Baseline Study for ‘Build It Better’ Project

Save the Children, Jharkhand

Project Under Domains: Safe food & Nutrition

Save the Children has collaborated with NITI Aayog to support two of the most affected Aspirational Districts (West Singhbhum and Gumla) in Jharkhand to improve the nutritional outcomes in the districts. Save the Children will fortify its endeavour to strengthen the existing health systems and deliver high impact interventions and campaigns, through capacity-building of personnel from the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and Health departments.

Save the Children proposed to improve the nutritional outcome for all the children and women in the targeted geography by strengthening the ICDS systems and by creating an enabling environment that results in evidence based, sustainable, multi-sectoral nutrition actions delivered at scale. The intervention will strive to achieve the objective of Sustainable Development Goals target of Zero Hunger (SDG-2).

Objectives

  * Assess the present nutritional status among children under 6 years of age in the intervention blocks.

  * Assess the status of ICDS service delivery and its coverage in sampled households (provisioning and functional status and quality of services) related to child nutrition (growth monitoring, supplementary nutrition, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services) and integrated WASH in the intervention blocks.

  * Understand the knowledge level and practice among mothers and caregivers and service providers related to child nutrition care and WASH in the intervention blocks.

  * Determine the enablers and barriers both from demand and supply (systems) perspective for improving the coverage and utilization of key child nutrition and integrated WASH interventions in the intervention blocks.

  * Provide recommendations to formulate the strategies for an integrated intervention leading to improved knowledge and practices of the target group and strengthening child nutrition and integrated WASH services in the targeted blocks.

Approach and Methodology

A mix method study involving qualitative and quantitative techniques and tools was adopted for this study. The qualitative survey involved group discussions and personal interviews using discussion guides while the quantitative survey involved personal interviews using structured questionnaires. Apart from the community, the key informants in the study are Anganwadi workers, Village Health Nutrition & Sanitation Committee (VHNSC), government officials etc. The information regarding three majors target groups – pregnant mother, children up to 36-month age and children between 36-month and 72-month age, was collected. 10 villages from the intervention area and 10 villages from the non-intervention area were covered under the study.

Results

The baseline study created a reference for tracking the result level indicators which contributed towards improving nutrition for all children and women and generated local evidences and learnings. It presented the status of coverage of ICDS services and current knowledge and practices of community (mothers and care givers) as well as service provider at institution level regarding child nutrition and integrated WASH.