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Dr. Carina Omoeva, project director and principal investigator
What happens when a program wants to expand its reach and benefit more people? “Scaling up” is complex and uncertain, and while some programs scale successfully, many others struggle. To find out why, the LEGO Foundation asked FHI 360 to study the journeys of four parenting programs from pilot to scale.
The programs were incorporating play in parenting from birth — a novel concept in many contexts. FHI 360’s research team gathered data on their quality, effectiveness and impact in cycles, sharing data continuously with the programs. The partners would then “make sense of the evidence … and make changes and adaptations,” says FHI 360’s Dr. Carina Omoeva, project director and principal investigator.
The partnership shows how research and learning can lead to better informed and more thoughtful programs. “The study helped uncover what works and what does not for parenting programs at scale, and most importantly, why,” says Omoeva. “And beyond that, it allowed the programs to own their learning.”
Facilitating learning meant more than just evaluating outcomes; it meant helping people see the story their data was telling and empowering them to make changes in real time.
