Reporting by Elena Okada
December 2022 - January 2023
ParentApp
There has been much progress across all of our digital offerings in the December 2022 to January 2023 period. ParentApp has importantly worked on a back-end solution for storing data dynamically. This is a big step towards having a more customised user experience, where the app behaves differently depending on a user's needs and interactions. One explicit use case for this is the completion tracking of different tasks (or components of the programme). In January 2023 we released another update in order to accommodate for a) a new content question added at the start of the final survey to track the ages of all teenagers in the household b) included teen testimonial audios in English and Swahili which can be found as part of Home Practice Assignments. In addition we have c) updated character names in the illustrated stories. Other work include the development of a content review system in order for testers to provide immediate feedback on various pages of the App as well as fixing bugs related to the scheduling of notifications.
Data Team
For the data team, providing pilot and optimisation data analysis support to ParentApp collaborators has been the priority. The team have been guided by an M&E tracker to ensure that partners are able to visualise the data points of interest within Shiny data analytics platform.
INNODEMS - WASHApp
INNODEMS have been leading the development of a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) App to act as the control for the ParentApp RCT in March 2023. The first iteration of the App was shared in January 2023 and the team is receiving feedback for further action.
ParentApp for the Early Years in Tanzania Collaboration
Also in January 2023 members of the IDEMS team met with the ParentApp for the Early Years in Tanzania collaborators in the Hague. The team will be focusing firstly on developing an offering to target parents/caregivers of children getting ready for school (and up to 9) with a book sharing intervention as well as integration of Sinovoyu Kids content. We are particularly excited about developing an App that can be employed within a group setting.
ParentText
For ParentText, there has been consistent progress with the design of ParentText 2.0. This includes the large task of reauthoring flows into data lists which is a specialised spreadsheet used to capture content. ParentText 2.0 will also include content about Intimate Partner Violence as well as Mental Health. Unique to this upgraded version of ParentText is setting of goals and receiving messages specific to the goals. Each goal is a self contained programme which is to last roughly a week. Additional customisations similar to ParentText 1.0 include gender, age and relationship status.
