What is Whole Child International?

Social entrepreneur and Ashoka fellow Karen Spencer founded Whole Child International in 2004 to help improve quality of care in the most resource challenging environments and raise awareness of the importance of relationship centered care. WCI’s program aims to improve child development across care settings by increasing quality through developing a relationship-centered approach.

Since 2006, Whole Child International has implemented and evaluated multi-faceted interventions, in a number of settings, composed of university-level diploma courses, improved training materials, policy reforms, and the practical application of evidence-based best practices in childcare.

Whole Child engages with multiple stakeholders across the child protection system, from government policymakers to key academics to government supervisors to direct care providers. The strategic objective is to increase government capacity in order to further child development by improving relationship-centered care across care settings.