Global Parenting Initiative

The Global Parenting Initiative (GPI) is a five-year research-within-implementation project aiming to provide access to free, evidence-based, playful parenting support to promote child learning and prevent violence at scale in the Global South. The Global Parenting Initiative has 6 core themes: 1. Evaluate: Research-within-implementation studies to increase the evidence of the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of human-digital playful parenting programmes 2. Innovate: Build a cohesive ecosystem of agile, adaptable, and scalable evidence-based human-digital parenting interventions, by developing and optimising playful parenting technologies 3. Facilitate: Create centres of excellence in playful parenting in the Global South, and shifting expertise, leadership, and power from the Global North to South 4. Advocate: Create an enabling environment for regional and country-level policymaking to support the sustained institutionalisation of playful parenting programmes 5. Generate: Build a sustainable infrastructure to support scale-up and capacity building of human-digital playful parenting programmes 6. Accelerate: Support the scale-up of low-cost, open-source playful parenting programmes embedded into national government and NGO service delivery systems Our core partners include the University of Oxford, the University of Cape Town, Makerere University, Ateneo de Manila University, McMaster University, the National Institute for Medical Research Tanzania, Stellenbosch University, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Peace Culture Foundation, IDEMS, Clowns Without Borders South Africa, and Parenting for Lifelong Health. The GPI also works closely with UNICEF, the WHO, the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, and Early Childhood Development Action Network. The GPI is funded by the LEGO Foundation, Oak Foundation, The Human Safety Net, the World Childhood Foundation, the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund, and UNICEF. GPI@spi.ox.ac.uk