About

The Caring for the Caregiver (CFC) package focuses on increasing frontline workers’ capacity to provide high quality counselling and parenting support services. Using a family-centred approach, CFC trains frontline workers and builds their skills to implement intervention activities aimed at improving caregivers’ emotional well-being and their social support, thereby enabling improved child development outcomes.


This foundational e-learning course provides an introduction to the CFC approach. Through this course, participants will:

  • Learn about the purpose and key principles of the CFC approach.
  • Identify how CFC might apply in their country context.
  • Learn how CFC has been adapted and implemented in different countries.
This course is not a full training, but rather an introduction to the CFC approach. For participants interested in implementing CFC, this course is the first step of a broader training and technical support programme.

Audience

UNICEF staff, implementing partners, and government stakeholders interested in adapting and rolling out the CFC package in their own context/countries.

Learning objectives

At the end of the training participants should be able to:

  1. Understand the importance of caregivers’ mental health and emotional well-being for early childhood development.
  2. Describe the CFC approach.
  3. Identify how the CFC package can be adapted and rolled-out through existing systems and programmes.

Duration

The length of the course is approximately 2.5 hours long.

Content

The course is divided into 3 modules, each of which has several lessons as per the below:


  1. Background and rationale of the CFC approach
    This module consists of 4 lessons and it takes approximately 45 minutes to complete. In this module, participants will learn about the background, rationale, and aim of the CFC package.

  2. Introduction to the CFC approach
    This module consists of 6 lessons and it takes approximately 45 minutes to complete. In this module participants will learn about the key principles and components of the CFC approach.

  3. Applying the CFC approach
    This module consists of 5 lessons and it takes approximately 60 minutes to complete. 

    In this module, participants will about the application of CFC for caregivers of children ages 0-2 years. Participants will also learn about the process for adapting and rolling-out CFC within existing programmes and systems at the country level.

Acknowledgements

This course was developed by the Early Childhood Development team at the UNICEF HQ and the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS). This course was produced with the generous support of The LEGO Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and the Government of the Netherlands.

The content development of this course was led by Suzanne Clulow (University of the Witwatersrand) with technical support from Stephanie Redinger and Caitlin Briedenhann (University of the Witwatersrand), and Radhika Mitter, Dilara Avdagic, and Shreya Prakash (UNICEF). Overall leadership and guidance was provided by Tamsen Rochat (Manchester Metropolitan University), Boniface Kakhobwe, Ana Nieto, Erinna Dia, and Chemba Raghavan (UNICEF). 

Instructional design team: Neting Informatika Ltd

Agora support team: Jose Huwaidi Bueno and Miklos Hermesz

Contact Details 

For content queries, questions and suggestions, please contact Boniface Kakhobwe, Early Childhood Development Specialist at UNICEF.