Leveraging Early Adolescence for Development (LEAP) in Ghana

Early adolescence offers a key window of opportunity to support human development. Interventions during early adolescence may seize age-specific opportunities to prevent risks; bolster the effectiveness of investments made earlier in life; and mitigate damage from early-life adversity. Parenting programs are especially promising. Yet evidence on whether such programs can fulfill this potential, for which children, and through which channels, is scant, especially in low-resource settings. This project’s overall objective is to inform a deeper understanding of parents’ attitudes towards engagement in their adolescent’s education and well-being, with a gender-equity lens to understand attitudes towards children using community-based participatory research with caregivers and adolescents in four peri-urban communities in Ghana. The results will inform the adaptation of a parent engagement intervention to increase engagement and support adolescent well-being and to pilot test the program with a small group of families.