This study evaluates the integration of two complementary poverty alleviation programs: Compassion International's (CI) child-focused Survival and Early Childhood Program with International Care Ministries' (ICM) household-level Transform + Family Academy intervention. CI's program provides holistic child development through health support, educational programming, social development, and spiritual formation via local church partners for children aged 3-5 years. ICM's Transform + Family Academy combines a 15-week household intervention targeting health education, livelihood training, and values formation with an 8-week early childhood education component delivered through home visits.
The primary aim of this research is to assess whether integrating household-level interventions with child-focused programming enhances early numeracy and literacy outcomes among children aged 3-5 living in extreme poverty in Western and Southern Mindanao, Philippines. The study also examines the intervention's impact on children's nutritional status and household financial resilience, including savings behaviors and access to social safety nets.
The investigators hypothesize that addressing household-level constraints including caregiver capacity, health, and economic challenges will enhance children's academic and nutritional outcomes alongside household financial resilience compared to child-focused programming alone.
Households must have a child between 3 to 5 years old who is currently registered in CI's Survival and Early Childhood Program.
Households must meet ICM's poverty criteria with a poverty score of 50 and above as determined through asset-based scoring and household income evaluation. Higher scores indicate poorer households.
Each participating household must include an adult family member aged 18 to 65 years who serves as a primary caregiver for the target child.
Households with previous participation in ICM's Transform program will be excluded from the study.
Parallel
Integrated Whole-Household Programming
Other interventionTreatment participants receive both Compassion International's Survival and Early Childhood Program (holistic child development through health support, educational programming, social development, and spiritual formation via local community partners) plus International Care Ministries' Transform + Family Academy intervention. The Transform component is a 15-week household-level program including health education covering malnutrition prevention, sanitation, respiratory infections, infant care; livelihood training focused on income diversification and business development with savings group formation; and values formation addressing personal character, family relationships, and decision-making. The Family Academy component provides home-based early numeracy and phonics instruction (one hour per topic) to children aged 3-5 with concurrent caregiver capacity building for school readiness support, delivered over 8 weeks.
Standard Child-Focused Programming
Other interventionCompassion International's Survival and Early Childhood Program provides holistic child development through health support, nutritional assistance, educational programming, social development, and spiritual formation delivered via local community partners.
Children's early numeracy competency at post-intervention and 12 months
Children's early numeracy competency is assessed through proctored assessments testing early learning proficiency using eight subtasks to measure preschool children's early math skills. The assessment measures children's mathematical skills across eight components: color recognition (10 points), shape recognition (8 points), rote count (10 points), object count (10 points), numeral identification (10 points), numeral comparison (9 points), missing number (10 points), and simple addition (10 points). The total possible score is 77 points, with higher scores indicating better numeracy skills.
Children's phonics and literacy competency at post-intervention and 12 months
Children's phonics and literacy competency is assessed through proctored assessments testing pre-reading skills and phonemic awareness. The assessment measures children's reading and phonics skills across four components: alphabet recitation (10 points), letter name identification (20 points), beginning sound recognition (20 points), and letter sound identification (20 points). The total possible score is 70 points, with higher scores indicating better literacy and phonics skills.
Children's malnutrition status at 2 months and 12 months
Children's malnutrition status is evaluated through anthropometric measurements where weight-for-height ratios are transformed into standardized z-scores based on World Health Organization reference standards for pediatric populations. Malnutrition in children under 5 years is defined as weight-for-height z-scores below -2 standard deviations in the absence of edema.
Household savings at 2 months and 12 months
The household savings measure assesses household financial resources through two indicators: the probability of having savings (binary measure where 0=no savings, 1=has savings) and total household savings amount. This measure evaluates household financial resilience and household capacity to accumulate and maintain financial reserves. Higher values indicate improved wealth accumulation and financial security.
Social safety net access at 2 months and 12 months
Social safety net access is measured as a composite index assessing access to emergency financial support outside immediate household and close relatives. The index evaluates participants' ability to access 40 Philippine Pesos and 1,000 Philippine Pesos in emergency situations from extended social networks. The index is constructed using standardized methodology following Kling, Liebman, and Katz (2007), normalizing individual components against the control group before standardizing the aggregate measure. Higher scores indicate greater access to financial support networks.
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International Care Ministries, Philippines
Lead sponsor
Compassion International, United States of America
Collaborator
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