OUR PARTNERS

CONAPINA is the Salvadoran child protection authority and key partner for Whole Child International's work in El Salvador.  Together, CONAPINA and Whole Child are strengthening the Salvadoran government's capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to cases of child abuse, neglect, and exploitation.  We are improving case management skills, increasing caregiver support, and ensuring that Salvadoran children and families are able to meet their full potential.

USC is known for its pioneering transformative research and cultivating leadership for social change. Together with USC, Whole Child International mapped out El Salvador’s child protection system, which provided viable, effective policy suggestions for improvement. This comprehensive study gave a clear picture of the deinstitutionalization process in El Salvador starting in 2011.

The Duke University Global Health Institute’s Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research (CHPIR) is renowned for its policy-relevant research, interventions, and evaluations that improve the health of individuals and cmmunities, locally, nationally, and internationalls. CHPIR works with WCI to evaluate our programs and provide evidenced-based solutions. CHPIR was instrumental in developing our WCI-QCUALS childcare-setting quality measurement tool that led to the expansion of our programing.

The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing is a recognized leader in collaboration, research, and the development and teaching of best practices to advance the science and art of nursing. Our Johns Hopkins partners assisted us in creating the health-related components of our training and technical support of caregivers, specifically clinical training in care aligned with Whole Child’s principles. This partnership helped establish a holistic training program for a pipeline of well-trained, in-country practitioners who provide high-level training in childcare centers of acute need.

Through its renowned credential and degree programs, Loyola Marymount University’s School of Education trains educators to be successful teachers, special educators, school counselors and psychologists, reading and literacy specialists, and administrators across the spectrum of educational settings. Our partners at LMU/LA have been instrumental in helping build and refine Whole Child’s university and hands-on training and technical support programs, collaborating extensively on program development and hands-on implementation.

Whole Child partners with the University of Central America (UCA) to ensure that the practices we promote are implemented both widely and sustainably — by integrating early childhood principles as deeply into the educational system as possible. This partnership has two key components: 1) to conduct certificate programs based on our curricula to train key practitioners in childcare theory and practices; and 2) to implement the evaluation led by our partners at Duke University.

Established in 1946 by Dr. Emmi Pikler, the Pikler Institute is a world-renowned home for children without guardianship. The Institute has pioneered models of care that nurture children to become emotionally and socially mature individuals. Pikler conducts important research, delivers training, and provides care for resident children. Director Anna Tardos leads a team of researchers disseminating the Pikler methodology to organizations serving children around the globe. The Pikler Institute has inspired Whole Child’s vision and many of its methodologies, and the organization has provided direct training to many members of our program since 2005.