Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation, St. George's, Grenada.
Psychological Services Center, St. George's University, St. George's, Grenada.
Front Public Health. 2023 Aug 29;11:1127687. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1127687. eCollection 2023.
Childrearing practices in the Caribbean and other postcolonial states have long been associated with corporal punishment and are influenced by expectations of children for respectfulness and obedience. Evidence across settings shows that physical punishment of young children is both ineffective and detrimental. Saving Brains Grenada (SBG) implemented a pilot study of an intervention based on the Conscious Discipline curriculum that aimed to build adult caregivers' skills around non-violent child discipline. We hypothesized that attitudes towards corporal punishment would shift to be negative as adults learned more positive discipline methods, and that child neurodevelopment would correspondingly improve. This report reviews the impact of monitoring and evaluation on the design and implementation of the intervention. Study 1 presents findings from the pilot study. Despite positive gains in neurodevelopmental outcomes among children in the intervention compared to controls, attitudes towards corporal punishment and reported use of it did not change. Additionally, several internal conflicts in the measures used to assess corporal punishment behaviors and attitudes were identified. Study 2 is a response to learning from Study 1 and highlights the importance for monitoring and evaluation to be data-informed, adaptive, and culturally appropriate. In Study 2, the SBG research team conducted cognitive interviews and group discussions with stakeholders to assess the content and comprehensibility of the Attitudes Towards Corporal Punishment Scale (ACP). This yielded insights into the measurement of attitudes towards corporal punishment and related parenting behavior, and prompted several revisions to the ACP. To accurately evaluate the intervention's theory of change and its goal to reduce violence against children, reliable and appropriate measures of attitudes towards corporal punishment and punishment behaviors are needed. Together, these two studies emphasize the value of continuous monitoring, evaluation, and learning in the implementation, adaptation, evaluation, and scaling of SBG and similar early childhood development interventions.
加勒比和其他后殖民国家的育儿实践长期以来一直与体罚有关，并受到对儿童尊重和服从的期望的影响。来自不同背景的证据表明，对幼儿进行身体惩罚既无效又有害。Saving Brains Grenada（SBG）实施了一项基于意识纪律课程的干预措施试点研究，旨在培养成人照顾者在非暴力儿童纪律方面的技能。我们假设，随着成年人学习更多积极的纪律方法，他们对体罚的态度会转变为负面，并且儿童神经发育也会相应改善。本报告审查了监测和评估对干预设计和实施的影响。研究 1 介绍了试点研究的结果。尽管干预组儿童的神经发育结果有积极的改善，但对体罚的态度和报告的使用并没有改变。此外，还发现了一些用于评估体罚行为和态度的措施内部存在冲突。研究 2 是对从研究 1 中吸取的教训的回应，强调了监测和评估需要数据驱动、适应性强和文化适宜的重要性。在研究 2 中，SBG 研究团队与利益相关者进行了认知访谈和小组讨论，以评估体罚态度量表（ACP）的内容和理解度。这为评估体罚态度和相关育儿行为提供了深入的了解，并促使对 ACP 进行了几项修订。为了准确评估干预措施的变革理论及其减少针对儿童暴力的目标，需要可靠和适当的体罚态度和惩罚行为措施。这两项研究共同强调了在实施、调整、评估和推广 SBG 及类似早期儿童发展干预措施时，持续监测、评估和学习的价值。
