Resources Database

The child protection workforce strategy aligns with the department’s Strategic plan 2017–2018 and People strategy 2020. It draws on a broad range of data and insight. The consultation approach and analysis of data has provided the evidence base for our strategic aim for the child protection workforce, as well as underpinning the child protection workforce strategy framework. This strategy flags the department’s intent to deliberately invest in building a child protection workforce that is best placed to deliver on the reform agenda and to meet the future needs of the community head on.

A home visiting needs assessment tool has been developed with several key areas of focus, including on training, supervision and career development. This tool includes questions as an opportunity to reflect on the accessibility and relevance of existing training and supervision for home visitors and supervisors in the program, along with career advancement opportunities.

The Child Protection team in the UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO) designed a brief online survey to take stock of what national authorities are doing to adjust national child protection systems and services in the Wake of COVID 19. This report aims to synthesize the responses across the region; support national and international child protection agencies, organizations and authorities to identify promising practices, challenges, risks and opportunities; and promote exchange of experience and practices across the region and globally.

This guidance should be considered for children who currently live in a residential setting, including those who have been placed in residential care before and after the onset of COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of this resource, there is also an excel spreadsheet for Virtual Monitoring Guidance.

This guidance should be considered for:

1) Children who live with their family or other family environment within a community setting, who may be vulnerable, or at-risk of separation. This could also include siblings of a child who lives in residential care.
2) Children who have been recently reunified with their families from residential care including children who were rapidly exited from residential
care facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Children are at heightened risk of becoming separated from their families during the pandemic. Additionally, spontaneous closure of residential care institutions can result in mass and poorly planned reunifications, often into unprepared families, without monitoring, putting children at great risk for protection violations and re-separation. The below tips should be considered to ensure gatekeeping procedures continue to remain effective or in some cases are strengthened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some COVID-19 prevention measures have abruptly cut children off from positive and supportive relationships they rely on when in distress, including at school, in the extended family, and in the community. Children’s rights to safety and protection as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action are threatened.

The Reflective Field Guide aims to contribute to fostering more authentic community engagement in humanitarian child protection action. It encourages honest reflection and discussion about current programming, what strong community participation could look like, and what child protection practitioners can do to facilitate higher levels of community-driven programing.

This document is intended to provide guidance on how to support the social service workforce and empower them to safely serve children, families, and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Child welfare work is hard so it is necessary to implement a protective cares framework for taking care of self and others.

Multiple factors stand behind low global priority for children’s care, including the limited power of affected children and families, the issue’s multi-sectoral nature and competition for attention with other social welfare issues. This paper reviews those issues as it relates to prioritization of de-institutionalization overall to make recommendations for future progress. A brief has been developed to highlight top-level findings.

High risk cases might require home visits or individual follow up in-person and most vulnerable children and families during the outbreak will require social support implying personal interactions. In some cases, it might be possible to do so rremotely, but in other situations, such measures might be impossible.

Child Protection Case Management is part of the essential services that cannot be stopped suddenly but that requires gradual adaptation to the new emergency. This document builds on existing response action from several countries and case management task force agencies. It provides guidance to adapt Child Protection Case Management interventions to the new COVID 19 pandemic and better understand the important role of Child Protection actors in the emergency.

A coordinated approach is critical to ensure a comprehensive multi-sectoral approach that ensures children are protected in all areas of their lives.

This document offers guidance and recommendations for care in residential settings, including staff considerations for home visits and other interactions with residents.

WHO and public health authorities around the world are acting to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. However, this time of crisis is generating stress in the population. These mental health considerations were developed by the WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Use as messages targeting different groups to support for mental and psychosocial well-being during COVID-19 outbreak.

This guidance note focuses on how to explain concepts around how to take safety precautions to protect others and yourself. The information in this guidance is to be utilized whilst doing case management follow-up in person or remotely.

This document is intended to support case workers through Child Protection (CP) Case Management processes during the COVID-19 outbreak response in Lebanon. CP case management is normally a long-term process which can take several months depending on the unique needs of the child, their coping mechanisms and support system. In emergencies, numerous challenges can be faced by CP case workers to provide face-to-face emotional support, in children and their families accessing services in a timely manner.

This guidance provides a short overview of the CP risks associated with disease outbreak. It also provides practical steps and actions for child protection case management actors to follow in order to prepare for the impacts of disease outbreak and the subsequent impact to access to children and their caregivers in and outside of IDP and refugee camps, based on the scenario that access may become limited by measures taken to prevent and control the spread of infectious disease.

This technical guidance aims to support Child Protection agencies providing case management services in the humanitarian response in Somalia to be prepared and to adapt their interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The document outlines five priority areas for case management agencies will need to focus on during this time: awareness, referral pathways, case management of cases, family separation and alternative care, and capacity building/training of workers.