1Child Protection Initiative, May 2014

FAMILY AND PARENTING SUPPORT

Outline of the presentation

• Why is Save the Children focusing on

family strengthening and parenting

work? What are the drivers behind our

work?

• How are we addressing it today?

• Two examples/case studies;

1) Positive Discipline/parenting

2) Kinship care research

• Next steps and way forward

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Definition of FAMILIES

• Save the Children understands families as:

• All adult family members have a crucial role to play to ensure that children survive, thrive and develop according to their age, gender and their evolving capacity .

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“social groups connected by kinship, marriage, adoption or choice. Family

members have clearly defined relationships, long-term

commitments, mutual obligations and responsibilities, and a shared sense

of togetherness. Families are the primary providers of protection,

support and socialisation for children and youth.”

Why focus on FAMILIES and PARENTING?

• New variants on traditional family

structures have emerged in

response to social change,

conflict, urbanization, HIV/AIDS

and other crises. Reduced

number of potential care givers.

• Institutional care can cause

serious harm to children

• Research demonstrates that

children brought up without the

nurture and attachment to adults

offered in a safe caring family

environment suffer adverse

psychological and development

outcomes.

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Why focus on FAMILIES and PARENTING?

• In many countries a large, majority of children are experiencing

violence in the home, often for disciplinary purposes.

• Corporal punishment is an ineffective way of teaching the child, it

can damage the parent- child relationship and can easily escalate to

severe child abuse.

• Stronger focus on violence prevention and to address root causes

• Children´s voices and recommendations

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Save the Children’s organisational FOUNDATIONS

• The Convention on

the Rights of the

Child

– articles 2, 3, 4, 5,

6, 12, 18, 19, 27,

• Strengthening

community based and

national child

protection systems

• Save the Children´s

Theory of Change

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Current approach: CHILD PROTECTION

• Family strengthening policies that apply to all families in order to

empower and equip parents/care givers with the skills and resources

so that children grow and thrive in a safe family environment

– eg parental services and helplines, positive discipline and other parental

education and economic strengthening policies. Strengthening social work.

• Policies and services that are designed for children at high risk of

neglect, abuse, exploitation and violence in the home and

communities

– eg home visitation policies and programs, outreach programs to children living

outside family care, conditional cash transfers, family-based alternative care

options (kinship care, foster care, guardianship or adoption).

• Special focus on children with disabilities, from ethnic minorities,

migrant children.

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Current approach: other SECTORS

• Education: Early Childhood Development Programs targetting parents for child

education and development.

• Health and nutrition: improve health and nutrition of mothers, newborn babies and

children, social protection, with special attention to poor and vulnerable communities.

• Child poverty: ensure economic and poverty reducing programmes and policies

focus on breaking the inter-generational transfer of poverty (livelihood, social

protection, cash transfers)

• Child Rights and Business Principles: promoting work and life balances - including

parental leave polices (fathers and mothers), day care provision, length and flexibility

of work hours, provision for pregnant and breastfeeding women, etc.

• Fatherhood programs: Target fathers for gender equality, protection, care and well

being for children. Men Care – A Global Fatherhood Campaign.

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Save the Children´s Child protection BREAKTHROUGH

2030

Goal: All children thrive in a safe family environment and no child is placed in harmful institutions

Keep children safe

Children grow up in a safe family environment free from

harm caused by violence, exploitation, abuse or

neglect

Strengthen families & prevent unnecessary

separation

Children benefit from quality care in their own families or in other family based care

alternatives

Securing family reunification in

humanitarian crises

Separated and unaccompanied children are provided with adequate FTR services and children at risk

receive support.

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OBJECTIVES by 2015

Keep children safe• Public and community leaders, parents, caregivers and children demonstrate higher acceptance

and knowledge of non-violent child rearing methods.

• Trained parents and caregivers develop supportive, non-violent relationships and effective

communication with their children through the use of positive discipline techniques.

Strengthen families and prevent unnecessary separation• Save the Children in ten countries have developed and will be implementing family- and

community-based prevention and alternative care models to demonstrate the feasibility and

impact of quality care provision.

• In at least five countries where residential care is an issue, the licensing and regulation of

institutions will be enforced and the number of children living in them will be reduced.

Securing family reunification in humanitarian crises• In at least five large rapid onset emergencies where Save the Children is working, registration of

separated and/or unaccompanied children will begin within 72 hours, with tracing and reunification

immediately following.

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ADVOCACY objectives by 2015

• Eight additional States ban physical and

humiliating punishment against children in all

settings.

• At least ten States adopt and implement laws and

policies that promote family and community-

based care in line with the international guidelines

for the alternative care of children.

• In emergency situations States commit to provide

coordinated assistance and support to

unaccompanied and separated children, where

relevant.

• The post-2015 framework integrates goals and

targets that include an explicit focus on improved

protection for children, ideally with a specific child

protection goal.11

Child Protection MONITORING & EVALUATION

GLOBAL OUTCOME INDICATORS:

1. Utilisation of child protection services: % of children and caregivers in a 12-month

period who have used prevention or response interventions delivered or supported by Save the Children

2. Quality of child protection services: % of prevention & response interventions

supported by Save the Children which meet quality standards

3. Child Protection Legislation and Policy change: # of countries where one or more

policy or legislative changes to improve children’s protection rights in line with the four CPI priority areas

has taken place in the last 12 months with the support of Save the Children

Humanitarian Outcome Indicators relating to CPIE (ie: FTR)

Child Protection MONITORING & EVALUATION

• Developing new framework for

the Breakthrough, with a focus on

secondary national level data

• New Initiative with Better Care

Network and working with CP

MERG to harvest data from

MICS/DHS to produce a technical

brief and country analysis

examples

• Evaluation synthesis to extract

learning

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Child Protection SIGNATURE PROGRAMS

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Families First

Indonesia

Positive Parenting

Philippines

The Essentia

l package

Malawi

One stop

centers

Tanzania

Sexual violenc

e

DRC

Child Friendly Spaces

Building resilience in children

with

disabilitiesBanglades

h

POSITIVE DISCIPLINE in Everyday Parenting

• A training model for parents that

aims at providing an effective

non-punitive child rearing

approach to resolving parent-

child conflict

• Developed by Save the Children

and Joan Durrant at the

University of Manitoba, Canada

Strengthening relationships and

understanding children’s perspectives

Promoting self-regulation of parent

and child

Reducing punishment

Approaching challenges as a

problem-solver and a mentor

POSITIVE DISCIPLINE in Everyday Parenting

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Identifying your long-term goals

Providing warmth(safety, security)

Providing structure(information , guidance)

Understanding how children think and feel

PROBLEM SOLVINGPositive

Discipline

Where Positive Discipline is being implemented

For effective IMPLEMENTATION

• Advocacy for legal reform

against corporal punishment

in all settings including the

home

• Awareness rasising and

community mobilisation

• Child participation is a

central component in the

strategy to end physical and

humiliating punishment.

• Special efforts are made to

reach fathers and male

caregivers.

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Positive Discipline training is combined

with:

Building a

social

movement for

and with

children

Creating safe

homes and

school

environments

Reaching out to

prevent violence

BEFORE it happens

The Philippines – INTERVENTION MODEL

Supporting safety networks on

community level

Children’s right to

grow up free from

violence supported

by law and the use

of positive

discipline

Understanding and Improving Informal Alternative Care

Mechanisms with a focus on Kinship care in West Central

Africa

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Participatory Research on KINSHIP CARE

WHY? Rationale & objective

• An estimated 15.8% of children

under the age of 15 years in West

and Central Africa do not live with

their biological parents.

• Only a very small number (0.002%)

live in formal alternative care,

including institutional care.

• To build knowledge on

endogenous care practices within

families and communities, especially

informal kinship care.

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WHERE and with WHO the research has been undertaken:

• Democratic Republic of Congo,

Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

• 17 communities (3 rural villages, 11

urban and 3 semi-urban) across the

three countries

• Across the three countries over 200

people were involved in country

research teams

• More than 1100 stakeholders were

consulted during the research

process

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Main FINDINGS

• Kinship care needs to be better

recognized and supported as

endogenous coping

mechanism

• Informality has weaknesses

and strengths

• Mixed outcomes for children

• Lack of regulation but against

formalisation

• Need to strengthen

identification, monitoring,

prevention and response to the

concerns of children living in

kinship care

• Need to mitigate the root

causes of separation and

understand family

compositions and living

arrangements

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KINSHIP CARE research

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In my vision I saw that children are living with their biological

parents and are going to school. There is peace and unity, There

is quality education, health services, and better care. Children are

taking part in decisions making and the child´s voices is

respected” 17 years old boy in Sierra Leone

NEXT STEPS on parenting and family

strengthening

• Follow up on the recommendations from the kinship care

research.

• Conduct a longitudinal study on the impact of Positive

Discipline programs in low and medium income countries

and adapt a methodogy for teachers.

• Integrate Positive Discipline into fatherhood program and

other parenting/family and education programs.

• Enhanced collaboration with other sectors (including

private sector)

• Develop a comprehensive system for monitoring the

impact of the breakthrough in all countries where Save

the Children works.

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Thank you!

Thanks!