A strong social service workforce (SSW) is the backbone of effective child protection systems. Across Eastern and Southern Africa, social service workers play a critical role in preventing and responding to violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children. Yet, the workforce remains underfunded and understaffed, limiting its ability to deliver essential services. To address this gap, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) has developed this Policy Brief summarizing the rationale and approach for building an investment case for strengthening the SSW.

Cambiar la Forma en que Cuidamos (CTWWC, por sus siglas en inglés) es una iniciativa global que promueve un cuidado familiar seguro y afectuoso para los niños.

The Kenyan government has announced a plan to gradually reintegrate about 44,000 children currently living in private orphanages and children’s homes back to their families by 2032, under its 10‑year National Care Reform Strategy.

These SOPs aim to strengthen the effectiveness and well-being of Kenya’s child protection practitioners by promoting accountability, continuous learning, and reflective practice. By prioritizing practitioners’ psychosocial health and standardizing supportive supervision across the State Department for Children Services, the guidance seeks to improve service quality, reduce burnout, and enhance outcomes for vulnerable children.

This package of materials encompasses a comprehensive costing framework for scaling two key care reform models implemented by the Changing the Way We Care initiative in Kenya—Kafaalah and Case Management for Reintegration.

Changing the Way We Care’s “Care System Strengthening Learning Synthesis: Evaluation Summary” distills lessons from care reform efforts in four countries, examining how change happened across laws, workforce, financing, monitoring, and services. It finds that evidence-based advocacy, strong government ownership, collaboration, and capacity-building were central to driving and sustaining reform across diverse contexts.

On October 23, 2025, the Transforming Children’s Care Collaborative hosted a webinar exploring Kafaalah—a long-standing childcare practice in Muslim communities that has been observed for more than 1,400 years.

This report presents findings from an evaluation by Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC) that used a realist approach to examine how care reform progressed in Guatemala, India, Kenya, and Moldova across five key system components. It identifies advocacy, government ownership, collaboration, and capacity-building as major drivers of change and offers recommendations for governments and partners to embed family care in national systems, strengthen coordination and workforce capacity, and sustain reforms through evidence, shared learning, and long-term commitment.

This study examines the educational experiences of children in Charitable Children's Institutions (CCIs) in Kenya, highlighting how institutional care often fills gaps left by inadequate education and other services in contexts of poverty. Findings reveal that children in CCIs face marginalization, stigma, and disrupted learning, while promising interventions include cross-sector partnerships, safeguarding training, and transitioning CCIs toward community-based support within national care reform.

Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC) is a global initiative which promotes safe, nurturing family care for children.