Testing Adapting Toys With Vital Health Messaging: Play++
Play++ is for the 250 million children globally who are at risk of not achieving their development potential.
Play++ toys are a low-cost, simple and scalable innovation – toys enhanced to support stimulating play and early learning opportunities for children, while simultaneously supporting and motivating responsive caregiving that protects children from threats and improves their nutrition and health.
Play++: First iteration prototype of shape sorter enhancement
Amma’s story
In 30 years Amma will have two children and work as a doctor at a rural hospital.
But right now she is three years old and lives with her family in rural Ghana. Her future is under threat unless she can get the opportunities she needs to learn in a stimulating and nurturing environment, is adequately fed and can stay healthy.
By playing with Play++ toys Amma has a chance to fulfill her potential. They are uniquely designed to stimulate her learning while at the same time reminding and motivating her caregivers to keep her safe, healthy and growing.
The problem
A staggering 250 million children will not realize their full development potential; almost half of all children in the world’s poorest countries. Constraints in these early years are catastrophic for their long-term health and wellbeing, influencing their chances of survival, success and productivity into adulthood.
Children need nurturing care to achieve their potential – most importantly responsive care that addresses their health and nutritional needs, protects them from threats and provides opportunities for early learning.
Integration of these diverse agendas is as difficult as it is important – as a result most existing child development programmes deliver only one of these strands. Where they attempt to run two or more together, it is often not efficient or acceptable, as it can be costly and over-burden providers and caregivers facing immense pressure to ensure their children survive and thrive. Imagine if there was a radical yet simple innovation that could effectively and efficiently integrate these three strands. There is, it is called Play++.
An innovative solution
Play++ toys are a low-cost, simple and scalable innovation – toys enhanced to support stimulating play and early learning opportunities for children, while simultaneously supporting and motivating responsive caregiving that protects children from threats and improves their nutrition and health care.
Play++ toys can be developed by enhancing the existing educational toys used in any parent-focussed early child development (ECD) programme, including toys in the UNICEF ECD kit and locally made and mass-produced toys.
Play++ toys can cost as little as an additional $0.04 per child. This is enough to enhance a full set of toys by adding locally designed, context-appropriate iconography on responsive caregiving, safety, nutrition and illness prevention. For example, adding stickers depicting key child illness danger signs to a shape sorter so that as the child engages in developmentally stimulating play with this toy, the caregiver is reminded of what the danger signs are and when to seek urgent medical attention.
What we are doing now
Women and Children First is continuing to incubate the Play++ toy innovation.
Play++ toys have been subjected to several rounds of extensive prototyping by our team with advice from world leaders in early child development. Initial cost models have also been built and refined. It is now undergoing rigorous pilot testing in Ghana. We are consulting, collaborating and co-creating on a small scale with caregivers and children , to refine Play++ toys further and make sure they are responding to their needs.
Following this, we will evaluate the effectiveness of Play++ toys on child development on a larger scale, including refining the business model that will succeed in bringing it to scale.
The final step will be to scale up - supporting widespread adoption of Play++ toys across developing countries.
Why Play++?
1) Play++ toys can increase child stimulation, health and nutrition, improving development in the early years.
2) Improved development in the early years increases adult earnings by 25% and every $1.00 invested in early child development can yield a return of $6.00–$17.1.
3) Play++ toys enhance rather than replace existing toy libraries used routinely in early child development programmes, costing as little as an additional $0.04 per child.
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