Request for research proposal for an impact study of the of the IAP NURTURE training workshops on ‘Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development (NC-ECD)’ on the trainees.

1. Background: The Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) is currently in the midst of conducting a presidential action plan project entitled ‘IAP NURTURE’ in which pediatricians are being trained across the country to deliver ‘Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development (NC-ECD)’ in their office practice. The beneficiaries are children under 3 years of age and their families across 11 well-child visits. The goal is to expand the repertoire of NC-ECD targeted service delivery (including parental counselling) by the pediatrician and his/ her team by different modalities to include the missing components of promotive and preventive health care related to: good health, adequate nutrition, responsive parenting, opportunities for early learning, and safety and security.

     This is being done by day long district level workshops in which NC-ECD trainers sensitize the trainees about the five components of NC-ECD and the concept of a well-child visit through a series of 8 brief 15-minute interactive sessions interspersed with three dedicated periods for discussion; followed by four hands-on work stations (annexure 1). At the end of the workshop the participants are provided with three modules containing educational material and suggested resources: 1) Basic concepts; 2) Companion for pediatricians (visit-wise details and delegation of activities and responsibilities among the pediatrician, office staff, and parents), and; 3) Companion for parents (ECD related parental guidelines developed by IAP). All participants undergo a pre-test and post-test before and after the workshop respectively.

     The roll out of these workshops started in April 2022 and the plan is to conduct 200 across the 5 IAP administrative zones. Multiple workshops are being conducted by the collaborative efforts of Central IAP office, the NC-ECD Administrative team (national/zonal/ state coordinators) and local IAP branches.  As of now a little more than 50% have been completed. We plan to complete all of them by mid-2023.

2. Purpose: To evaluate the impact of the IAP NURTURE district level workshops on ‘Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development (NC-ECD)’ on pediatrician office practice 6 months after the training.

3. Who can apply: Any Indian National(s) holding a regular position in any Indian public or private academic and scientific university, college, institute or non-profit organization (at least about 3 or more years old) with prior experience to undertake such research assignments.

4. Proposal submission: Interested investigators/ clinical researchers/ scientists qualifying the aforementioned conditions should submit the Detailed Proposal in the prescribed format (annexure 1). Please ensure that the Font is Times New Roman, size: 12, single spacing and not more than 8 pages. Incomplete or incorrectly filled applications which lacks essential information/ documents will not be considered. The application should be sent by email to [email protected] / [email protected] on or before 18^th December 2022. Any application received after the last date of submission will not be considered.

5. Conditions: A maximum budget of INR 12 lakhs only is available for the assignment and the study must be completed within 6 months of signing the contract with IAP.

Format for concept proposal

• Title
• Name and affiliation of Principal investigator and co-investigators
• Introduction
• Hypothesis and primary/ secondary objectives
• Methodology: Study design, study settings, and detailed plan for data collection and statistical analysis
• Expected study deliverables: i) study outcomes ii) translational outcomes
• Quality Control
• Report writing
• Duration (timeline and milestones)
• Detailed itemized Budget (salary, data collection, other expenses)
• References (not more than 10)
• Details of Ethics Committee from which approval will be taken, and participant consent
• Team Strength and Technical Competence:
  • Details of Team leader and members with individual brief resume (not more than 1 page)
  • Details of similar proposals that have been undertaken by the team members