Resources Database

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.

Focusing on Germany, this article aims to explore some of the effects of the COVID-19 measures on children and families. Furthermore, it examines a number of key challenges for child protection practitioners. These include identifying potential cases of child maltreatment without the support normally provided by teachers and child carers; and establishing and maintaining contact with clients under physical distancing rules.

In Ghana, different factors such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, parental and child disability, often lead to children becoming separated from their parents. As part of the current childcare reform, the system is focusing on preventing the institutionalization of children through family support services. However, there is little research evidence on the provision of family support services in Ghana and other lower-and middle-income countries (LMICs). 

While many studies have evaluated how and why front-line workers choose to leave the child welfare workforce, few sources of data have been available to assess and compare child welfare workforces across jurisdictions and over time. This study describes and makes available a new data source that researchers and policy makers can use to explore the effects of workforce characteristics on child and family outcomes, and to evaluate factors leading to changes in the workforce over time.

International research consistently shows that young care leavers’ journey from care to emerging adulthood is characterised by adversities such as unemployment, poor academic performance, homelessness, involvement in criminal activities, mental illness and early parenthood.