A decade of evidence on parenting, caregiving and family-focused programming

Introduction

Parenting, caregiving, and family-focused programming are central to children’s wellbeing, protection, learning, and resilience.

A decade of UNICEF evaluation evidence shows that children thrive when caregivers are supported — not only with information, but through trusted relationships, frontline services, community platforms, and public systems.

The evidence is clear: parenting support works best when it is sustained, adapted to families' needs, linked to services, and measured through real outcomes for children and caregivers.

Scope of the review

This review draws on UNICEF evaluation evidence from 2014–2024, covering parenting, caregiving, and family-focused programming across development and humanitarian contexts.

The evidence includes evaluations on:

• parenting support and positive discipline;
• early childhood development and nurturing care;
• responsive caregiving, play, stimulation, and early learning;
• home visiting and community-based family support;
• family strengthening and prevention of separation;
• family-based alternative care;
• violence prevention and child protection;
• caregiver engagement in health, nutrition, WASH and education;
• disability inclusion and family-centred early intervention;
• social protection, cash transfers, and family resilience during crises.

What the evidence says

Across the evidence base, six key findings consistently emerge:

1. Families need systems that support care

Parenting and caregiving programmes are more effective when embedded in public systems such as health, education, early childhood development (ECD), child protection, social protection, and community services.

2. Behaviour change takes relationships

Information alone is not enough. Caregivers need sustained support through coaching, peer reinforcement, trusted frontline engagement, and practical tools.

3. Positive parenting protects children

Parenting support can reduce harsh discipline, improve communication, and strengthen family relationships. It is both an ECD and child protection strategy.

4. Community platforms bring support closer to families

Home visits, community workers, schools, ECD centres, and child-friendly spaces help reach families where they live, especially those facing poverty, displacement, disability, violence, or exclusion.

5. Family-based care works, but scale remains limited

Evidence consistently favours safe, family-based alternatives to institutional care, including kinship care and foster care. However, these models remain under-resourced in many contexts.

6. Results for families are still under-measured

Evaluations often focus on activities and reach, but less frequently measure caregiving quality, family functioning, father engagement, caregiver wellbeing, violence reduction, or child development outcomes.

Most representative evaluation reports

The review draws on a wide range of UNICEF evaluations. The following are among the most representative:

• Early Childhood Development, stimulation and responsive care, 2014–2021 — global evidence on responsive caregiving, systems strengthening, programme quality, and scale.
• UNICEF Early Childhood Development kit for emergencies — evidence on play, stimulation, and caregiver support in humanitarian settings.
• Parenting for child development in Papua New Guinea — evidence on positive parenting, reduced harsh discipline, and family wellbeing.
• Seres de Cuidado, Colombia — evidence on integrated caregiving practices, including pregnancy care, vaccination, play, feeding, hygiene, and home safety.
• DIMF rural family modality, Colombia — evidence on home visits, group sessions, and remote support for rural families.
• Space for Kids to be Kids, India — evidence on frontline-worker support, mothers’ and fathers’ meetings, home visits, and nurturing care.
• Home visiting and ECD evaluations in Serbia, Kosovo and Turkmenistan — evidence on Primary Health Care (PHC)-linked family support and early identification.
• Croatia family-based care evaluation — evidence on strengthening families to prevent separation.
• Kazakhstan and MENA violence against children evaluations — evidence on parenting, child protection systems and violence prevention.
• Nepal COVID-19 cash transfer evaluation — evidence on shock-responsive support for families with children.

How the evidence changed over time

2014–2016: Parenting was often implicit

Parents and caregivers were frequently treated as recipients of information or channels for service uptake.

2017–2019: Parenting became more explicit

Evaluations increasingly focused on nurturing care, early stimulation, school readiness, home visiting, positive discipline, and family preservation.

2020–2022: COVID-19 highlighted caregiver stress

The pandemic accelerated remote support, cash transfers, home learning, digital outreach, and exposed pressures faced on caregivers, highlighting the importance of family support systems.

2023–2024: The focus shifted to scale and quality

The key challenge is sustaining parenting support and caregiving at scale, with adequate quality, equity, financing, and outcome measurement.

Results achieved for children and families

Across the evidence base, evaluations report progress in several areas:

• improved caregiver knowledge and practices;
• stronger positive parenting and reduced harsh discipline;
• expanded reach through home visits, community workers, schools, ECD centres, and digital platforms;
• increased use of family-based care and reintegration;
• improved support for children with disabilities and developmental delays;
• continuity of family support during emergencies;
• stronger links across caregiving, health, nutrition, education, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), and child protection systems.

What programmes and evaluators should assess

Future evaluations should assess whether parenting and family-focused interventions are:

• embedded in public systems;
• financed for scale;
• supported by trained and supervised frontline workers;
• reaching the most vulnerable families;
• designed for sustained behaviour change;
• engaging fathers and male caregivers;
• linked to referral and case-management systems;
• measuring caregiving quality, family functioning, caregiver wellbeing, and child outcomes.

Way forward

The next generation of parenting, caregiving, and family-focused programming should move from promising pilots to sustained systems.

Key priorities include:

1. Embedding parenting support in health, ECD, education, child protection, and social protection systems.
2. Investing in frontline workers, including training, supervision, tools, and manageable caseloads.
3. Strengthening social and behaviour change approaches based on trust, repetition, and coaching.
4. Engaging fathers and male caregivers more intentionally.
5. Prioritizing vulnerable families facing poverty, disability, displacement, violence, or exclusion.
6. Financing family support through public systems.
7. Measuring what matters: caregiving quality, family functioning, child development, violence reduction, and caregiver wellbeing.