Run by School of Human and Behavioural Sciences

20.000 Credits or 10.000 ECTS Credits

Semester 2

Organiser: Prof Helen Henningham

This module is highly practical and participatory. Students are provided with required reading material prior to each session and this material is reviewed through demonstration, role play, discussion and brainstorming techniques. There are no formal lectures. The module targets students interested in early childhood interventions for children at risk for poor development and focuses on preventative interventions (i.e. the focus is not on treating children with mental health problems). The module will provide students with an overview of the key issues in the field of early childhood intervention research (for children from birth to age 8 years) in low and middle-income countries. The focus will be on designing, adapting, evaluating and disseminating psychological and behavioural interventions to improve young children’s development including their cognition, academic achievement, behaviour and mental health in low resource settings. Through the module, students will learn how psychological principles are applied to global early childhood intervention programming and evaluation.

Topics covered include:

Magnitude of the problem of poor child development in low and middle income countries (LMIC)

Risk and protective factors for child development in LMIC

Evidence-based early childhood interventions in LMIC. –What works? For whom does it work? How and why does it work?

Factors to be considered in scaling up effective early childhood interventions in LMIC.

Factors to be considered in the design and adaptation of early childhood interventions for use in low resource settings: why, where, with whom, what, how and for how long

Evaluating the effectiveness of early childhood interventions.

Critical reading of global early childhood intervention literature

threshold

Blogs and assignments: student provided an adequate response but answers were largely based on lecture and workshop material and essential reading, with no real development of arguments, critical evaluation or evidence of study beyond the basics (basics = lecture material and essential reading). Structure and organisation of material was adequate.

good

Good would be approximate to the B grades:

Blogs and assignments: Student provided a comprehensive response. Material was well organised and well-structured. There was clear evidence of a good understanding of the material, and that a deeper understanding of material presented in lectures and workshops had been achieved due to relevant further reading and self-study. There was some evidence of appropriate critical evaluation and discussion and some evidence of novel synthesis between psychological principles and the field of global early child development.

excellent

Excellent would approximate to the A grades:

Blogs and assignments: Student provided a comprehensive and accurate response, with sound clarity of argument and expression. Distinction level answers evidenced a depth of insight into material presented in lectures and workshops and relevant further and additional reading. Appropriate critical evaluation of evidence and discussion of material supported all responses. Novel application of psychological understanding to global child development issues was clearly evident throughout responses and was relevant, appropriate and interesting.

1. Understand the key considerations in designing and implementing early childhood interventions for use in low resource settings.

2. Critically evaluate and respond to literature describing early childhood interventions in LMIC.

3. Understand the factors affecting wide-scale dissemination of effective programmes and how these affect intervention design and implementation.

4. Apply behaviour change principles to the process of designing, implementing, evaluating and disseminating early childhood programmes in LMIC.

		Hours
Seminar	Eighteen hours of seminars/discussion groups will take place over the semester. These seminars involve three hour sessions over a total of 6 weeks. The seminars introduce the material in a practical and participatory way and will involve introducing students to a range of early childhood interventions including examining and critiquing intervention curricula and training manuals and watching videos of early childhood interventions. These materials will not be available on Blackboard because of confidentiality and copyright issues and hence attendance at these seminars is required for successful completion of the course.	18
Private study	Private study: students should expect to complete 144 hours of self-study in order to achieve the learning outcomes for this module. Self-study will take the form of essential (+ further and additional reading), conducting a literature review, blog and comment writing and designing and preparing intervention materials. In addition to attending classes and workshops, students should be spending approx 12 hours each week during term-time conducting a literature review, writing blogs and preparing intervention materials.	144
Group Project	Students will need to complete 20 hours of group study and group work over the course of the module. Group work will involve working in pairs and groups to design and practice key skills related to designing, implementing, evaluating and disseminating early childhood programmes. Students will need to commit approximately 4 hours per fortnight over the course of the module to this group work.	20
Workshop	Three workshops will be held from 9.30am to 4.30am (with a 1-hour lunch break) on three separate Saturdays during the semester. During the first workshop, students will participate in a training workshop and during the second workshop, students will take turns to deliver the workshop using appropriate behaviour change principles and techniques. Prior to the third workshop, students work in pairs to design a short skills-based training and each pair will deliver a portion of this training to the larger group during the third workshop. Attendance at all three workshops is essential in order to fulfil the learning outcomes for this course.	18

• Literacy - Proficiency in reading and writing through a variety of media
• Self-Management - Able to work unsupervised in an efficient, punctual and structured manner. To examine the outcomes of tasks and events, and judge levels of quality and importance
• Exploring - Able to investigate, research and consider alternatives
• Information retrieval - Able to access different and multiple sources of information
• Inter-personal - Able to question, actively listen, examine given answers and interact sensitevely with others
• Critical analysis & Problem Solving - Able to deconstruct and analyse problems or complex situations. To find solutions to problems through analyses and exploration of all possibilities using appropriate methods, rescources and creativity.
• Presentation - Able to clearly present information and explanations to an audience. Through the written or oral mode of communication accurately and concisely.
• Teamwork - Able to constructively cooperate with others on a common task, and/or be part of a day-to-day working team
• Mentoring - Able to support, help, guide, inspire and/or coach others
• Caring - Showing concern for others; caring for children, people with disabilities and/or the elderly
• Self-awareness & Reflectivity - Having an awareness of your own strengths, weaknesses, aims and objectives. Able to regularly review, evaluate and reflect upon the performance of yourself and others
• Leadership - Able to lead and manage, develop action plans and objectives, offer guidance and direction to others, and cope with the related pressures such authority can result in

1. Students will enhance their interpersonal and communication skills through group and pair discussions and through the production of blogs and easily accessible training materials for use in an early childhood intervention.

2. Students will improve computer literacy through literature searches, developing early childhood intervention material and written work.

3. Students will learn critical reading skills with a particular focus on evaluating global early childhood intervention literature.

4. Students will learn the steps in choosing, adapting and/or developing early childhood interventions for use in LMIC.

5. Students will learn how to design and conduct training workshops to maximise the likelihood of behaviour change among training participants.

6. Students will learn about appropriate study designs for use in intervention research.

7. Students will develop time-management and independent study skills through group, pair and independent learning sessions, attending classes and adhering to assessment deadlines.

Resource implications for students

Students will need to prepare training materials as part of the assessment for this course. These materials are likely to require cartridge paper, glue, markers etc. in addition to printing costs.

Reading list

Recent journal articles will be used and will be made available to students.

Optional in courses:

• C8BY: MA Psychology year 1 (MA/PSYCH)
• C8EF: MSc Clinical and Health Psychology year 1 (MSC/CHPSY)
• C8ER: MSc Clin & Health Psychology (with Incorporated Pre-Masters) year 1 (MSC/CHPSY1)
• C8DX: MSc Counselling year 2 (MSC/CNSL)
• C8DU: MSc Psychology year 1 (MSC/PSY)
• C8EX: MSc Psychology (with Incorporated Pre-Masters) year 1 (MSC/PSY1)
• C8AL: MSc Psychological Research year 1 (MSC/PSYRES)