Transform + Family Academy Randomized Controlled Trial in the Philippines

Summary

This study evaluates the integration of two complementary poverty alleviation programs: Compassion International's (CI) child-focused Survival and Early Childhood Program with International Care Ministries' (ICM) household-level Transform + Family Academy intervention. CI's program provides holistic child development through health support, educational programming, social development, and spiritual formation via local church partners for children aged 3-5 years. ICM's Transform + Family Academy combines a 15-week household intervention targeting health education, livelihood training, and values formation with an 8-week early childhood education component delivered through home visits.

The primary aim of this research is to assess whether integrating household-level interventions with child-focused programming enhances early numeracy and literacy outcomes among children aged 3-5 living in extreme poverty in Western and Southern Mindanao, Philippines. The study also examines the intervention's impact on children's nutritional status and household financial resilience, including savings behaviors and access to social safety nets.

The investigators hypothesize that addressing household-level constraints including caregiver capacity, health, and economic challenges will enhance children's academic and nutritional outcomes alongside household financial resilience compared to child-focused programming alone.

Conditions

• Child Development
• Child Nutrition, Child Neurobehavioral Development
• Household and Family
• Financial Wellbeing
• Academic Attainment

Interventions

OTHER

Integrated Whole-Household Programming

Treatment participants receive both Compassion International's Survival and Early Childhood Program (holistic child development through health support, educational programming, social development, and spiritual formation via local community partners) plus International Care Ministries' Transform + Family Academy intervention. The Transform component is a 15-week household-level program including health education covering malnutrition prevention, sanitation, respiratory infections, infant care; livelihood training focused on income diversification and business development with savings group formation; and values formation addressing personal character, family relationships, and decision-making. The Family Academy component provides home-based early numeracy and phonics instruction (one hour per topic) to children aged 3-5 with concurrent caregiver capacity building for school readiness support, delivered over 8 weeks.

OTHER

Standard Child-Focused Programming

Compassion International's Survival and Early Childhood Program provides holistic child development through health support, nutritional assistance, educational programming, social development, and spiritual formation delivered via local community partners.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Compassion International, United States of America

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• International Care Ministries, Philippines

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lincoln L Lau, PhD · University of Toronto

• Melinda Kelly Mijares, MD, MPH · International Care Ministries

• Tommy Lazaro III, MABE, PhD Candidate · Ateneo de Manila University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

3 Years

Max Age

5 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-11-01

Primary Completion

2027-05-30

Completion

2027-05-30