This resource guide aims to assist program designers, funders, and implementers to select and incorporate appropriate and effective household economic strengthening (HES) measures into programs to preserve or reestablish family care for children. Poverty—not having enough of the essential requirements of life—is a structural driver of family and child vulnerability; it weakens families and increases the likelihood of children separating from them, although it is rarely the only contributing factor (Chaffin and Kalyanpur 2014, Delap 2013, EveryChild 2009, Laumann 2015). HES, which aims to stabilize or improve a family’s economic situation by increasing its assets, can play an essential role in expanding families’ capacity to provide for their children’s basic needs and education, as well as strengthen their social integration and improve their psychosocial well-being (Chaffin and Kalyanpur 2014, United Nations 2010).
This document has been developed to provide guidance and information on useful resources for matching specific HES activities to the particular needs and capacities of individual families and to the differing contexts in which they live, addressing a gap that practitioners have identified in their knowledge and skill sets.
The resource is part of the Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation and Research in Economic Strengthening (ASPIRES) project.
