So much depends on the first years of life.

Delivered through home visits, group sessions and remote modalities like radio, our ECD programs prioritize quality parent-child play activities and promote “positive” or “responsive” parenting practices: ensuring that children have adequate supervision as well as proper nutrition, hygiene and sanitation. By transforming their relationships with their children through play, parents are able to build, repair and strengthen the bonds with their children, and even with the broader community. These connections are social, but also deeply rooted in the cognitive and emotional development of young children. Through consistent and responsive interactions, caregivers and service providers can develop more secure attachments, making children feel safer. This sense of security and belonging is crucial for exploration and learning, as it gives children the confidence to engage with their environment and new experiences. 

• LEGO Multicountry Playful Parenting Brief 
• Nurturing Care: Stories of Most Significant Change in Kenya and Zambia
• Evidence Snapshot: “Nuestros Niños Sanos y Listos” (Our Children, Healthy and Smart) Pilot to Improve the Development and Nutrition of Young Children in Poor Rural Areas in Guatemala 

Our approach to creating child-focused change in the systems children depend on encompasses a broad range of activities, from policy reform and practice innovation to shifts in resource allocation and stakeholder engagement. The goal is to create a more equitable, accessible and high-quality ECD system that supports the holistic development of every child. 

We partner with local organizations and government-funded ECD services to ensure a comprehensive support network for facilitators, and to reinforce the local- and national-level infrastructure necessary for children’s development.

For instance, our Juega Conmigo (“Come Play with Me”) program, funded by the LEGO Foundation, partners with local media and government services to strengthen and scale playful parenting practices, helping children under 5 meet their developmental milestones and become creative, lifelong learners through meaningful play.

In Guatemala, when COVID-19 halted the program’s then in-person delivery, the team was forced to pivot and transform Come Play With Me’s messages from interpersonal to virtual. The program team recast the curriculum into 30 short radio dramas about two families experiencing the challenges of raising young children, which proved to be an effective medium for sharing information on how caregivers can help children achieve their developmental milestones through play. The spots were broadcast via radio, and sometimes by mobile speaker, in Spanish and four Mayan languages. The initiative not only went on to multiply its reach by a factor of 10, but it also brought demonstrably positive outcomes in caregivers’ knowledge of, attitudes toward and use of playful parenting in their daily lives. Since 2022, the program has been adapted and rolled out in Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, Ethiopia and Uganda, all with support from the LEGO Foundation.

From there, the countries diverged in some particulars in their approach to delivery depending on what made the most sense locally, and others created additional materials in collaboration with ministries of education and other experts. Ethiopia and Uganda also brought the program to children and families who had been displaced due to conflict in Ethiopia, supplementing the experience with in-person listening sessions and flash cards.

Meanwhile, Guatemala has scaled Come Play With Me with expanded content, reaching an average of over 100,000 families monthly. The radio spots were translated into multiple local languages as well as adapted for each specific context, with input from our local partner organizations who managed implementation. And in 2024, ChildFund Guatemala even signed a memorandum of understanding with the national radio service to broadcast the Come Play With Me spots — five times daily — at the national level.

In all cases, our country offices and local partners worked alongside government ministries and a variety of other collaborators, garnering visibility and voice in important forums where national policy is shaped.

ECD programs are increasingly recognized as powerful tools in the fight against inequality. The BMJ analysis on ECD underscores the importance of investing in early child development as a strategic approach to building human capital and promoting sustainable development. Global evidence programs can protect children against the effects of poverty, substantially reducing inequality.

Advocacy plays a vital role in promoting new legislation and policies, particularly in the realm of ECD. 

Recent examples: 

• Guatemala: Through community consultations, the country passed a national ECD Public Policy. 
• Brazil: The recently sanctioned Law 2861/2023 establishes positive parenting and the right to play as priority strategies for preventing violence against children. The legislative text came directly from ChildFund Brazil’s political advocacy work in the National Congress, supported by the Come Play With Me project.  
• U.S.: As members of the Thrive Coalition, we pushed for the implementation of the Global Child Thrive Act, which became law in 2021. It directs the U.S. government to integrate early childhood development programming for children and family members throughout foreign assistance programs.