The Tracking Progress Initiative is an interagency project, co-facilitated by the Better Care Network and Save the Children, to develop a tool to monitor the implementation of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. The Tool, launched in November 2017, is a free, web-based, interactive diagnostic and learning tool designed to enable national actors (governments, children’s service providers, NGOs, civil society, academics and others) to determine the extent to which their country has effectively implemented the Guidelines and to identify the priorities for change still ahead.
The Tool is designed to help users gather information on children’s care in their country around four overarching themes:
- Addressing factors that may lead to the need for alternative care
- Discouraging the use of alternative care unless necessary
- Ensuring formal alternative care settings meet minimum standards
- Ensuring that formal alternative care settings meet the best interests of the individual child.
Through the Tool, users can enter, review, and analyse data on the care of children in their country and generate reports on that data. Both the tool and the country data can be accessed and updated regularly to enable continual measurement of progress.
The Steering Group for the initiative was composed of Better Care Network, Family for Every Child, Hope and Homes for Children, International Social Service (ISS), RELAF, Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages International, UNICEF and Eurochild. The Centre for Excellence for Looked after Children in Scotland (CELCIS) was commissioned to develop and write the tool.
Visit the online Tracking Progress Tool
Access the Tool at www.trackingprogressinitiative.org and learn more about its development, uses, purpose, and audience.
Launch of the Tracking Tool
An inter-agency group, co-facilitated by Better Care Network and Save the Children, has developed a learning tool designed to enable national actors to determine the extent to which their country has effectively implemented the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children and to identify the priorities for change still ahead. Read the announcement here.
Article on the Tracking Tool Initiative
The February-March 2015 double edition of the ISS Monthly Review includes an article by Florence Martin, director of the Better Care Network, which provides a brief overview of the Tracking Progress project and potential implications for users of the tool. The article describes the history of, and reasoning behind, the development of this tracking tool. Read the article here.