Mazi umntanakho – Know Your Child
Mazi Umntanakho – Know your child is a simple, digital tool that helps community-based workers in South Africa screen a young child’s social and emotional development and mental wellbeing. It is available in 10 of South African’s official languages.
By using short, guided assessments, it gives evaluators a quick picture of how a child is doing and where extra support may be needed.
Who is it for?
Anyone working with 3-5 year old children at community level, including home visitors, community health workers, and early childhood development practitioners. The tool is designed to be used in everyday practice – in home visits, preschools, and other community settings.
How it works
Mazi Umntanakho uses two types of assessments:
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) - about the child
International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) Social -emotional questions - with the child)
Each assessment is quick to complete and provides clear, easy-to-understand feedback.
SDQ Assessment (about the child)
The (SDQ) is completed together either with the child’s caregiver, or by someone who works with the child (e.g. early childhood development practitioner).
Based on the caregiver’s responses, the tool generates a traffic light (green, orange, red) to show if the child may be experiencing:
Emotional challenges
Behaviour challenges
Hyper-activity
Peer relationship challenges
The traffic light system (green, orange, red) helps evaluators see at a glance where there may be concerns and where further support is needed.
After completing the SDQ, users can request extra support and resources on the following topics such as:
Self-awareness
Emotions
Social skills
Difficult behaviour
Healthy habits and routines
These resources can be shared with caregivers or used in follow-up sessions.
IDELA social emotional questions (with the child)
The IDELA social-emotional questions are asked directly to the child in a friendly, age-appropriate way.
These questions help the evaluator understand if the child may be struggling with:
Self-awareness
Emotional awareness
Friends
Showing empathy
Solving conflict
The results give a quick indication of the child’s social-emotional development and highlight areas where the child may need encouragement, guidance, or further support.
The Mazi Umntanakho digital tool was developed through a collaboration between the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and the University of California Irvine, US. The work was funded by the Jacobs Foundation through the Connecting the EdTech Research EcoSystem network (https://ceres.uci.edu/).
