Group Care for the first 1000 days (GC_1000) v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Group Care for the first 1000 days (GC_1000): If it takes a village to raise a child, group care is the first step
IRAS ID
292310
Contact name
Christine McCourt
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City, University of London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
848147, Grant Agreement number
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 2 months, 31 days
Research summary
The first 1000 days of life, from conception until age 2, are critical for a child’s future development, health, and wellbeing. Due to the widening health inequities and social determinants of health, mothers facing vulnerable circumstances, in particular, need sustainable support in the first 1000 days of their child’s life. Group care follows the usual care schedule and guidelines, but women have their visits together in a small group, with continuity of carer from two midwives and they are encouraged to share information and to do their own routine health checks like blood pressure monitoring, with support. There is robust evidence that group care models can efficiently provide help to: improve experience of antenatal care, empower mothers through social support, promote the usage of quality clinical services and encourage healthy behaviours. However, systematisation, guidelines and support are needed to create a transformation model. The EU-funded GC_1000 project aims to understand implementation processes and develop strategies that enable the integration of group care into antenatal and postnatal health systems in different contexts. Demonstration sites have been established in four low- and middle-income countries and three high-income countries to enable sustainable service delivery and explore possibilities for scaling up the model of care. This application is for the evaluation of this work in the demonstration sites in the UK.
REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/PR/1234
Date of REC Opinion
8 Dec 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion