren Pisani’s research interests focus on strategies to strengthen early childhood care and education systems that promote holistic development for children living in vulnerable contexts. She has experience leading implementation research activities across diverse global contexts, including humanitarian settings.
Dr Pisani was instrumental in creating and validating the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) (2018) and contributed to the most recent Lancet series publication on the status of early childhood development globally (2024).
Deputy Director of Early Childhood Development & Primary Education,
Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Sierra Leone
Melody Martin has been leading early childhood development initiatives in Sierra Leone over the last 10 years. She is strongly committed to a focus on play‑based learning, having advocated for it nationally and internationally.
Melody led the development of Sierra Leone’s Integrated Early Childhood Development Policy (2021), integrated pre‑primary education into the Education Sector Plan (2021-2025) and designed and implemented the Early Childhood Education Advocacy & Communication Strategy (2023). She also coordinated the nationwide rollout of Teaching at the Right Level to strengthen foundational learning and trained 5,200 early childhood development educators in the Foundational Learning Instructional Core package nationwide. She is Chairperson of the Sierra Leone Early Childhood Network.
Her experiencein policy design, programme implementation and teacher training related to learning through play enabled Melody to ensure play‑based activities were added to Sierra Leone’s preschool curriculum.She has also established four play areas for children staying in hospitals in Freetown and jointly operates a nursery school in Freetown Correctional Centre. Her international work in this area includes a study tour on play‑based learning in Bangladesh and Ghana.
Host
Thrive Deputy Programme Director,
Oxford Policy Management
Marlies Morsink has a background in programme management and impact evaluation in low- and middle-income countries, and is co-author of Attributing Development Impact: The Qualitative Impact Protocol (2019). She holds a Masters in Social Policy Research from the University of Bath and is a Fellow at the university’s Centre for Development Studies. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and previously worked in investment finance.
About the series
We know that investing in early childhood is transformative for both children and societies in low- and middle-income countries, but there are gaps in our knowledge about how to move from pilot to scale and how to ensure long-term quality.
The exchange of insights and ideas between researchers and policymakers is a vital part of bridging these gaps – ensuring that new research addresses the questions most relevant to national decision makers, and that early childhood development policies are grounded in evidence about what works at scale.
This discussion series from Thrive brings together policymakers, practitioners and researchers to explore the latest evidence related to scaling early childhood development programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Conversations will explore the key takeaways from research highlighted in the Thrive What to Read newsletter and delve into how new evidence can help to inform diverse policy and research agendas associated with scaling.
Attendees can take part in live Q&As with leading experts and be part of a growing community of knowledge shaping the future of early childhood development programming.
For the latest research related to designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating scalable early childhood development programmes in low- and middle-income countries subscribe to the monthly Thrive What to Read newsletter.
The Thrive 2025 scientific conference on scaling early childhood development programmes and policies in low- and middle-income countries, brought together early childhood development researchers, practitioners, funders and policymakers to exchange ideas. Revisit keynote presentations and other sessions from across the conference here.