Through a grant from AVPN, SPOON launched a new project in partnership with OneSky focused on providing holistic and inclusive care for children in home-based childcare centers in Vietnam.
A Strong Partnership
SPOON is thrilled to partner with OneSky, a global non-profit that trains caregivers to provide nurturing responsive care and early education for vulnerable children. They have been working in Vietnam since 2017. For this project, SPOON and OneSky are collaborating to deliver a training program for home-based childcare providers so they can make mealtime a place of learning and nourishment for children at risk of developmental delays. This training-of-trainers project will integrate into OneSky’s existing programming in Vietnam’s Da Nang, Hai Duong, Quang Nam, and Quang Ngai provinces.
Because of OneSky’s existing training structures in Vietnam, we have the potential to reach thousands of children at risk of developmental delays through this project. By partnering to address nutrition, feeding, and child development and offering a holistic package of services and resources, together we can achieve greater impact.
A New Focus
This is the first time that SPOON has worked in home-based childcare centers. These daycares meet the demand for care for children of migrant factory workers living in Vietnam’s industrial zones, many of whom lack the residency status to send their children to public daycares and cannot afford private schools. These daycares are run by local entrepreneurial women, usually mothers, out of their homes.
Children at home-based childcare centers are vulnerable to malnutrition and developmental delays, and they are at risk of being exposed to feeding practices that can inhibit skill development, independence, and safe feeding. They are also at risk of family separation. As these children eat most of their meals at daycare, training their childcare providers on safe feeding, nutrition, and child development during mealtime can drastically improve their overall health and development. Providing this improved care can also strengthen family-based care for these children.
March Site Visit
In March, SPOON staff traveled to Vietnam to meet with OneSky and ministry officials, learn more about home-based childcares, and engage in program and curriculum design workshops. The team was able to visit two home-based childcares in Hai Duong as well as OneSky’s Early Learning Center in Da Nang.
The trip also included focus group conversations with home-based childcare providers, public kindergarten teachers, and OneSky Lead Trainers. Through these discussions, we learned more about the challenges faced at home-based childcare centers and how our project can fill gaps. The work completed during this trip will help us contextualize our training curriculum and integrate it into OneSky’s existing systems.
June Training and Beyond
SPOON staff will return to Vietnam in June to train Lead Trainers at OneSky’s Early Learning Center in Da Nang. These trainers will then train hundreds of childcare providers to improve the health and development of the children in their care.
