Social Protection Policies and Programmes

Poverty affects both the quality and length of children’s lives, reduces the ability of families to adequately provide for their children, and is a significant cause of family breakdown and child separation. Social assistance programmes aim to reduce child poverty and act as a safety net for families with minimal resources.

Such programmes include in-kind and in-cash transfers, and food for work initiatives. Social assistance programmes are a part of social welfare and must include clear child care policies that protect children and strengthen family and community capacities to access services and provide care.

Cash transfers are a means of financially supporting the most vulnerable households to improve the child’s access to essential goods and services, such as health and education. They include the use of child support grants, child and family allowances and targeted and conditional cash transfers. They may be combined with investment in child education and health services, and redistributive tax policies.

In-kind transfers provide access to essential goods and services instead of cash payments. Conditional cash transfers provide money to poor families on achieving certain actions, such as sending children to school.

Social assistance programmes may struggle to target those most in need, and provide sustainable support. Economic policies, including social assistance, and household economic strengthening, require substantial research, monitoring, and gatekeeping to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable are reached and that long term benefits can be achieved for families, including child headed households.

The literature in this section provides country examples and analyses of social assistance programs, focusing primarily on cash transfer schemes.

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Scoping and Sector Review of Social Protection in Somaliland

Save the Children, 01 Jul 2020

This Scoping Study and Sector Review, produced under the guidance of the Ministry of Employment, Social Affairs and Family (MESAF) of Somaliland and Save the Children, is a strategic analysis of the existing policy landscape in Somaliland in order to inform the development of a Social Protection system.

A cash plus program reduces youth exposure to physical violence in Zimbabwe

Averi Chakrabarti, Sudhanshu Handa, Gustavo Angeles, David Seidenfeld - World Development, 01 Jul 2020

This paper investigates whether the Government of Zimbabwe’s Harmonized Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) Program, which combines cash transfers with complementary services, affects youth exposure to physical violence.

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Universal child benefits: Policy issues and options

ODI and UNICEF, 01 Jun 2020

This report from ODI and UNICEF critically reviews the case for universal child benefits (UCBs). It seeks to contribute to a burgeoning and lively debate on the (potential) role of UCBs as a policy instrument in the pursuit of child poverty reduction and universal social protection.

Making the Transition: How Asset Building Services Can Promote Positive Adult Outcomes for Foster Youth

Melanie L. Nadon - Children and Youth Services Review, 15 May 2020

This paper examines the frequency with which transition-age foster youth receive asset building services and whether the youth who receive services experience improved outcomes compared to those who do not.

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A future for the world’s children? A WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission

Helen Clark, Awa Marie Coll-Seck, et al - The Lancet Commissions, 18 Feb 2020

This WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission lays the foundations for a new global movement for child health that addresses the two crises of climate change and predatory commercial exploitation, and presents high-level recommendations that position children at the centre of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A new kinship typology and factors associated with receiving financial assistance in kinship care

Yanfeng Xu, Charlotte Lyn Bright, Haksoon Ahn, Hui Huang, Terry Shaw - Children and Youth Services Review, 01 Feb 2020

This study used wave 2 of the U.S. National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II (NSCAW II) to develop a new typology of kinship care based on financial mechanisms, including: (1) families that received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) only; (2) families that received foster care payments only; (3) families that received both TANF benefits and foster care payments; and (4) families that received no payments.

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Reducing the Number of Children Entering Foster Care: Effects of State Earned Income Tax Credits

Whitney L. Rostad, Katie A. Ports, Shichao Tang, Joanne Klevens - Child Maltreatment, 24 Jan 2020

This study used variations in the adoption and refund status of state-level Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a socioeconomic policy intended to reduce poverty, to examine their effect on foster care entry rates in the U.S.

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Partnering for Family Success: Final Evaluation Report

Crampton, D., Fischer, R., Richter, F., Collins, C. C., Bai, R., & Henderson, M. - Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, 2020

This report presents the results of an evaluation of the Partnering for Family Success (PFS) program, which was conceived as an innovative intervention to address the particular needs of housing unstable families who had a child in the custody of the county child welfare agency.

Perceptions of Parents/Guardians About the Effectiveness of Future Families Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme in Olievenhoutbosch, South Africa

Eale E. Kris & Mphuthi David - Global Journal of Health Science, 14 Dec 2019

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the perceptions of orphans and vulnerable children’s parents/guardians about the effectiveness of Future Families’ children programme in Olievenhoutbosch as a way to explore how much they are involved in the process of designing the programme activities and if they perceive the programme as effective in responding to their family needs.

Housing instability and child welfare: Examining the delivery of innovative services in the context of a randomized controlled trial

Cyleste C. Collins, Rong Bai, Robert Fischer, David Crampton, Nina Lalich, Chun Liu, Tsui Chan - Children and Youth Services Review, 20 Nov 2019

This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine process findings from a randomized control trial from the first county-level Pay for Success initiative, Partnering for Family Success.