In this course you will learn from Ekisa Ministries, a nonprofit organization located in Jinja, Uganda, that has been working with children with disabilities for over a decade. The hope is that you will finish this course with an understanding of what it may look like for your organization to incorporate children with disabilities and help them find their way home.

This is the monthly update of the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Learning Platform published in March 2023. 

This case study documents the story of Mary, one of thousands of children in Kenya who were sent to family care suddenly without any preparation when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Mary's story highlights the need for family assistance to see a reunification through to successful reintegration.

This study was designed to be a small insights-based qualitative learning and reflection study to explore catalysts for transition. It was based on interviews conducted with Charitable Children’s Institutions’ (CCI) directors that sought to identify and explore the range of factors that influenced each director’s decision to transition their residential care services, and the interplay between those factors.

The government of Rwanda is in the final phases of its care reform program. Having reintegrated the majority of children from residential care back to families and communities, they are now working on the reintegration of children with disabilities. In this webinar, we hear from policymakers and practitioners on how this has been done and key lessons learned.

Based in Uganda, Child’s i Foundation successfully transitioned their residential programs before deciding to expand their vision and seek to bring about care reform to the entire district of Tororo. Partnering with the district level government and several CCIs, Child’s i Foundation carried out an extensive analysis and assessment of the Tororo region which provided information to guide the ensuing transitions of CCIs throughout the region.

The Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Learning Platform hosted a webinar on September 20, 2022, with panel of experts who explored how the social service workforce can be strengthened to support care reform in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Why is it so important to consider mental health and emotional well-being in child care and child protection? How can we address mental health needs in a non-clinical environment?

This webinar provides nine lessons learnt on care reform from the COVID-19 pandemic with examples from Malawi, Uganda and Kenya.

In 2021, UNICEF launched its latest approach to Child Protection Systems Strengthening (CPSS), together with benchmarks for measuring the CPSS work, and high impact CPSS interventions. The objective of this webinar is to present this CPSS approach, and reflect on how this approach, and especially the seven intermediate outcomes of CPSS are relevant to the care reform agenda. Colleagues from Rwanda will share how care reform has been used as a strategic entry point to strengthen national Child Protection Systems and help explore how strengthening Child Protection Systems helps accelerate work on care reform.