Scaling Up Whole Child Development Initiatives: Lessons from the Early Journey of Life Program in Vietnam

Abstract

Human development programs—for example, early childhood interventions—often depend on high-quality, respectful human relationships. This creates a challenge for implementation at large scale. Here, we review how this challenge was addressed in the scale-up of the Early Journey of Life (EJOL) program, an evidence-based initiative in Vietnam that supports parents and families in the first 1,000 days of children’s lives. The program’s experience highlights the value of an approach to scaling that aims to energize stakeholders, including at the front line as well as among government leaders; rapidly learn and adapt based on new evidence; empower leadership across the delivery system; rebalance agency to the front line; and gradually but systematically embed program principles and activities in large government systems. Our findings suggest that EJOL’s work to implement scale-up along these lines was in turn grounded in high-quality relationships with those engaged in the program, from family members to frontline workers to middle managers and senior government officials. The EJOL program has successfully scaled to reach 109 rural communes in Ha Nam province and continues to expand and diversify while retaining its core focus on high-quality human relationships.