PLH in-person parenting programmes are delivered by trained facilitators either in-person or via videoconferencing (e.g., Zoom). The modules are delivered over 5 to 14 weeks for groups of 10 to 15 participants. The PLH programme has the most robust evidence of effectiveness across multiple outcomes, with eleven randomised control trials testing its efficacy. PLH in-person programmes have been delivered in 29 countries for more than 300,000 families.
PLH for Parents and Teens
This is a parent training programme for caregivers and their 10- to 17-year-olds. The programme seeks to establish nurturing caregiver-teen relationships and reduce the risk of violence against teens in and outside the home. It also aims to strengthen caregivers' ability to provide a protective environment and ensures the health and wellbeing of their child through positive parenting techniques. Parents are taught parenting strategies to increase positive and playful interaction, reduce adolescent problem behaviours, and avoid conflict at home.
PLH for Young Children
This is a parent training programme for caregivers and their 2- to 9-year-olds. Grounded in social learning theory and behavioural change techniques, it aims to strengthen parenting skills and behaviours that help parents and caregivers provide adequate support and care to their children. By building positive relations, parent-child playful interaction, and promoting alternatives to violent discipline, the programme also contributes to the promotion of socio-emotional learning, prevention and treatment of disruptive child behaviours, and reduction of parental stress and depression.
PLH for Toddlers
This is a parenting programme that facilitates caregivers' stimulation of young children’s cognitive and social development through focused engagement with picture books. Aimed at caregivers with children aged 1 to 5 years, caregivers are encouraged to engage the child in an active exchange about a picture book, following the child’s interest and cues. This practice of shared reading has been shown to dramatically enhance children’s language development. The programme has been evaluated through randomised trials in Khayelitsha, South Africa and in Mokhotlong, Lesotho. These studies have shown benefit to both the quality of the parent-child relationship and to child developmental progress.
PLH for Infants
Also known as Thula Sana Mother-Infant home-visiting programme, this programme aims to improve maternal sensitivity and responsiveness and encourage secure attachment between mothers and their infants in low-income settings. The programme targets early attachment, given the reliable relation between early insecure attachment and a plethora of later poor outcomes such as childhood behavioural problems, peer problems, and substance abuse problems in adolescence. It is designed to provide an emotionally supportive relationship to mothers in late pregnancy and through the early postpartum weeks and months. It adopts a counselling approach but combines this with methods for assessing the individual and interpersonal characteristics of the baby, as well as with strategies to facilitate good infant care and parent-infant relationships. A major aspect of the intervention is the use of items from the Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Schedule to sensitise the mother to her infant’s individual capacities and needs. The programme was implemented in Khayelitsha, a semi-urban impoverished community near Cape Town, South Africa.
