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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The Evaluation of the Adoption Support Fund

Sadie King, Matt Gieve, Giorgia Iacopini, Anna Sophie Hahne, Heather Stradling – The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, 01 Aug 2017

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the UK's Adoption Support Fund undertaken by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

How to Make ‘Cash Plus’ Work: Linking Cash Transfers to Services and Sectors

Keetie Roelen; Stephen Devereux; Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai; Bruno Martorano; Tia Palermo; Luigi Peter Ragno - UNICEF Office of Research, 01 Aug 2017

This paper aims to identify key factors for successful implementation of increasingly popular ‘cash plus’ programmes, based on (i) a review of the emerging evidence base of ‘cash plus’ interventions and (ii) an examination of three case studies, namely, Chile Solidario in Chile, IN-SCT in Ethiopia and LEAP in Ghana.

The Mental Health and Help-Seeking Behaviour of Children and Young People in Care in Northern Ireland: Making Services Accessible and Engaging

Montserrat Fargas-Malet & Dominic McSherry - The British Journal of Social Work, 12 Jul 2017

This article presents the findings from the Mind Your Health study conducted in Northern Ireland, which analyzes the experiences of young people in care and their carers in accessing and engaging in mental health services.

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Smuggled and Trafficked Unaccompanied Minors: Towards a Coherent, Protection-Based Approach in International Law

Joseph Lelliott - International Journal of Refugee Law, 11 Jul 2017

This article explores the protection of smuggled and trafficked unaccompanied minors under the United Nations Protocols against the Smuggling of Migrants and Trafficking in Persons and calls for a more substantive protection-based framework to address the issue.

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2017 Home Visiting Yearbook

James Bell Associates with the Urban Institute - National Home Visiting Resource Center, 01 Jul 2017

The 2017 Home Visiting Yearbook presents, for the first time, the most comprehensive picture available of home visiting on the national and state levels, revealing the breadth of home visiting in the United States and identifying the gaps in practice.

Review of youth detention centres

Kathryn McMillan QC & Megan Davis, 28 Jun 2017

This independent review into Queensland's youth detention centres examined the practices, operation and oversight of the state's two youth detention centres in Townsville and Brisbane, in addition to evaluating the effectiveness of programs and services delivered in Queensland's youth detention centres.

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Strengthening the Social Welfare Workforce to address Violence against Children in care

Jonna Karlsson - UNICEF, 23 Jun 2017

This UNICEF presentation describes the need for social service workforce strengthening in East and Southern Africa and presents recommendations based on a case example from Rwanda.

Minimum Standards on Comprehensive Services for Children and Young People in the East African Community

Rebecca Theuri & Isabel de Bruin Cardoso - Save the Children & Maestral International/East African Community, 22 Jun 2017

This presentation provides a background on the East African Community (EAC) Child Policy (2016) and describes the minimum standards and corresponding framework and strategies for providing services to children and young people within the East African Community.

Ending VAC in All Care Settings: Global developments, persisting challenges and how the African region can advance progress

Kathryn Leslie - Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, 22 Jun 2017

This presentation provides an overview of recent efforts and developments to end violence against children in all care settings around the world. Persisting global challenges and opportunities at the national, regional and global levels to end violence against children are also identified.

Strengthening the care workforce in how to prevent and respond to VAC and care

Beatrice Ongalo – SOS Children’s Villages, 21 Jun 2017

This presentation describes the issue of violence against children in alternative care settings in East and Southern Africa and offers recommendations on how to strengthen the care workforce to ensure it is equipped to prevent and respond to violence against children in alternative care.