Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE) is a Christian Faith-Based organization that works with local leadership to partner together and develop programs that promote the institution of family through family empowerment, education, and child welfare.
The vision of ACE is to see every child in a secure family and enriching environment. Their vision is being achieved by strengthening vulnerable families, family reunification, local foster-to-adopt programs, education and economic empowerment.
Their primary work is reintegration and domestic foster-to-adopt. They facilitate reintegrations with the government, when appropriate and also sensitize, recruit, and train domestic families interested in foster care and adoption. When reintegration is not possible, they look to place a child into an alternate, permanent, family. They also help to facilitate training social workers and caregivers/parents in trust-based relational interventions for children separated from family. The organization has temporary crisis homes for abandoned or orphaned infants. They also offer services, such as nutrition and financial literacy programs, to empower and support families and keep them together.
Where they operate
Contact this organization about:
Organization Size
Headquarters Location
Zambia
Organization Type
Main Areas of Work
Residential Care Service Transition Support
Supports they have offered, or plan to offer, include:
- Introducing the importance of family care and reintegration to leaders in the organization
- Strategy and planning for the transition
- Donor and board engagement
- Community awareness raising and engagement
- Partnerships
- Government engagement and linking to systems reforms
- Assessments of children and families
- Family tracing
- Preparing children and families for transition
- Social work or case management training or support
- Staffing adjustments or training
- Use of buildings and other assets
- Developing new programs, including:
- Family and community strengthening
- Alternative family care (including kinship care, foster care, adoption)
- Advocacy
- Provide funding for the transition
- General coaching or consultation
- Onsite training
- Online training
- Onsite visits/meetings
- Phone calls/video conference
- Provision of standards and written guidance or tools for transitioning
- Connecting with others or building a network
ACE plans to support transitioning throughout Southern Africa. They determine which organizations to work with based on need, scope of work, partnership parameters, etc.
Emergency Care
For infants and young children
Foster Care
Adoption
into local families
Family Reunification
Children 0-5 into nuclear or extended families
Economic Strengthening
Savings, loans, skills training, peer groups
Early Childhood Development (ECD)
Prevention of child separation
Includes economic strengthening and child nutrition
Primary education
For underserved children
Secondary education
High aptitude underserved children
Strategic Planning
Organizational Change Management
We asked this organization to tell us a little more about their learning and knowledge sharing practices. Here is what they said
We are most proud of our work in supporting systemic change toward family based care. This includes working closely with the Government of Zambia, Peer organizations, and the global family care network to develop best practices, support the formalization of government regulations, and innovate new avenues for family based care, such as emergency foster care pilots.
Our most significant learning comes from direct engagement with families who are vulnerable and have children whom are at risk of separation, within institutional care, or have reintegrated from institutional care. Healthy families are the centre of our mission, and we learn the most from all families striving to improve their condition. Secondly, learn a tremendous amount from the direct experience of children, especially those directly within our care.
The first piece of advice is that each child and family is unique, and there is not a ‘cookie cutter’ approach to family reintegration. A binding principle for us is ‘do no harm’, which favors a humble, cautious, and evidence based approach. The second piece of advice is look at the child and family reintegration from a holistic sense- how the reintegration effects each member of the family, not only the reintegrated child; and how each family member is situated in a web of local and community relationships, responsibilities, and constraints. Lastly, to consider the full spectrum of stakeholders and service providers, especially including government, as part of a vital network that needs to be engaged and mobilized is support of the family. No organization can do it all alone!
Our organization has regular weekly time for reflection and sharing, and we engage in formal ‘lessons learned’ exercises. As move toward stronger Monitoring and Evaluation, our goals are measured in terms of impact for beneficiaries. We evaluate performance against these, and reflect on the obstacles or successes in relation to these goals. We also have feedback mechanisms that incorporate information stories, and feedback from beneficiaries, and periodically review hard data on our program impacts. At times these issues are written up and shared internally or externally to accelerate our learning and share this information.
ACE collaborates regularly with other organizations at the national and global level to both implement programs and exchange knowledge and learning. An example of this is our leadership in establishing a ‘Zambia Without Orphans’ chapter in Lusaka, and our recent write-up of a case study examining impacts and cost-per-beneficiary of our institutional vs. family-based programs. We also seek to accelerate transformation by working with a cohort oc peer OVC organizations in Zambia, and by providing capacity building services to organizations within the Southern and East Africa region.
Organization Resources
Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE) Zambia is a US-funded organization that transitioned from providing residential care in Zambia to pioneering family-based care, including foster care, and supporting other residential care service providers to transition. With important links to the Zambian government, ACE Zambia has been a key actor in supporting the development of policies, programs and guidelines that are now utilized across the country.
