Wentworth ECD Forum to be blueprint for national roll-out

THE successful pioneering Wentworth Early Childhood Development Forum (WECDF) model has received national renown and will be replicated throughout the country.

Save the Children, which has been heavily involved with the WECDF, has commissioned an independent assessment of the WECDF model by the Human Science Research Council. The study will provide an evidence base for supporting the replication and scaling up of the development of ECD forums throughout SA.

Save the Children KZN manager, Mari van der Merwe is excited about what the future holds and acknowledges that Wentworth is shaping the future of ECD.

“Support for efforts to rapidly scale up quality ECD services for children from birth to four-years-old is a top priority for Save the Children, especially as it is widely acknowledged there are still numerous gaps and challenges in the ECD sector. Use of the WECDF model in Wentworth is an innovative approach that promotes building the capacity of ECD practitioners and having a support structure to meet the needs of home and community based ECD services at grassroots level. The learnings coming from the development and facilitation of the WECDF have been shared across KZN and nationally. There is, as a result a lot of interest in the model among local and international stakeholders and the direct benefit to Wentworth is that a number of provincial and local government departments are now using the WECDF as a credible vehicle to drive their programmes and services in this community,” said van der Merwe.