Save the Children has contracted the Dutch based organization International Child Development Initiatives (www.icdi.nl) to do a mapping of Family Strengthening Interventions in Middle Income countries to identify:
1. Best practice interventions aimed at Preventing Separation - supporting families to prevent abandonment and relinquishment, and/or
2. Best practice interventions aimed at Family Reintegration - promoting sustainable reintegration of children into their family from an alternative care setting
The interventions should encompass one or more of the following areas:
- Psychosocial support – promoting children’s development and relationships, increasing sense of normality and control (Examples of these include: parenting courses, family coaching, mentoring, promotion of positive parent-child relationships, conflict resolution skills, etc.)
- Family support – preventing separation by assessing needs of child/family (Examples of these include: day care provision, referral to services, specialized services, mediation and conciliation services, substance abuse treatment, and services for parents and children with disabilities, etc.)
- Family economic strengthening – increased household income to ensure better care for children. (Examples of these include: boosting family income, building savings, relief assistance, loans for income generating activities, skills training, social assistance, free services for poor families, etc.)
- Policy and Legal Advocacy (Examples of these include: legal initiatives and policy work concerning family strengthening, such as promoting special guardianship, standards and guidelines, etc.)
The researchers are interested in those interventions which are considered as really effective (in terms of results, replicability, cost effectiveness, and sustainability). It’s also important that interventions are as much as possible evidence based.
The team are asking for information such as: project descriptions (e.g. project proposals), budget, final reports, evaluation reports, (if available) research reports, testimonies, links to online resources etc. Whatever information on an intervention is available and which people deem as informative, as well as contact details of the person(s) directly responsible for implementation of a certain intervention.
Contributions can be shared with Sarah de Vos at sarah@icdi.nl