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Monitoring Feeding Practices
Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices Monitoring Tool and Guide
The Manoff Group created a tool to help programs monitor progress in achieving key behaviors related to infant and young child feeding. It is targeted at enabling community workers to track individual behaviors during each counseling session or contact point with a caregiver, ultimately providing a record of progress toward reaching an optimal mix of practices for the child. The guidance provides step-by-step instructions for using the tool in different program settings.
Resources for agriculture project designers
Fact sheet: Achieving Nutritional Impact and Food Security through Agriculture
Nutrition and Food Security Impacts of Agriculture Projects:A Review of Experience
Nutritional Impact Assessment Tool
Nutritional Impact Assessment Tool: Guidance
Integrating Household Nutrition and Food Security Objectives into Proposed Agriculture Projects: Illustrative Guidance
Too often, agriculture programs are designed under the assumption that increases in production and in local income will translate directly into better nutrition across communities. But, the reality is that many factors necessary for adequate nutrition simply cannot be bought, like health, education, clean water, and gender equality. And, nutritionally vulnerable groups may not enjoy the benefits of—or even may be hurt by—improvements in production if they result in reduced employment opportunities for women, increases in the cost of foods that have an important role in poor peoples’ diets, or uptake for commercial production of marginal lands previously used to produce crops disproportionately consumed by the poor. Through IYCN, The Manoff Group took a significant step forward in promoting the link between agriculture and nutrition, developing a new tool to assist agriculture program decision makers in integrating nutrition goals and the needs of the nutritionally vulnerable into implementation plans.
Guidance for formative research
Guidance for Formative Research on Maternal Nutrition
The Basics: Planning for Formative Research for Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices
The Manoff Group developed two guides for people who experienced in formative research, but have never applied it to nutrition, the first offers a brief orientation to the key infant and young child feeding topics; major formative research methods and techniques to apply in this area; a process for determining the appropriate formative research approach depending on program needs; and instructions for analyzing the information collected. It also includes samples and examples of formative research tools and plans and suggestions for analytical tools and formats. The second presents the different elements involved in creating and implementing formative research for maternal nutrition, including: understanding the general maternal nutrition context, choosing the best research methods and participants, and developing research guides and tools. The tools are not only important for practical use, but also in that they call attention to the fact that formative research is an important element in the development of effective maternal, infant and young child nutrition materials to help in supporting and promoting pro-nutrition practices.
Improving micronutrient powder use and complementary feeding practices
Mother reminder card: feeding for children aged 7 months to 12 months
Mother reminder card: feeding for children aged 13 months to 24 months
Micronutrient powder package insert
In Bangladesh, the IYCN project worked with CARE’s Window of Opportunity Program to prevent anemia and improve nutrition, largely through the addition of micronutrient powders (also known as sprinkles) to home-prepared foods. The Manoff Group contributed to operations research to evaluate whether this program and similar initiatives to distribute sprinkles could be used as a communications platform for broader efforts to improve complementary feeding practices. Using priority behaviors selected by the Bangladesh Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as a base, The Manoff Group then guided a local design agency in the production of key materials to support the proper use of sprinkles, including a graphic insert for inclusion with the powder packaging, banners, and reminders; as well as developing curricula for community workers on counseling mothers.
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Ethiopia
Focusing on Improving Complementary Feeding in Ethiopia: Trials of Improved Practices in an Urban Area
Nutrition Education Training for Agriculture Extension Officers: Training Sessions and Resources
The Manoff Group implemented a series of technical assistance visits to Ethiopia to support the development, implementation and analysis of formative research on complementary feeding practices using the Trials of Improved Practices (TIPs) methodology. The Manoff Group also helped strengthen the integration of infant and young child feeding with efforts to link agriculture and nutrition in the USAID Urban Gardens Project by refining materials and curricula for training agricultural extension officers and others participants in the project.
Kenya
Engaging Grandmothers and Men in Infant and Young Child Feeding and Maternal Nutrition: Report of a formative assessment in Eastern and Western Kenya.
With public health evaluation funding from the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Manoff Group led a study to determine the level of influence of fathers and grandmothers on maternal dietary and infant feeding practices. The study included formative research to document infant and young child feeding and maternal dietary practices and generate information to be used in the design of culturally relevant interventions for engagement of men and grandmothers to support and improve maternal, infant and young child feeding.
Madagascar
Gap Analysis of Nutrition Coverage in Madagascar
At an early stage in the IYCN project, a joint effort was undertaken with the now-concluded BASICS III project to map out USAID and multi-lateral donor and government investments in the Essential Nutrition Actions. The intent was to identify gaps in coverage, overlap or duplication among partners, and, ultimately, guide future investments. For this task, The Manoff Group developed and led a data collection process across the partners, identified and guided the use of the mapping software, and was responsible for ensuring quality of data input and analysis.
Malawi
Consulting with caregivers: Formative research to determine the barriers and facilitators to optimal infant and young child feeding in three regions of Malawi
Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition in Malawi: Community Nutrition Workers Training Package
To improve infant and young child feeding and nutrition in new and existing programs in Malawi, the IYCN Project required an understanding of feeding practices among families with children below two years of age, including the social, cultural and economic context influencing them. The Manoff Group conducted formative research that identified problems that impede adequate dietary intake in these children and proposed changes in feeding practices to be tried by mothers to find the most feasible and critical actions for improving dietary intake. With these results, The Office of the President and Cabinet’s Nutrition and HIV Coordination Program in Malawi asked for support from the IYCN project to develop a training program, which The Manoff Group developed, for a new line of community-based workers the government anticipates putting into place that would be focused on nutrition.
Zambia
Bushes that Grow are the Future Forest: Using Radio to Improve Infant and Young Child Feeding in Zambia
Bushes that Grow are the Future Forest: Radio Scripts
The Manoff Group’s efforts on behalf of IYCN in Zambia resulted in a 13-episode radio series known as Bushes that Grow are the Future Forest, a name that emulates a Zambian proverb on the importance of nurturing children. Production of the series were broken down into a four-step process of identifying problem practices through formative research; deciding on a show format that is engaging for listeners and that supports the transmission of accurate information; organizing a script-development workshop that began with providing writers appropriate technical background to guide their creative work; and broadcasting the program in English and listeners’ local languages.
