Overview
ParentApp for Teens is a digital app-based parenting programme for caregivers and their 10 to 17-year-olds. The project seeks to establish nurturing caregiver-teen relationships and reduce the risk of violence against adolescents in and outside the home. The project’s goal is to strengthen caregivers’ ability to provide a protective environment and ensure the health and wellbeing of their children through positive parenting techniques.
During 2024, significant progress was made across various data collection and analysis activities. These included: completion of the pilot study 12-month follow-up with a retention rate of 92–94% (N=206); finalisation of the optimisation baseline and follow up study (N=600); completion of RCT baseline data collection and one-month follow-up (N=4,800) with retention rates of 94–97% and qualitative interviews with RCT participants and implementation staff (N=67). Ongoing activities include RCT 12-month follow-up data collection and preparations for an additional study examining the programme’s spillover effects on siblings of participating teens..
Context
There is emerging evidence that in-person playful parenting programmes can successfully be adapted for digital delivery. Despite regional trends showing substantial year-on-year growth in smartphone penetration and reduced data costs over the next decade in low- and middle-income countries such as Tanzania, there is limited evidence on delivery and effectiveness in these settings. The trial builds on earlier phases of research including (1) feasibility and acceptability piloting of ParentApp for Teens in South Africa and Tanzania and (2) an optimisation trial conducted in Tanzania to improve engagement, retention and delivery mechanisms.
Objectives
1. Test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ParentApp on improving positive parenting, reducing adolescent sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.
2. Test delivery of ParentApp at scale through local implementing partners.
3. Explore pathways of impact through mediation models and qualitative investigation.
4. Co-develop a national strategy to scale in-person, remote, digital, and hybrid parenting support.
Study Setting
The study will be conducted in two regions, Mwanza and Shinyanga, in Tanzania. These regions border each other and include urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. Swahili is widely spoken in both regions.
Study Significance and Impact
This study is the first known randomised controlled trial of a hybrid-digital parenting app, that is being designed and rigorously tested in low-resource settings. At this moment of unprecedented global recognition of the need for effective and scalable parenting programmes to prevent sexual, physical, and emotional violence against children and bolster families against hardships, the results of the study will generate an evidence-base to inform the scale-up of the intervention in Tanzania and other low-and-middle countries.
Findings from this and other GPI studies testing digital parenting programmes will explore the usefulness of parenting programmes as a learning tool, by using learning through play and behavioural mechanisms aimed at developing positive parenting skills for holistic development. Findings will help parents and practitioners to understand the beliefs, perceptions, and practices of learning through play in the Global South, sharing contextual learning through play tools that allow children and adolescents to build a deeper understanding of their relationships and the world around them.
