Displaying 61 - 70 of 155
This video, presented by Better Care Network and UNICEF, highlights the increased risk of family separation faced by children with special needs and advocates for the provision of quality family-based care to children who cannot be with their parents or extended families. The video gives an inside look at an assisted family setting in Ghana where children with disabilities live with their foster mothers. The video features interviews with the foster mothers, who describe the care and affection they provide to the children, as well as an interview with Iddris Abdallah, …
This video is presented by Better Care Network and UNICEF. It tells the story of Maureen, a young girl in Kenya who was separated from her family and sent to live in a children's home. In the video, Maureen expresses her desire to reunite with her grandparents and asks "why do I live in a children's home?" The video also features interviews with experts, including those who have lived in children's homes, explaining some of the negative impacts of institutionalization. Children who live in institutions, say the experts, often lack the individual care, affection, and attachment that a family…
Research strongly suggests that children are best served by care that is as safe, nurturing and as close to family as is feasible for the given situation. Many care organizations that have long served children in large scale residential settings desire to shift decisively toward family-based solutions. However, transitioning from residential care to family-based care can be difficult, even intimidating. The organizations profiled in these case studies have pioneered effective transitions from residential to family-based care. For these studies, they have generously shared from their…
This post from the Faith to Action Initiative highlights the work of the Abide Family Center in Uganda, which helps to keep families together. The post features the story of one young mother, Deborah, who was able to keep her children with her, despite the hardships she faced after the death of her husband, because of the services she participated in at the Abide Family Center.
This article details the introduction of a livelihood project for unaccompanied children in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, which aimed at strengthening the household economy of foster families and improving the care of fostered children. The Dadaab refugee camp was established in 1991 to host 90,000 refugees who fled from the civil war in Somalia. The camp population rose over the next twenty years as a result of chronic fighting, drought, floods, famine, and the Ethiopian invasion in 2007. Extreme famine and conflict in Somalia in 2011…
The Ishema Mu Muryango program was implemented from April 2013 to June 2015 with funding from USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Funds (DCOF). The goal of the program was to safely and sustainably reintegrate children living in institutions in two districts of Rwanda into their families or communities and prevent further institutionalization through developing family-based alternative care options that are suitable and sustainable. The program was implemented by Global Communities working in close partnership with Hope and Homes for Children and with additional support from UNICEF.…
This presentation describes research undertaken in Sierra Leone by an inter-agency group to map the child protection system in the country, including the community-based child protection mechanisms (CBCPMs) in place. The presentation asks "have we mapped CBCPMs adequately in mappings of national systems? Which CBCPMs do people actually use, and how they are linked with and supported by formal aspects of the national child protection system?"
Les enfants et les familles vulnérables ont besoin d’un système de soutien social qui réponde aux problèmes qu’ils rencontrent grâce à des solutions efficaces et durables. Les observations présentées dans ce rapport sont un « cliché instantané » des pratiques prometteuses en matière de développement et de pérennité de la communauté. Ce rapport explique comment SOS Villages d’Enfants contribue à l’autonomisation des communautés, qui soutiennent ensuite elles-mêmes les enfants vulnérables et leurs familles.
Abstract
Efforts to strengthen national child protection systems have frequently taken a top-down approach of imposing formal, government-managed services. Such expert-driven approaches are often characterized by low use of formal services and the misalignment of the nonformal and formal aspects of the child protection system. This article examines an alternative approach of community-driven, bottom-up work that enables nonformal–formal collaboration and alignment, greater use of formal services, internally driven social change, and high levels of community ownership. The…
Synergos Institute, in partnership with Kim Samuel, and in collaboration with Oxford University’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) and the Foundation for Community Development (FDC) in Mozambique, Synergos has embarked on a major initiative regarding isolation and social connectedness for children and youth, particularly within the context of South and southern Africa.
This report describes the Social Connectedness Programme and the three strands of research that inform it. The report defines social…