Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) and the Global Parenting Initiative

Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) is an international initiative led by WHO, UNICEF, and the Universities of Oxford, Bangor, Cape Town, and Stellenbosch. PLH is committed to developing and testing effective, freely available, culturally relevant, and scalable parenting programmes to reduce the risk of violence against children and improve child wellbeing in low and middle-income countries.

Through the Global Parenting Initiative, the PLH collaboration aims to scale up access to evidence-based parenting support in six focus countries: Thailand, South Africa, the Philippines, Malaysia, Uganda, and Tanzania. This parenting support includes PLH for Young Children, which targets parents of children aged 2-9 years; PLH Teens, for parents of adolescents aged 10-17 years; ParentText, an interactive chatbot messaging service; ParentChat, an online parenting support group programme; and ParentApp, an app-based programme for parents of adolescents.

The PLH Young Children (PLH-YC) programme

PLH-YC is a group-based, nondidactic, and collaborative parenting programme based on social learning principles and over 50 years of research. It is delivered by a pair of trained facilitators to groups of 12-15 parents on a weekly basis. During each session, facilitators: 1) Lead participants through simple, mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques; 2) Refer to illustrated stories to introduce parents to new parenting skills; 3) Guide parents through role-plays to practice these skills; 4) Assign activities for parents to apply skills at home with their children; and 5) Conduct group discussions to help solve challenges experienced at home. Facilitators conduct pre-programme home visits, as well as visit parents who miss sessions or need extra support. In addition, facilitators give tailored guidance through weekly phone calls to each participant and send SMS or LINE messages to encourage home practice. Childcare, transport, and lunches are provided to encourage group attendance.

Adaptation and evaluation of PLH-YC in Thailand

A formative evaluation conducted in 2018 with Thai policymakers, academics, and health and welfare practitioners informed the development of a Thai version of PLH-YC. This 8-session version was adapted from the original 12-session programme, and was designed for delivery by nurses, public health officers, and other frontline workers through the public health system.

Workshop participants

In 2019, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health and UNICEF, the University of Oxford conducted a randomised trial of the adapted Thai version of PLHYC with 120 low-income families in Udon Thani province. Health professionals delivered the programme at four Health Promotion Hospitals as part of their routine work. Data collection methods included adult self-report and observational assessments.

Comparing the intervention to a control condition of services as usual at 3-months follow-up, researchers found that the programme reduced child maltreatment by 58%, abusive and harsh parenting by 44%, parent mental health problems by 40%, and child behaviour problems by 60%. Parents also reported improvements in positive parenting, monitoring, and parental self-efficacy. Participants attended an average of 7 out of 8 sessions. Overall, parents rated the programme an average score of 9.4 out of 10, demonstrating a high level of satisfaction.

Activities

PLH Workshop
Workshop leaders

  • Capacity building initiative to support the development of a PLH training, supervision, and monitoring hub at Boromarajonani Nursing College

  • Formative evaluation and adaptation of PLH digital strategies (ParentChat and ParentText)

  • Evaluation of effectiveness of PLH on violence prevention, positive parenting, parental mental health, and child behaviour problems after scale-up

  • Process evaluation on the reach, engagement, fidelity, and quality of PLH after scale-up

  • Qualitative study on strategies for male engagement in parenting programmes

  • Research study on national and regional (Northeast) level opportunities for and barriers to the sustainable and scalable integration of PLH in Thai policy and service delivery

  • Development of a five-year national Policy Advocacy Strategy for PLH in Thailand Cost benefit analysis and prospective Social Return on Investment (SROI) study on PLH in Thailand

  • Convening of regular meetings and communications with a national Community of Practice (CoP) on Evidence-Based Parenting

  • Convening of regular meetings and communications with the PLH Sub-regional Learning Initiative (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines)

  • Policy advocacy for ASEAN policymakers from 10 countries to promote evidence-based parenting programmes