Following Promoted Child Care Practices

This is a composite indicator summarising how many essential child care (including child feeding) practices caregivers follow. See examples below.

Conduct individual interviews with a representative sample of caregivers assessing whether they follow important child care (incl. feeding) practices which your project promotes (and which are not covered by other indicators). The assessed practices need to be identified by a participatory assessment and be systematically addressed by the project's activities. Examples of such practices are: giving children small snacks (e.g. local fruit); giving children food on their own plate (to ensure they eat their share); breastfeeding even when the mother is ill (e.g. with cold); or ensuring that the child does not stay in areas contaminated by animal faeces.

To calculate the indicator's value, divide the number of caregivers following the minimum number of promoted practices (e.g. at least 3 out of 5 practices) by the total number of interviewed caregivers. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage. Unless the practices are very easy to follow (or already very widespread), your indicator should expect people to follow approx. 60% of promoted practices. An example of such indicator can be: "75% of caregivers follow at least 3 out of 5 promoted child care practices". However, always set the target depending on the local context and your intervention's design. 

Disaggregate the data by wealth and other relevant criteria.

1) As “caregiver” is understood the child’s mother (unless her role was replaced by someone else). Only in specific cases we first identify who the most influential caregivers in a household is and then we interview the person.