Sub-Saharan Africa

Meeting the Costs of Family Care: Household Economic Strengthening to Prevent Children’s Separation and Support Reintegration – A Resource Guide

Posted By: • November 28th, 2019

This resource guide aims to assist program designers, funders, and implementers to select and incorporate appropriate and effective household economic strengthening (HES) measures into programs to preserve or reestablish family care for children. Poverty—not having enough of the essential requirements of life—is a structural driver of family and child vulnerability; it weakens families and increases the likelihood of children separating from them, although it is rarely the only contributing factor (Chaffin and Kalyanpur 2014, Delap 2013, EveryChild 2009, Laumann 2015). HES, which aims to stabilize or improve a family’s economic situation by increasing its assets, can play an essential role in expanding families’ capacity to provide for their children’s basic needs and education, as well as strengthen their social integration and improve their psychosocial well-being (Chaffin and Kalyanpur 2014, United Nations 2010). Read More

Interagency Gender-Based Violence Case Management Guidelines

Posted By: • November 28th, 2019

GBV in all of its forms has tremendous physical, emotional and social consequences for the person victimized by it, who is often referred to as a ‘survivor.’ Survivors of GBV have the right to receive quality, compassionate care and support that addresses the harmful consequences of violence in order to help them heal and recover. This resource aims to set standards for quality, compassionate care for GBV survivors in humanitarian settings, with particular focus on the provision of case management services. It builds upon and should be used in conjunction with other GBV response resources, such as the Caring for Survivors of Sexual Violence in Emergencies Training Package and the Caring for Child Survivors of Sexual Abuse: Guidelines for health and psychosocial service providers in humanitarian settings. Read More

Monitoring Child Protection within Humanitarian Cash Programmes: A Scoping Study

Posted By: • November 27th, 2019

Humanitarian crises are often dangerous contexts that put people at risk. Humanitarian cash programming, as with any other modality, has obligations to monitor and adapt interventions to meet specific needs of diverse groups, and ensure their safety, dignity and inclusion. Therefore, monitoring humanitarian cash needs to capture data relating to protection risks, which includes child protection, so that cash actors can minimize risks and maximise child protection benefits. Read More

Rethink Child Soldiers: A New Approach to the Reintegration of all Children Associated with Armed Forces and Groups

Posted By: • August 1st, 2019

This report aims to bring global attention to the challenges related to the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups, and promote better policy, practice and funding in the future. The findings are based on a literature review and primary research in Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo, and interviews with government departments, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society in Colombia, Iraq and South Sudan Read More

Cash Transfer Programming and Child Protection in Humanitarian Action: Review and Opportunities to Strengthen Evidence

Posted By: • May 20th, 2019

As prevalence of cash transfer programming in humanitarian response has grown, so too has the recognition that the child protection sector must learn how to use case transfer programs to achieve better results for children. This report summarizes the evidence for cash transfer programming and child protection in humanitarian contexts and recommends areas for action and further research. It highlights the gaps, needs, and opportunities found in the literature and confirmed by experts working across child protection, cash transfer programming, and other relevant areas of humanitarian action and international development. The findings and recommendations are intended to guide the Cash Transfer and Child Protection Task Force of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action as it generates participation and investment in a multi-year research agenda. Included in the set is a 2-page briefing note summarizing the review and recommendations, an introductory video, and an infographic on the recommendations. Read More

A Toolkit for Reflective Practice in Supporting Community-led Child Protection Processes and Companion Guide

Posted By: • May 20th, 2019

This Toolkit was developed by the Child Resilience Alliance (CRA), formerly known as the Columbia Group for Children in Adversity, with Mike Wessells serving as the lead author and coordinator. The Toolkit and its companion Guide were developed for the Interagency Learning Initiative on Community-Based Child Protection Mechanisms and Child Protection Systems. Together with its companion Guide, A Guide for Supporting Community-Led Child Protection Processes, the Toolkit aims to enable effective, sustainable community-led action that prevents and responds to child protection risks. This community-led approach is promising because it generates high levels of community ownership, enables children’s leadership, and helps communities to mobilize themselves for internally guided, positive change. Read More

Connection cash with care for better child well-being: An evaluation of a Family and Community Strengthening Programme for beneficiaries of the Child Support Grant

Posted By: • May 20th, 2019

Over 12 million children, or 63% of all children in South Africa, received a Child Support Grant(CSG) in 2018. The CSG is a monthly cash transfer that has had a positive impact on child nutrition and school attendance and reduces income poverty in poor families with children.

Complementary family strengthening interventions are widely advocated to accelerate the positive effects of cash transfers locally and internationally. It is anticipated that these strategies could mitigate psychosocial, systemic and structural risks that compromise child well-being in disadvantaged families Read More

Catalyzing Business Skills: For Caregivers – Trainer’s Guide

Posted By: • May 20th, 2019

Making Cents International (Making Cents), in partnership with ChildFund International, developed the Catalyzing Business Skills curriculum for the Economic Strengthening to Keep and Reintegrate Children into Families (ESFAM) project in Uganda. The curriculum aims to build the financial literacy and business knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for adult members/caregivers participating in savings groups who are interested in engaging in successful income generation activities. Read More

RISE Learning Network Evaluation Report

Posted By: • January 29th, 2019

We are very glad to share the executive summary of the evaluation report of the RISE Learning Network which was conducted earlier in October 2018. The executive summary presents the highlights of the findings and recommendations from the evaluation. The purpose of the evaluation is to establish progress against each objective and to assess if the theory of change and ways of working were effective for sharing learning and in bringing about change in policy and practice. Recommendations are made to inform future work around recovery and reintegration from child sexual exploitation. This evaluation was undertaken by an independent evaluator, Joanna Wakia and commissioned by Family for Every Child. Read More

RISE Learning Project on the Monitoring & Evaluation of Reintegration of Children and Adolescents – Consolidated End-Term Report for Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

Posted By: • August 2nd, 2018

Since 2015, the RISE Learning Network has been promoting and facilitating learning on recovery and reintegration (R&R) approaches that improve outcomes for children and adolescents affected by sexual exploitation (CSE) in three focus regions  – Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.  Read More

A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents

Posted By: • December 11th, 2017

A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents uses the most current data to shed light on four specific forms of violence: violent discipline and exposure to domestic abuse during early childhood; violence at school; violent deaths among adolescents; and sexual violence in childhood and adolescence. Read More

Youth Participation in Development: A Guide for Development Agencies and Policy Makers

Posted By: • December 11th, 2017

This guide aims to increase understanding of the growing importance of, and greater potential for, youth participation in development practice and to explore key issues and approaches. But it goes beyond the rhetoric of many policy advocacy papers, which simply argue for a focus on youth participation. Rather, this guide provides information on how to actually work with youth at a practical operational level in respect of policy and programming. It does this through the provision of promising practice case studies (and their associated resources), and a number of quality standards that will help organisations to get started. Read More

Singing to the Lions: A Facilitator’s Guide to Overcoming Fear and Violence (Documents and Webinar Link)

Posted By: • January 22nd, 2017

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has released a new tool based on principles of psychosocial resilience, cognitive psychology and narrative therapy. Singing to the Lions is a guide for facilitators, to enable them help children and youth develop skills to resolve the impact of violence and abuse in their lives and to heal. The guide describes the steps in running a workshop for participants aged 11 to young adults. By the end of the workshop described in this guide, participants will learn that they can transform their lives and no longer feel dominated by fear. Although developed for young people, and including games, art and songs, the Singing to the Lions workshop can also be used with adults to help them manage their own anxiety, take action on aspects of their lives that cause fear, and in so doing, become better parents and caregivers. A supplement and data entry sheet, which are intended to be used with the guide, and a handout about the workshop are also available to download. Read More

The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2016 – Getting It Right: Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice

Posted By: • January 15th, 2017

The African Report on Child Wellbeing series is a pan-African project intended to promote state accountability to children and mobilise legal, policy and administrative actions towards progressive realisation of the ideals and principles of the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). The fourth edition of the Report builds on previous editions and findings of various studies undertaken by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) and other child-focused organizations, which consistently show that there is insufficient progress on implementation of laws and polices pertaining to children. The report examines the underlying institutional, systemic and administrative barriers affecting effective implementation of the rights and wellbeing of children and is expected to initiate discussion and trigger action to narrow the gap between policy promises and their actual implementation. Read More

ECPAT Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism: Sub-Saharan Africa Report

Posted By: • January 15th, 2017

This regional report was prepared as a contribution to ECPAT International’s Global Study on the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism (SECTT) and is based on research conducted in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia. The Sub-Saharan Africa research consistently identifies the need to improve services for the protection of children against SECTT, including response efforts that are properly contextualized and designed to meet the needs of families and child victims. The paramount importance of parental care and family relationships for ensuring the protection of children against SECTT is also underscored, with the recommendation that multi-stakeholder approaches to addressing this issue must involve identifying culturally relevant and effective ways to strengthen the capacity of families and communities to care for and protect children. Read More

Introducing the Guidelines on Children’s Reintegration

Posted By: • September 7th, 2016

Reuniting with Families as First Priority 
The Inter-agency group on Children’s Reintegration just launched the Guidelines on Children’s Reintegration, which are intended to help governments, donors, NGOs, faith-based organisations and practitioners to pursue reintegration as the primary response in cases of separated children. Read More

Listen to Children and Young People in Policy Making

Posted By: • August 19th, 2019

Unicef estimates that around 250 million children live in countries impacted by humanitarian crises. These crises stem from conflicts they did not create. Conflicts in which they have no say. Conflicts which are destroying their childhoods. Read More