How We Work

250 million children with disabilities and children outside of family care are excluded from the global health and nutrition systems — not because their needs are untreatable, but because those systems weren’t built to reach them. The result: they are three times more likely to be malnourished than their peers and twice as likely to die from malnutrition. This cycle is entirely preventable. But only if these children are counted and included.

SPOON is the leading organization at the intersection of child malnutrition and disability inclusion. Our “Every Child Thrives” approach is built specifically to embed disability-inclusive nutrition and feeding practices into the care facilities, health systems, and communities that already serve these children.

Our Approach: Every Child Thrives

Training

Thousands trained

We equip local service providers-health workers, rehabilitation workers, nurses, social workers—to deliver disability-inclusive nutrition and feeding care through structured training, ongoing mentorship, and a training-of-trainers model that cascades knowledge to frontline caregivers.

Learn more about how we train.

Count Me In

Tens of thousands of assessments

Our nutrition, feeding, and developmental screening app supports service providers to assess children, generate individualized care plans, monitor progress over time, and collect data on a population that has historically gone uncounted.

Learn more about Count Me In.

Advocacy

Millions reached by inclusive systems

We use program data, evidence, and coalition-building to push governments, funders, and international organizations to include children with disabilities and children without family care in their policies, programs, and investments.

Learn more about our advocacy.

Every Child Thrives doesn't just add up. It multiplies.

By working through partners and governments, our approach scales small investments into country-level change. We leverage the data, stories, and momentum from our trainings and the use of Count Me In to make the case for the policies, programs, and funding to create an inclusive world for all children.

We don't just reach children one at a time. We change the systems that reach them all.