mothers’ participation in improving growth and nutrition of the children: a model for community participation

background: assessment of national children growth has shown that a high percent of country's children are afflicted to growth failure. community participation is one of the principles of phc emphasized by who that is necessary for develop­ment of health services. the objective of this study was to develop a model for mother's participation in order to improving growth and nutrition of children. methods: this community-based field trial was rendered on 74 pairs of mothers and children less than three years of age. a model was designed for increasing mother's participation, so that, a group of mother's volunteered and were instructed in the subjects of growth monitoring and child nutrition. the program was evaluated by cipp model (context, input, product, proc­ess). results: difference between the mean grade of mothers' knowledge and practice, before and after intervention were mean­ing­ful ( p < 0.001).this plan had considerable effects on the increase of individual and social capabilities of the partici­pants, including their self-confidence. other findings were related to the evaluation of impact, effectiveness, sustainability and transportability of the program. conclusion: by enhancement of mother's participation, considerable improvement of their knowledge and practice concern­ing growth and nutrition of children were achieved. also individual and social capabilities of the mothers' in­creased.