Resources Database

This Facilitator’s Guide is for use by the varied workshop facilitators, including national and county trainer of trainers from the Department of Children's Services, and trained staff from other care reform partners. This guide is to be used together with the training agenda, PowerPoint slides, the Caseworker’s Guidebook and the Caseworker’s Toolkit for reintegration toolkit and the small group activity handouts. 

This toolkit is intended as a job aid for case worker's and includes sample forms for assessment, consent, placement and monitoring. The development of this Guidebook has been largely informed by the National Child Protection Case Management and Referral Pathway Guidelines in Kenya, the Guidelines for the Alternative Family Care of Children in Kenya, the case management model developed by 4Children [Coordinating Comprehensive Care for Children] Uganda’s Keeping Children in Healthy and Protective Families project and the MWENDO [Making Well-Informed Efforts to Nurture Disadvantaged Orphans &

This Guidebook is intended to help in determining the course of action, streamline the process, and standardize the way state and non-state service providers promote family- and community-based care and protection for children outside of parental care. The intention in developing this package is to provide a general framework of agreed principles, considerations, steps, and procedures, along with a vital road map for effective case management that leads to successful reintegration of children back into families or communities. 

The government of Kenya is committed to moving away from institutional care towards family and community-based care. To support the oversight and implementation of the contents of the Children’s Act, Kenya has established the National Council for Children’s Services (NCCS) as the policy-making, coordination, regulatory, advocacy and advisory body and the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) the mandated government body to implement children’s services, including care.

Child welfare professionals have a deep and often quiet impact on children’s lives—working to connect families with resources, determining appropriate placements, and responding around the clock to address emergencies. The complex story of child welfare work is hard to convey to the community; while most people can describe the careers of professionals with whom they interact—police officers or nurses, for example—the day-to-day efforts of child welfare professionals are often invisible from public view.

This helpdesk report reviews 10 national social protection strategies (published between 2011- 2019) in order to map their content, scope, development processes and measures of success. Each strategy was strongly shaped by its local context (e.g. how social development was defined, development priorities and existing capacity and resources) but there were also many observed similarities (e.g. shared values, visions for social protection). A number of good practices were identified from the strategies and wider literature.

The paper outlines the primary and secondary impacts of COVID-19 on children in Ghana. The paper finds that wide-reaching secondary effects of the virus and consequent mitigation and preventive measures should be addressed in multidimensional ways, across sectors. In addition to emergency relief, strengthening social protection systems and prioritizing child-sensitive spending on human capital development, particularly on children’s learning through school reopening, are forward-looking strategies to protect children from this and future crises.

This report offers recommendations for strengthening child-sensitive reception, care and services for unaccompanied children in the United States. Drawing on UNICEF’s global experience, international guidance, and the insights of key stakeholders, the report intends to offer a constructive, solutions-oriented vision for addressing the challenges related to child-sensitive reception and care within the U.S. The report highlights the important features that make a reception and care system for unaccompanied migrant children child-sensitive: an organizational culture centered around child righ

This guidance is designed to strengthen the capacity of government agencies in low resource settings to prepare a sound budgetary framework for policies, programs and services that aim to keep children in safe and nurturing family environments.

Facing challenges of delivering parenting programs during COVID-19, many programs shifted to virtual service delivery and adapted to provide enhanced psychosocial support. This brief focuses on how parenting programs are reorienting their services in response to COVID-19 and supporting the workforce delivering these critical services.

This catalogue showcases many promising innovations and adaptations in child protection services by Save the Children to ensure continuity of services during COVID-19. It shares examples lessons learned as good practice that can inform others on adapting services in future health crises but also as consideration for long-term implementation to achieve child protection progress.

Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic – along with previous infectious disease outbreaks – suggests that existing child protection violations are exacerbated, and new risks emerge, in times of crisis. In addition to the adverse impacts of detention and incarceration on their well-being, children risk contracting the virus when detained in confined and overcrowded spaces. They are also more vulnerable to neglect and abuse, especially if staffing levels or care are undermined by the pandemic or containment measures.

This report shares shares examples of good practice in pivoting existing coordination mechanisms and services in Palestine. In 2016, important changes were initiated in the criminal justice system for children with the adoption of the Juvenile Protection Law in the State of Palestine.

Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and Education in Emergencies are highly complementary areas of humanitarian response.

Girls and boys the world over have been devastated by COVID-19’s aftershocks. Before the pandemic, more than one billion children experienced violence every year. As the crisis unfolded, up to 85 million more children found themselves at risk of violence at home, online and in their communities.

This brief outlines actions for preventing and responding to child sexual abuse and exploitation, including building capacity for services and investing resources to prevent and respond including in the areas of child protection.

UNICEF is preparing to draft a new Child Protection Strategy to replace the 2008 Child Protection Strategy (the 2008 Strategy). As part of this process, a number of background technical papers have been commissioned as input to the decision-making. This technical paper explores the contribution Public Finance for Children (PF4C) can make to realizing child protection objectives. Firstly, it identifies areas that should be prioritized when planning PF4C-type studies and activities to effectively support the achievement of sector-specific objectives.

In response to increasing concerns about the protection issues facing children in detention during the COVID-19 crisis, an Inter-Agency ‘Technical Note: COVID-19 and Children Deprived of their Liberty’ was published in April 2020. It contains recommendations for governments and other detaining authorities on the urgent release of juveniles. This brief shares the experiences of 16 countries in using this technical note and details positive outcomes within the country.

In this briefing, Save the Children shares the process they used to successfully advocate to the government of Nepal to begin planning for and allocating annual funding for social protection programming for orphan and vulnerable children.

In this report, children and young people share the impact that COVID-19 has had on their lives. It concludes by making several recommendations and calling for increased funding and policies for services and actors in the areas of child protection, MHPSS  and social protection.