How to Conduct The Training

The manual provides guidance to the trainers on organizing, conducting and supervising the trainings at different levels. The training will provide necessary information and practical guidelines to nurturing care and Key Family Care Practices (KFCP) for maximizing the physical, cognitive, socioemotional and cultural development.

After completing this training, the LHWs/other frontline workers such as family welfare workers, health and nutrition workers, Early Childhood Development (ECD)/Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) facilitators or others, can use the counseling cards during their household visits.

The objective of this training is to improve the capacity of LHW/other frontline workers to increase their understanding of Early Childhood Development (ECD) to improve effective communication and counseling. After this training, LHW/other frontline workers will be able to provide education on parenting and responsive care to bring a positive change in people’s behaviors towards holistic child survival, development and protection following a life course approach.

This training contains a new counseling approach, and appropriately timed messages on 22 key family care practices that LHW/other frontline worker will deliver in the family/community with the help of counseling cards.

A great trainer follows these 6 principles:

Know the Concepts:

Early brain development has its foundation on two components:

1. The trainers will need to have a good grasp of the key concepts of ECD and responsive caregiving, which will be the core foundation, based on which the Key Family Care Practices (KFCP) have been designed.
2. Key Family Care Practices (KFCP): this set of 22 practices are the basic knowledge for LHW/other frontline workers.
   1. To empower the LHW/other frontline worker with this knowledge, the trainers themselves need to have a grasp of the importance of these practices and the ways these practices can be promoted among family and community.

• Knowledge, however useful, is not enough for initiating and sustaining new behaviors. Frontline workers need to effectively communicate about these behaviors with their community. Knowing the context in which a certain behavior may/may not be happening and providing solutions for barriers if any, is an important step.
• Moreover, helping mothers and families in taking the first step towards adopting a seemingly difficult new behavior, is also required.
  • The simple technique of Ask, Brainstorm, Coach (ABC) of communication is a powerful way of talking to families and communities.
    • The trainers should read, understand and practice these 3 steps during the training so that they can be confident in helping LHW/other frontline workers learn this effective way of persuasive communication.

Follow the Steps:

There are 4 main steps for each session of the training. These include:

1. Introduce the topic, the session objectives, and present the content with the help of power-point slides or flip charts etc.
2. Conduct an interactive discussion. Ensure participation of all trainees, listen to their experiences and encourage discussion.
3. Provide scenarios and have the participants do a roleplay where relevant. The scenarios are provided in some sessions and gives instructions for role-play.
4. Feedback from the roleplay and conclude the session. Once roleplay finishes, ask the groups to provide their feedback. Add your own comments in the end and then conclude the session.

Use slides and materials:

A good trainer makes the maximum use of training materials.

• The training materials will consist of the manual, counselling cards, flyers and other relevant material.
• A set of power point slides is provided for you to use in your session. You can copy the points from slides on flipcharts and use them if power point presentation is not possible due to lack of equipment or electricity.
• You may also think of props (e.g., a doll or a home-made rattle) to add color and interest to your training sessions.

Use Energizers:

Energizers are short activities that encourage playfulness and laughter. These usually involve physical movement and can either be used at the beginning of a session to illustrate a focus or encourage unity or later in the session as a break to ‘energize’ the participants.

Role Play:

This is a way of acting out particular scenarios. It is an effective way to prepare for unfamiliar or unexpected situations. Acting out scenarios helps LHW/other frontline workers to explore how others are likely to respond to key messages, improve their communication skills, and build self-confidence.

Handouts:

Sessions have handouts for participants with key messages that are critical for this training and the trainer should make sure there are enough copies for the participants.