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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Child Protection and Parent Support: The Two Dichotomies

Dejan Janićijević - Factas Universitatis: Law and Politics, 2016

This paper examines the two basic models of the state authorities’ intervention into family life aimed at protecting children.

Children’s Rights in Poland and Russia in the Context of Janusz Korczak’s in heritage

Edyta Januszewska - International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 2016

The aim of this article is to study the situation on realizing children’s rights in Poland and in Russia in the context of Janusz Korczak’s principles.

Implementing child maltreatment prevention programmes: what the experts say

Katherine A. Hardcastle, Mark A. Bellis, Karen Hughes and Dinesh Sethi, 01 Dec 2015

This handbook authored by the World Health Organization Europe and Liverpool John Moores University – based on a series of interviews with the world's leading experts on preventing child maltreatment – provides practical information to policy-makers, practitioners and others on implementing prevention programmes. The handbook describes key principles for selecting and delivering programmes, and important practical considerations, including resources and technical support.

Research methodology applied to a comparative case study of the deinstitutionalization of children in Bulgaria and Ukraine

Chrissie Gale - Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, 01 Dec 2015

This study discusses a variance in results in eliminating use of large-scale residential institutions for children across the CEE/CIS region.

US Department of Health and Human Services: Child Welfare Policy Manual

US Department of Health and Human Services, 01 Nov 2015

The Child Welfare Policy Manual, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau, contains policy questions and answers applicable to child welfare programs operated by the Children's Bureau.

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Ghana National Social Protection Policy

Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection - Republic of Ghana, 01 Nov 2015

The National Social Protection Policy of Ghana provides a framework for delivering social protection coherently, effectively and efficiently in a way that is holistic and properly targeted.

Strengthening Uganda’s National Response for Implementation of Services for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children: Final Evaluation

Coordinating Comprehensive Care for Children (4Children) project, 18 Sep 2015

Strengthening Uganda’s National Response for Implementation of Services for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (SUNRISE-OVC) is a five-year project, which began June 2010, to deliver and monitor high quality, comprehensive and scaled-up services for OVC in 80 out of 112 districts in Uganda. The project was funded by USAID, working in partnership with the Government of Uganda’s (GoU) Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) for oversight.

Applying a Family-Level Economic Strengthening Intervention to Improve Education and Health-Related Outcomes of School-Going AIDS-Orphaned Children: Lessons from a Randomized Experiment in Southern Uganda.

Ssewamala FM, Karimli L, Torsten N, Wang JS, Han CK, Ilic V, Nabunya P. - PubMed, 01 Aug 2015

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a family-level economic strengthening intervention with regard to school attendance, school grades, and self-esteem in AIDS-orphaned adolescents aged 12-16 years from 10 public rural primary schools in southern Uganda.

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Effects of cash transfers on Children’s health and social protection in Sub-Saharan Africa: differences in outcomes based on orphan status and household assets

Thomas M. Crea, Andrew D. Reynolds, Aakanksha Sinha, Jeffrey W. Eaton, Laura A. Robertson, Phyllis Mushati, Lovemore Dumba, Gideon Mavise, J. C. Makoni,Christina M. Schumacher, Constance A. Nyamukapa and Simon Gregson - BMC Public Health, 28 May 2015

This study, conducted in eastern Zimbabwe, addresses the gap in current understanding about the extent to which household-based cash transfers differentially impact individual children’s outcomes, according to risk or protective factors such as orphan status and household assets.

Anti-Poverty Strategies for Care Leavers: The Same as Prisoners?

David Graham - Criminal Justice Matters , 16 Mar 2015

In this article, the author, David Graham, draws comparisons between the experiences and needs of youth transitioning out of care in the UK and those of individuals who are formerly incarcerated reintegrating into society.

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