Whole Child International

Whole Child International is a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 2004. Whole Child focuses on improving the quality of care for vulnerable children worldwide by working within childcare institutions (orphanages) and in limited-resource childcare centers where children often show the same unmet developmental needs and poor outcomes as those in orphanages. Whole Child's program is built as a countrywide collaboration, working together with a national government and a major local university to implement a unified strategy across a nation's childcare system.

Whole Child's strategy of working within systems of existing orphanages in multiple countries distinguishes it from most other international NGOs, which assert that orphanages are an unacceptable alternative to family-based living, and therefore should be defunded and denied efforts at improvement in favor of their total replacement ("deinstitutionalization"). Whole Child also recognizes the value of family-based systems, but since the number and population of orphanages continues to expand, Whole Child will continue creating solutions in order to improve child development outcomes until the orphanages have successfully been replaced.^[1]

Theory of Change

Whole Child’s model is based on the theories of Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler (1902–1984), the Reggio Emilia approach to Early Childhood Education, and other sources. The Pikler Institute, in Budapest, Hungary, was founded in 1946 to care for children orphaned and abandoned during the Second World War. Pikler’s methodology involves increasing opportunities for meaningful attachment and bonding between caregiver and child through “continuity of care.”

Continuity of care ensures that children have one consistent caregiver instead of multiple caregivers over a long period of time. It additionally creates of small groups assigned to a single caregiver to replace larger, more chaotic populations randomly assigned to an often non-continuous staff. Research has found that children with secure attachment relationships with their caregivers are more likely to play and explore and to interact with other adults (Raikes, 1996).^[2] Conversely, more frequent changes in caregivers have been reported to be associated with negative child outcomes including high levels of distress (Cryer et al., 2005) withdrawing behaviors and higher levels of aggression later on (Howes & Hamilton, 1993).^[3]

Program Implementation and History

Working with the government of Nicaragua, Whole Child conducted its initial work in varied institutional settings in Managua, Nicaragua. In 2006, Whole Child began training caregivers at the El Diviño Niño children’s home in Managua to improve the quality of childcare given to their children. In 2013, Whole Child achieved proof of concept and completed program design for implementation in countries of need. In 2014, the Inter-American Development Bank granted Whole Child a $1 million technical collaboration to implement the resulting program in neighboring El Salvador, whose government is an active collaborator in the project along with the University of Central America in San Salvador.

Karen Spencer, then Karen Gordon, a Canadian-born American social entrepreneur, founded Whole Child in 2004, motivated by the plight of institutionalized children and a lack of major organizations committing to working within orphanages as long as children continue to live in them. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) has recognized the work of Whole Child International since 2008, and in 2009 Whole Child was selected as “one of the top NGOs” in the CGI membership roster. With funding from the Inter-American Development Bank, TACA Airlines, and other donors, Whole Child programs are being brought to scale through their 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action, “Elevating Early Childhood Care in Latin America.” The organization also owes its existence to visionary early support by Tom Mower of SISEL International, its founder Karen Spencer, and others who have been drawn to its unique social-entrepreneurial approach to solving a seemingly intractable social problem.^[4]

Whole Child works in collaboration with the University of Central America in Managua, Nicaragua, as well as the Pikler Institute, the Center for Excellence in Child Development at the University of California, Davis, the Office of Child Development at the University of Pittsburgh, and the WestEd Center for Child and Family Studies in Sausalito, California.

In March 2010, "A caregiver-child socioemotional and relationship rating scale" was published in the Infant Mental Health Journal with support from Whole Child.^[5] Whole Child's programs in new countries are now evaluated by Duke University's Global Health Institute.

References

External links

• wholechild.org