KidzAlive Talk Tool App Pilot Evaluation Report
Executive Summary
Background
With the aid of funding from Qualcomm and Keep a Child Alive and Zoë-Life, Zoë-Life has developed a digital version of the KidzAlive Talk Tool which in the form of a Mobile Application. The impetus for digitizing the KidzAlive Talk Tool was to equip and empower the healthcare workers with an innovative job aid that enhances the quality of the existing HIV services they provide to children and their caregivers on a day to day basis. With the aid of this tool, the child is placed at the centre of the healthcare and counselling process where he/she is able to identify with the animated characters in the story in a non-threatening way. The KidzAlive Talk Tool App is also anticipated to increase HCW confidence, skill and competence to work with children. A lot of investment has gone into developing and piloting this new KidzAlive Talk Tool App. However, Zoë-Life has not received feedback on the impact of this App from the healthcare workers’, who are the frontline implementers, and from the main beneficiaries of HIV interventions who include children and their primary caregivers. This study aimed to close this gap by documenting the process of developing the KidzAlive Talk Tool App, and piloting it as well as evaluating each stage from development of the prototype to piloting the first full version of the KidzAlive Talk Tool App.
Methodology
A mixed-methods approach, which incorporated both qualitative and quantitative primary and secondary data collection and analysis methods, was utilised for this evaluation. The pilot process followed four steps
Formative Evaluation
The pilot of Full Version and review of routine monitoring and evaluation data collected by the Zoë-Life team in the course of the programme
Summative data Collection
Results and synthesis of the report
Key Findings
The results of this study indicate that the KidzAlive Talk Tool App has been well received by its beneficiaries indicated by the high MARS scores. The findings also indicate that the intervention seems to have been well integrated into the existing service delivery processes in the target primary healthcare facilities. Most importantly, the findings also suggest that App has great potential when it comes to improving health outcomes indicated by the increased case finding of children living with HIV in facilities implementing the App compared to those that were not. However, a more robust evaluation of the App is still required to determine cause-effect and correct attribution of health outcomes to the intervention. It is therefore recommended that Zoë-Life follows the WHO guidelines for evaluating mobile Applications and apply them in the next round of testing in order to increase the validity of the findings of the next phase of testing.