This report was produced by MenCare, a global campaign to promote men and boys’ involvement as equitable, non-violent caregivers.
Policy Brief: Child cash transfers halve HIV risk behaviours for adolescent girls
Why is this important?
A million youths in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV annually. Girls are at up to three times the risk of boys. Transactional and age-disparate sex (‘sugar daddies’) are a key cause of HIV-infection. Systematic reviews show limited effectiveness of behavioural HIV-prevention programmes. Cash transfers to alleviate poverty may be helpful.
The research:
Longitudinal survey, 3,515 children aged 10–18 (<2.5% refusal, 96.8% retention rate), 2009–12.
Stratified random sampling of entire census enumeration areas in rural and urban sites in two South African provinces (Western Cape andMpumalanga).
Propensity score matching to replicate randomised controlled trial conditions, additional check in multivariate logistic regression
Reflections on Africa’s Indigenous knowledge on parenting
Reflections on Africa’s Indigenous knowledge on parenting
Download:
Indigenous knowledge of parenting.pdf
The publication by PAN presents snapshots of indigenous parenting practices of different communities in Africa.
Africa is blessed with diverse cultures and tribes, these rich traditions play a critical part in shaping the lives of communities and the family unit.
Indigenous positive parenting practices in Africa are under threat because of modernisation. People are moving to the cities, and the close community, and family ties of the past, is under pressure. In this Brochure, you see highlight, how the pastoralist community of the Gabra and the Maasai people in Kenya, East and the horn of Africa region; Bozo community in Mali, West Africa; Ndebele of South Africa, and the Swahili of the coastal strip of Africa parented.
The shift towards systems strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa and where we are now
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The shift towards systems strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa and where we are now
Agnes Aidoo, Member of the UN Committee on the rights of the child, gave the key note address at the First Conference on Child Protection Systems Strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa: Promising Practices, Lessions Learned and the Way Forward, held in Dakar, Senegal, 7-9 May 2012.
In her address she calls for a fundamental re-examination in our approach to child protection, to a more comprehensive and holistic approach. She shares some examples currently being implemented in Africa, and suggests three key strategies to improve the lives of children. The full address is att
The practice and activities of psychosocial support by communities and families for children and adolescents living with HIV
The Southern African AIDS Trust (SAT) has launched a new resource on the requirements for Psychosocial Support for Children and Adolescents.
Organisations need to support caregivers, families and communities to create conditions that allow children and adolescents to experience being cared for and loved as part of their day-to-day experiences in their families and communities. Young children affected by HIV and AIDS, and other major disruptions in their lives, have critical psychosocial needs that are best addressed when embedded in their everyday lives – through responsive parental care, a return to normalcy (such as routines and opportunities to play), and social participation (such as returning to school and in other community activities).
Psychosocial care, support and rehabilitation are all best provided by families and communities, sometimes with assistance. When families are supported to be able to provide care, few children need specialised psychological or social programmes.
Programmes that can effectively meet the needs of children in the context of HIV and AIDS and poverty are those that acknowledge, support and strengthen the commitment and care of families and households. These responses must be supported by constructive national policies and the mobilisation of resources. Within the mix of required responses, activities to protect, support and promote the psychosocial wellbeing of children and families are urgently needed.
Other resources recently published by SAT include:
Counselling Guidelines for Voluntary Medical male circumcision (VMMC) - a booklet that specifically addresses counselling on Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) as an additional HIV prevention method.
Mainstreaming Gender in the Response to HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa - a guide for the integration of gender issues into HIV and AIDS response.
20 years of strengthening community HIV and AIDS competence: Lessons for the future - a reflection on the South-South learning over the past 20 years as experienced by SAT partners.
These resources are available through the SAT website: www.satregional.org, through any of their country offices in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, or by writing to info@satregional.org.
Working paper - children living with and affected by HIV in residential care
In many countries, significant numbers of children are temporarily or permanently cared for in residential care. Evidence suggests that the phenomenon of residential care has been growing in recent years due to a complex interplay of different factors, among them HIV and AIDS. To date, there is no systematic information on the numbers of children living with or directly affected by HIV who are placed in residential care, the reasons for and the impacts of their placement on individual children, their families and communities and on the residential care facilities themselves.
This paucity of data makes it difficult to monitor the success of efforts to support family-based care, prevent separation and promote reunification for all children, including those affected by HIV. It also impairs efforts to ensure that children living with HIV in residential care are able to access HIV-specific services that are supportive and appropriate.
This is a working document which will be continually updated. If you have information and evidence to share, or questions on this report, please email: policy@everychild.org.uk
The Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children: A United Nations Framework
The Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children were borne from a recognition of significant gaps in the implementation of the UNCRC for millions of children worldwide either without, or at risk of losing, parental care. The international community has therefore come together and developed these Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. They are the result of five years of discussions and negotiation between the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, governments led by Brazil, UNICEF, experts and academics, representatives of non-governmental organisations and, last but not least, young people with care experience. Read more...
Resilience through participation and coping-enabling social environments: the case of HIV-affected children in sub-Saharan Africa
Many children and youths living in low-resource and high-HIV-prevalence communities in sub-Saharan Africa are presented with daily hardships that few of us can even imagine. It is therefore no surprise that most research reporting on the experiences of HIV-affected children in resource-poor settings focuses on their poor health and development outcomes, casting them as victims. However, there is a growing trend to draw on more strengthsbased conceptualisations in the study and support of HIV-affected children and youths. In this introduction to a special issue of The African Journal of AIDS Research, we cement this trend by providing a theoretical exposition and critique of the ‘coping’ and ‘resilience’ concepts and draw on the 11 empirical studies that make up this special issue to develop a framework that appropriates the concepts for a particular context and area of study: HIV-affected children in sub-Saharan Africa. The articles included here show, albeit in different ways and to different degrees, that the resilience of HIV-affected children in the region is an outcome of their agency and interactions with their social environment. Policy actors and practitioners working to support HIV-affected children in Africa should take heed of the proposed framework and draw on the research presented here to build coping-enabling social environments — presenting children and youths in Africa with greater opportunity to actively deal with hardship and work towards a more promising future.
East African Community Regional HIV and AIDS Response Report 2013
EAC Regional HIV and AIDS Response Report-Popular Version.pdf
Related resource:
HIV and AIDS/STI and TB Multisectoral Strategic Plan and Implementation Framework 2015 - 2020
Realizing the regional Goals in HIV and AIDS, TB and STI programming.
The East African Community Regional HIV and AIDS Response Report 2013 is a first-of-its-kind consolidated reference on the status, trends and response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the EAC region. It is envisaged as a tool to assess progress made in reaching national, regional, continental and global commitments on the HIV epidemic.
This report is designed to generate evidence which will form the basis for re programming the EAC response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in pursuit of an early achievement of zero new infections, zero AIDS deaths and zero stigma and discrimination, and, to provide information necessary to support the region’s advocacy and resource mobilization efforts in this regard.
Every child's right to be heard: A resource guide on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment no. 12
Since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, Article 12 – the provision that children have a right to express their views and have them taken seriously in accordance with their age and maturity – has proved one of the most challenging to implement.
This resource guide provides practical help on implementating article 12 by providing examples of legislation and policy, guidelines for practitioners, evidence from research, and examples of meaningful participation in practice. It draws together experiences from around the world to enable governments to learn from each other, build on existing developments, and broaden understanding of the scope and meaning of Article 12.
Namibia National Agenda for Children 2012-2016
Namibia's National Agenda for Children 2012-2016
The Namibia National Agenda for Children 2012-2016 is a call to action to put the constitutional mandate on the rights of children into implementable strategies. The Agenda is anchored on five pillars: health and nourishment; early childhood development and schooling; HIV prevention, treatment, care and support; adequate standard of living and legal identity; and protection against neglect and abuse.
The importance of Namibia developing its first-ever National Agenda for Children was highlighted through the publication of Children and Adolescents in Namibia 2010: A Situation Analysis, and through a review of the National Plan of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (2006-2010). Two critical issues were identified through these processes: that Namibia needed to adopt a multi-sectoral approach to planning and implementation towards child-centred development, and that we needed to look more broadly at the concepts of vulnerability and inequity through the lens of a child’s life cycle.
Through a broad-based consultative process which involved government, NGOs, civil society organisations, children and development partners, the national commitments for children were identified, discussed and prioritised. While these five-year commitments have been integrated into current sector policies and plans to a large extent, the National Agenda for Children brings them together concisely, which will enable all stakeholders to plan, implement and monitor their actions for children in a coordinated manner. The Agenda also serves as a major contribution to overall national development planning processes.
While the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare has been assigned the task of facilitating the development of the national agenda for children, the primary responsibility for ensuring that is is implemented lies with the line ministries and their partners.
Enabling reform: Why supporting children with disabilities must be at the heart of successful child care reform
Enabling reform: Why supporting children with disabilities must be at the heart of successful child care reform
This research paper was developed jointly by the Better Care Network and EveryChild as part of the Better Care Network’s series of working papers on alternative care.
The paper argues that disability should be placed at the heart of child care reform due to the large number of children with disabilities living in harmful institutional care, the lack of support for families trying to care for children with disabilities, the lack of alternative care options for children with disabilities and legal and economic imperative to provide proper care for these children. It aims to inform those who are developing and implementing child care policies, and to demonstrate, through examples, how effective reform can be achieved.
The paper suggests that it is imperative for stakeholders working on both disability and alternative care to challenge discrimination and create the political will for reform, change national legislation and guidance on disability and alternative care to reflect the CRC, CRPD and Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, provide better support to families caring for children with disabilities and, as a matter of priority, end the institutional care of all children and ensure that children with disabilities have a range of high quality family-based alternative care options open to them.
The report is available here.
Maternal Infant Young Child Nutrition - Family Planning (MIYCN-FP) Integration Toolkit
Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition-Family Planning (MIYCN-FP) Integration Working Group was established by the Maternal and Child Integrated Program (MCHIP) and its partners. This working group brings together the Postpartum Family Planning Community of Practice, the Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM) Working Group and the Nutrition community."
Women have understood the connection between breastfeeding and regulating their fertility for centuries. LAM integrates postpartum family planning and nutrition because it promotes exclusive breastfeeding which reduces malnutrition and mortality in infants in their first six months and extends birth intervals which, in turn, promotes maternal and child survival. K4Health has a toolkit for LAM under family planning methods.
FP-MIYCN messages and supportive programmatic activities continue beyond six months when mothers transition to other family planning methods and their infants are introduced to other foods (fruits, veggies, cereals and animal protein) while continuing to breastfeed.
For the healthiest babies couples need to space out the next pregnancy at least 24 months. Young children 6-23 months of age should be fed foods of adequate quality and quantity to complement the nutrients in breast milk. In countries where adolescent pregnancies are high, efforts to delay marriage and pregnancies before at least 18 years of age also should be part of the entire family planning and nutrition program.
Online videos: Changing childcare in the region
REPSSI has just released two new short online online, looking at how care for vulnerable children can be improved at community level.
The first video, “Changing Child Care in Africa” (4 minutes in length) shows how graduates of a special new distance-learning course are applying what they have learned in communities across Africa. The Certificate Course in Community-Based Work with Children and Youth, developed by REPSSI and UNICEF, has changed how these community volunteers, social workers, teachers, police, community workers and community caregivers work with children. Hailed as an innovative solution to capacity-building, there are over 1000 students set to graduate this year from over 400 organisations in ten countries. Watch the video here.
The second video, “Voices from the community: Caring for our Vulnerable Children” (5 minutes in length) brings together voices of community members across Africa who feel empowered to do something to protect their vulnerable children. Teachers, village leaders, grandmothers and CBO staff explain the changes they and their communities have experienced thanks to training in psychosocial support, and demonstrate just how resourceful and dedicated ordinary people can be. Watch the video here.
Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Inter Agency Task Team on Children and AIDS (RIATT-ESA): Framework 2009-2010
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than two thirds of the global number of people living with HIV, and continues to account for the large majority of global AIDS deaths and new global HIV infections. HIV and AIDS further impacts on the health, education, protection and survival of millions of children. The epidemic substantially contributes to increasing child mortality rates and orphanhood across the region. Accordingly, the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Inter Agency Task Team (RIATT) on Children and HIV and AIDS was formed to accelerate the fulfillment of commitments for children affected by HIV and AIDS as laid out in the United Nations 2001 General Assembly Declaration of Commitments on HIV/AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals.
Mapping and assessing child protection systems in west and central Africa: A five-country analysis paper
This paper was developed on behalf of the Regional OVC Reference Group for west and central Africa, which includes Plan International, Save the Children International, and UNICEF. The paper presents the findings and insights generated through the mapping and assessment of national child protection systems in five West African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone. The goal of the country research was to provide national actors with a profile of their existing system and an initial assessment of its contextual appropriateness and relevance to the populations being served.
East African Community Regional HIV and AIDS Response Report 2013
EAC Regional HIV and AIDS Response Report-Popular Version.pdf
Related resource:
HIV and AIDS/STI and TB Multisectoral Strategic Plan and Implementation Framework 2015 - 2020
Realizing the regional Goals in HIV and AIDS, TB and STI programming.
The East African Community Regional HIV and AIDS Response Report 2013 is a first-of-its-kind consolidated reference on the status, trends and response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the EAC region. It is envisaged as a tool to assess progress made in reaching national, regional, continental and global commitments on the HIV epidemic.
This report is designed to generate evidence which will form the basis for re programming the EAC response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in pursuit of an early achievement of zero new infections, zero AIDS deaths and zero stigma and discrimination, and, to provide information necessary to support the region’s advocacy and resource mobilization efforts in this regard.
Community responses for children affected by AIDS: Challenges for the future! RIATT-ESA satellite – ICASA 2011
The RIATT-ESA held a very successful satellite session at ICASA 2011. Focusing on Strengthening families, Increasing effectiveness of resources, and Child participation, The key note address was presented by Dr. Chewe Luo, and looked at future challenges in the community response for children affected by AIDS.
Dr. Luo is a Paediatrician and Tropical Child Health specialist from Zambia, currently working as Technical team leader for Country programme scale-up and Senior programme Advisor for HIV at UNICEF, New York. She has over 15 years of experience in HIV/AIDS and child health as a clinician and researcher at the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia; as a clinician in the UK, and working with UNICEF at country, regional and headquarter levels. She has a Masters of Medicine in Paediatrics from the University of Zambia and a Masters in tropical Paediatrics and a PhD from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK
Children at the centre: A guide to supporting community groups caring for vulnerable children
Children at the centre: A guide to supporting community groups caring for vulnerable children.pdf
There are a rapidly growing number of vulnerable children across Africa facing multiple violations of their rights. They suffer hunger, ill health, violence, neglect, loss of access to education and opportunities for play, and have little chance of a successful and happy future. An estimated 12 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS, countless millions more children are living in households with sick parents and are helping to care for them. Millions more African children are affected by conflict, famine and poverty. The total number of orphaned children in sub-Saharan Africa was 48.3 million at the end of 2005.1 Although anti-retroviral treatment offers hope that fewer HIV-positive people will become sick in the future, there are countless children whose lives have already been disrupted.
Governments bear a responsibility to care for these children, but too often they do not. For centuries, communities in Africa have helped neighbours in crisis. But the huge numbers of children in need mean that neighbourly support is no longer enough. As a response, community members are getting together to assist children and their families within their communities. Community initiatives can provide various kinds of assistance including parenting, protection, psychosocial and spiritual support, and material assistance.
However, these community groups require assistance to most effectively care for children. They need support to deliver the best responses, reaching the most vulnerable children over the long term. Children at the Centre is primarily written for those working in agencies (supporting organisations) that are currently supporting, or wishing to support, the establishment of community groups to support vulnerable children. In this guide, ‘community groups’ refers to collectives of community members who are caring for vulnerable children.
Changing the face of care for vulnerable children: REPSSI Certificate Course in Community-Based Work with Children and Youth
The Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative (REPSSI) reviews their Certificate Course in Community-Based Work with Children and Youth. It responds to a critical regional demand for quality training in child care, and specifically social and emotional (psychosocial) support, child protection and promotion of children’s rights. The Certificate is a standardised, accredited course for East and Southern Africa.
This overview provides information on the course and feedback on the impact it has had for those who have completed the course.
For more information about the certificate course, and how you can support students to enroll, contact:
Willys Simfukwe, Head of Programmes, Willys.simfukwe@repssi.org or Lynette Mudekunye, REPSSI Deputy Executive Director, lynette.mudekunye@repssi.org.
REPSSI is also offering several training courses throughout the year on building capacity to provide psychosocial support and monitoring of support interventions. Find out more about these trainings on our events page.