Over the previous month, I have posted blogs raising awareness about the risks and dangers ahead for vulnerable children, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the recession that will follow it. However, I do not just want to focus on the gloomy side. It is important to acknowledge the various plans, measures and campaigns that are being prepared and implemented. So, that is what I would like to do in this blog.
Continue reading “Good News on Child Protection Measures”Tag: #familystrengthening
Call-to-Action: Awareness-Raising
Earlier this week, I sent out another advocacy email to a number of big organisations, with a call to action to mobilise an awareness-raising movement to prevent children being separated from their families unnecessarily. Here is that email:
Continue reading “Call-to-Action: Awareness-Raising”Childonomics for Recovery
In March, I wrote a blog about my discovery of Childonomics (HERE) and the potential that I see in it. When I started to think about the ways in which we need to prepare for the recovery period after the pandemic, the Childonomics methodology sprang to mind almost immediately. In a situation with which everyone is unfamiliar, where no one has a clear idea of what is needed or what would be the best road to take, Childonomics can really provide a tool to help make informed policy decisions.
Continue reading “Childonomics for Recovery”Finding the Scattered Children
As mentioned in the email (which you can find HERE), children have been sent back to their families – or simply pushed out of institutions – in various countries at the start of the lockdown. Something which I foresaw would happen back in March (HERE), though this is not something I’m happy to have been right about. Without any preparation, support or monitoring. In fact, in many of these places, no one is entirely sure where these children are right now. And we are talking about thousands of children per country in various countries.
Continue reading “Finding the Scattered Children”Preparing for Post-Pandemic Recovery
In today’s blog, I want to share with you the email that I have sent out to 19 big organisations in May. It is a bit longer than my average blog, but it is worth it:
I am trying to make organisations aware of both the dangers that lie ahead for vulnerable children, and of the opportunity to do something to mitigate those dangers, and I wanted to bring this to your attention as well.
Continue reading “Preparing for Post-Pandemic Recovery”Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Identifying Those at Risk
Part 19 of the explanation with the ToC: Once there are no more children in institutions, that too is not the end of the work to be done. Family-based alternative care and family strengthening do not just serve to absorb children who previously lived in institutions. These systems are in place to provide support and protection to the most vulnerable families and children in society.
Continue reading “Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Identifying Those at Risk”Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Designing Services
Part 13 of the explanation with the ToC: Using the information gathered during the initial data collection and the individual assessments of children and their family, it is possible to get an overview of what services are needed, for how many people in what locations, whether these services are already available, whether organisations are operating in the relevant locations that might be willing and able to set up and run services there for ‘your’ children to use, whether you need to provide these organisations with support to do so (and if so, what kind of support), or whether you can build on existing services yourself; and what services are needed and not present in any form, and so need to be set up from scratch, by you.
Continue reading “Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Designing Services”Should There Be a Time-Limit on Family Support?
During the Immersive Simulation Lab: Family-Based Care Conference in February, one of the participants made an interesting remark, one that I feel is worth looking into more closely. He was a representative of a major NGO and said that when families were offered support in order to make family reintegration possible, there should be a time limit on the support offered.
Continue reading “Should There Be a Time-Limit on Family Support?”Practical Model for Implementing UN Guidelines
In February, I announced that I was developing a Theory of Change model to given an overview of the practical stages involved in implementing the UN Guidelines on Alternative Care for Children. This is applicable both for places wanting to move from institutional to family-based care or for those who are just trying to set up family-based care and family strengthening. Today I would like to present the model I came up with.
Continue reading “Practical Model for Implementing UN Guidelines”Arranging Services
Having spent some time, recently, looking at the need for individual assessment and how to go about it, it seems useful to address another step in the process of deinstitutionalisation, namely that of mapping and setting up services. In order for children to move from an institution into the community – whether this is to go live with their parents again, to be placed in a foster family or small group home, or to enter supported living – they are going to require the support of a range of services. This means that these services have to be present before the child is moved.
Continue reading “Arranging Services”