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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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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Not All Children in Foster Care Who Were Enrolled in Medicaid Received Required Health Screenings

Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General - Department of Health and Human Services , 01 Mar 2015

The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services in the USA conducted a study, focused on four states in the US, to determine whether children in foster care received initial and periodic health screenings as established in each State’s plan.

Are European Structural and Investment Funds Opening Doors for Europe’s Institutionalised Children in the 2014-2020 programming period?

Aagje Ieven, EuroChild , 01 Feb 2015

This report is based on the outcomes of a survey addressed to eight National Coordinators of the Opening Doors campaign. It aims to assess the extent to which EU Member States have used ESIF to catalyse child care systems reform.

Strategie de la Protection Sociale au Burundi

Government of Burundi, 2015

Le présent rapport décrit la stratégie du Burundi pour le renforcement des initiatives nationales de protection sociale, y compris le soutien aux orphelins et aux enfants vulnérables.

Child Protection: UNICEF Country Programme 2016-2018

UNICEF, 2015

This document serves as a brief of the UNICEF Child Protection Programme provided in Cambodia.

Children First: Better Public Spending for Better Outcomes for Children & Families - Eurochild Conference Report

Eurochild, 2015

This report summarizes the discussions and activities held at Eurochild’s 11th Annual Conference, co-hosted by Hope and Homes for Children in Bucharest, Romania on 26-28 November 2014.

Early Childhood and family life: Guide of good practices for the right of young children to live in a family and a community - Spanish

RELAF and UNICEF, 2015

This Guide, written in Spanish, features a compilation of several social protection programs, services and public policies that resulted in the prevention of family breakdown and in the support of families and communities in caring and protecting their children. All these examples are taken from the Latin American region, Italy and Romania.

Bridging the gap: The impact of home visiting programs for orphans and vulnerable children on social grant uptake in South Africa

Tonya R. Thurman, Rachel Kidman, Tory M.Taylor -Children and Youth Services Review, 12 Dec 2014

This article presents results from a quasi-experimental study in South Africa examining differences in grant uptake over a two year period among 1487 children enrolled in one of two types of supportive home visiting programming: volunteer-based or paraprofessional.

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