Despite progress in integrating parenting and early learning into mainstream early childhood development efforts and enhancing organisational and fiscal capacities to deliver comprehensive early childhood development services, there remains a gap in providing services, especially among remote, rural, and marginalised communities. Recognising the risk of exacerbating inequalities by overlooking these communities, this study focuses on exploring informal service delivery modalities that can complement or operate alongside formal government programmes. It will examine community attitudes and practices concerning parenting, early learning, and nurturing care, as well as informal service provision facilitated by community members, religious leaders, or elders. By understanding these dynamics, the study aims to identify opportunities for improving and strengthening informal early childhood development practices and provision, with the aim of testing such programmes in subsequent phases.
In this qualitative study, we will be observing the current childcare practices and the childcare teams (parents, grandparents, other relatives, neighbours, older children, and informal teachers) that exist among hard-to-reach (vulnerable) communities in Sierra Leone. We will discuss changing attitudes, practices and aspirations for early learning opportunities with community members (males, females, youths, elders, and traditional and religious leaders). Of particular interest will also be the interaction with informal tutors (Islamic, community-based) in hard-to-reach communities, and what opportunities or barriers they may represent in enabling ‘school readiness’ where formal pre-primary facilities do not exist.