Resources Database

This Handbook is a response to the need to have a comprehensive, standardized and user-friendly reference on health workforce monitoring and evaluation as a means to develop in-country capacity to build the knowledge base needed to guide, accelerate and improve country action.

Using social justice as the conceptual foundation, the authors present the structural barriers to socially just intercountry adoptions (ICAs) that can exploit and oppress vulnerable children and families participating in ICAs. They argue that such practices threaten the integrity of social work practice in that arena and the survival of ICA as a placement option.

This report presents a synthesis of the results of a four-country research project undertaken in Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa and Zambia on the development of community and home-based care (CHBC) in the context of HIV. The research was commissioned by the Caregivers Acton Network (CAN) in 2011 to inform its advocacy agenda with regard to highlighting the importance of community care and support programs. 

This document highlights an MSH Success Story and describes Phelisanang Bophelong, a program that provides services, including food security, health care referrals, economic strengthening, and psychosocial and spiritual support to orphans and vulnerable children and their caregivers in Thaba Tseka district of Lesotho. This program falls under the Building Local Capacity for the Delivery of HIV Services in Southern Africa Project in Lesotho, funded by USAID.

Retrak has developed its Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) which provide practical guidance on implementing the Retrak model of successfully returning street children to safe homes in families and communities, where each child feels a sense of belonging through a secure attachment to caring adults. SOPs aim to provide a simple reference document containing detailed, step-by-step explanations on how to undertake a program in order to ensure a quality of care for the children and family involved.

The Referral Systems Assessment and Monitoring (RSAM) Toolkit was developed to assist health and program managers in obtaining and using information regarding the performance of referral systems. These systems play an increasingly important role in the health systems of developing countries as result of the recent impetus toward service integration.

This brief updates the 2008 version of “Pathways to Change.” It maintains most of the content from the original piece and provides information on four additional theories. It continues to focus on theories most directly applicable to either understanding how policy change happens or how specific advocacy tactics play out. Additionally, this update includes an expanded section on how evaluators, advocates, and funders can apply these theories to advocacy and policy work. While the theories included may have broad applicability, the brief is grounded in the context of US domestic policy.

The guide is written for child and youth care workers (CYCWs) and it focuses on the parts of the South Africa Children’s Act that are most relevant to them. This is an updated edition of the guide which contains extra information for professionals who provide services to children living and working or begging on the streets. It also has updated information on developments in the law and in government policy. This guide is not meant to replace the Children’s Act. Instead, it should be read together with a copy of the Act itself.

This publication presents the findings of a study undertaken as part of a three-year project on the ‘Promotion of Professional Social Work towards Social Development and Poverty Reduction in East Africa’ (PROSOWO), under the auspices of the Austrian Partnership Programme in Higher Education and Research for Development (APPEAR).

This report describes the process, findings and recommendations of the baseline survey for the project titled, “Building and Strengthening Community-Based Child Protection Systems in Busoga and Acholi sub-regions” commissioned by ANPPCAN. Based on the findings several recommendations for strengthening community-based responses for child protection are suggested.

In 2004, STOP AIDS NOW!, a partnership between Aids Fonds, ICCO, Cordaid, Hivos, and Oxfam Novib, was looking for ways to more effectively address the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children in South Africa. To do this, the five Dutch STOP AIDS NOW! Partners as well as two other Dutch organisations – the World Population Fund and Save the Children Netherlands – identified ten South African organisations and asked them to form their own partnership to work on this issue.

This publication seeks to increase understanding of the need for, and the process of, conducting outcome evaluations of parenting programs in low- and middle-income countries. The result of a collaboration between the University of Cape Town, WHO, UNICEF, and the WHO-led Violence Prevention Alliance, the guidance is aimed at policy-makers; program planners and developers; high-level practitioners in government ministries; representatives of nongovernmental and community-based organizations; and donors working in the area of violence prevention.

This document is the final report from the conference “A Better Way to Protect ALL Children: The theory and practice of child protection systems” that was held in India in November 2012. The conference built on the recent conceptual and practical work to better understand and reform child protection systems in both developed and developing countries. A child protection system was defined as certain structures, functions and capacities – or components – that have been assembled to prevent and respond to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of children.

This discussion paper puts forward a set of lessons learned and recommendations for referral mechanisms and case management for vulnerable children in the Eastern and Southern Africa region (ESAR). This paper concludes a regional study that reviewed regional knowledge, understandings and practice with respect to referral mechanisms and case management – exploring what they mean and do at present and what their future potential may be in responding to the multiple risks and needs of vulnerable children.

Learning About Children in Urban Slums: A Rapid Ethnographic Study in Two Urban Slums of Mombasa of Community-based Child Protection Mechanisms and their Linkage with the Kenyan National Child Protection System presents outcomes of a research study to learn about community-based child protection processes and mechanisms in two urban slums in Mombasa, Kenya. This research is part of a wider, inter-agency learning initiative that aims to contribute to strengthening the national child protection system in Kenya.

This is a Save the Children publication focusing on quality childcare standards for children. It documents the learning and experiences of participating agencies implementing quality childcare standards in four countries in East and Central Africa. Each of the agencies utilized the standards set out in Raising the Standards, published by Save the Children in February 2005. Applying the Standards aims to help childcare agencies, managers and practitioners implement the quality standards, regardless of the nature of the childcare provided.

The Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit is intended to allow human resources managers to determine health professionals’ motivational preferences for accepting and remaining in posts.

This report discusses the findings of a study that explored factors that influence retention in social work in Ireland, particularly in the area of child protection and welfare. The study provides important insights into the levels of stress and burnout experienced by social workers and also the psychological coping factors which social workers use to deal with their workplace challenges.

This paper presents findings from a study commissioned by the Inter Agency Task Team on Children affected by HIV and AIDS. The study identifies practical ways in which child protection and HIV sectors can combine their comparative expertise, to strengthen child protection systems that meet the needs of all children at risk of abuse, violence, exploitation and neglect, whilst also meeting the unique needs of HIV-affected and infected children, and those at increased risk of HIV infection and protection abuses.

As part of the UNAIDS Best Practice Collection, this document looks at strategies to lessen the risk of carer burnout. It briefly reviews the approach developed and used by one faith-based organization to care for its staff and volunteers who work as carers in the community and also with the families of those living with HIV.