Putting Children First: Identifying solutions and taking action to tackle poverty and inequality in Africa.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 23-25 October 2017
This three-day international conference aimed to engage policy makers, practitioners and researchers in identifying solutions for fighting child poverty and inequality in Africa, and in inspiring action towards change. The conference offered a platform for bridging divides across sectors, disciplines and policy, practice and research.
An Atoll Futures Research Institute? Presentation for CANCC
Putting Children First: Session 2.4.B Mike Wessells - Strengthening community-based child protection [24-Oct-17]
1. Strengthening Community-Based
Child Protection for Vulnerable Children
in Sierra Leone:
Toward a Child Centered, Inclusive,
Community Owned Approach
Mike Wessells
Columbia University &
Inter-Agency Learning Initiative
October 24, 2017
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2. Acknowledgements
ESRC-DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation
Oak Foundation & an anonymous donor
The Inter-Agency Learning Initiative on Strengthening
Community-Based Child Protection Mechanisms and
Child Protection Systems
Sarah Lilley & Save the Children for coordinating the
global Reference Group
UNICEF Sierra Leone
Key Sierra Leonean actors, especially David Lamin
Participating communities
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3. Overview
Throughout Africa, child protection system strengthening
is a high priority
Many efforts at system strengthening have been top-down,
vested power in NGOs, and built limited participation and
community ownership and low sustainability
Eurocentric approaches marginalize African culture, local
strengths, and community resilience
Need to develop and test a different model of community
driven action—participatory action research in Sierra Leone
System strengthening requires a mix of top-down, bottom-
up, and middle-out approaches
4. Risks to Children
Armed conflict & mass displacement
Sexual abuse and exploitation
Disabilities
Violence--family, schools, community
Early marriage
Justice related issues
Living & working on the streets
Dangerous labor
Trafficking
Recruitment into armed forces and groups
Poverty, deprivations, discrimination, poor material
conditions
HIV and AIDS
5. Community-Based
Child Protection Mechanisms
Key components of a national child protection system;
where children live and develop, where people live
NGO/UN focus: External agencies frequently organize
Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) or other community
mechanisms to monitor, respond to, mitigate, and
prevent various forms of child abuse
Partnership approach, yet NGOs are in positions of
power and take the key decisions
Expert driven, top-down, impositional approach
Children may be involved, but participation is typically
limited, even tokenistic
6. Some Critical Questions
Are we listening to children and learning about their
lived experiences?
Are we doing enough to enable children’s and
adolescents’ agency and leadership?
Do top-down approaches build upon or marginalize
existing mechanisms and local culture and processes?
How inclusive are top-down approaches? Do the
poorest, most marginalized people engage in planning
them, and do they use the CWCs?
How effective and sustainable are CWCs?
Can community led approaches do a better job of
unlocking community creativity, enabling
sustainability, and give space for community agency and
action?
7. Case of Sierra Leone
Brutal, decade long war
Many Child Welfare Committees established
2007—Child Rights Act mandated CWC in
each village: Top down approach
Implementation focused on training committee
members and on didactic child rights education
Alternate, collaborative & community led aproach
- Inter-Agency research approach—with Government,
NGOs, UN, communities
- Trained national researchers lived and worked in local
communities, collecting data on the actual functioning
of the child protection system
8. Intervention Cluster
Comparison Cluster
Defini on of Outcomes based on local views
Ethnography on all 12 villages
Iden fica on of 2 districts, 4 chiefdoms, 12 villages
Bombali District
Chiefdom A
3 villages
Chiefdom B
3 villages
Moyamba District
Chiefdom C
3 villages
Chiefdom D
3 villages
Randomization of Chiefdom and 3 villages clusters to intervention or comparison group
T1:Baseline data
T2: Repeated data
Intervention
T3: Repeated data
T1: Baseline data
T2: Repeated Data
No intervention
T3: Repeated data
Multi-Phase Action Research Design
9. Ethnographic Research:
Local Views of Harms to Children
‘Most serious’ harms
Out of school children
Teen pregnancy out of
wedlock
Heavy work
Maltreatment of children
not living with their
biological parents
Additional harms
Child beating
Cruelty
Incest, rape, and sexual
abuse
Neglect and bad parenting
Witchcraft
Abduction & ritual murder
Child rights
10. Typical Response Pathway for
Teenage Pregnancy
Girl misses period
Girl tells mother Mother tells girl’s father
Perpetrator identified
Negotiation between families
of the girl & the perpetrator
OUTCOMES: Perpetrator’s family supports girl during
pregnancy and pays for her education afterward
Girl is obliged to marry the perpetrator
11. Disconnect Between Nonformal and
Formal Supports for Children
Child Welfare Committees had been mandated by the
Child Rights Act (2007), but
- Most people did not mention or report through the
CWCs
- For over 90% of the cases of harms to children, people
preferred to use traditional processes through the Chiefs
Even for crimes such as rape of a child, people were
reluctant to report to police and state authorities
Main reasons related to distance to authorities, having to
take time off from farming, doubts that action would be
taken, culture
12. Implications
1. The Child Rights Act was not working.
2. A significant disconnect exists between the formal
child protection system and community based child
protection mechanisms. Prioritize the development of
effective linkages between communities and the
national child protection system.
3. We need to rethink the common practice of
establishing child protection committees and groups
that do not build on or intersect with existing
community mechanisms.
4. The imposition of international concepts of child
protection (e.g., ‘child rights’) has had harmful effects.
Alternative, respectful approaches toward social
transformation are necessary.
13. A Different Approach
Communities hold power & make key decisions
Cultural understandings, processes, and practices as
resources
Outsiders as learners, facilitators, documentors
Respectful listening and learning
Feeding information back and inviting reflection
Reflection and mobilization as basis for community-driven
action
Bottom-up approach to building linkages between
community and the formal system
Problematizing ‘community’—attending more to issues of
diversity and power
14. Enabling Inclusivity
Facilitators lived and worked in villages—trust, respect
Enabling an inclusive process of deciding which harm
to children to address
Asked questions about ‘how can the community
decide which issue to address?’
Helped to bring out different views and enable
problem solving discussion
Mixture of ‘barray’ discussions and small group
discussions, with outreach to marginalized people
Slow, respectful process of dialogue enabled people to
process their differences and achieve workable
agreements
15. Community-Driven Intervention
Six communities—three each in one Chiefdom of
Bombali and Moyamba District, respectively
External, Sierra Leonean facilitators lived and worked
in the villages
Diversity and inclusivity in planning/action: teenage
girls, teenage boys, women, men, elders
Priority issue to address: teenage pregnancy
Chose to address it through family planning, sexual and
reproductive health education, and life skills
Population based measures of children’s risk and well-
being outcomes
16. Key Elements of the Intervention
Collective dialogue, awareness raising and negotiation—
stimulating new appreciation of value of diversity
Inclusive decision-making, empowerment, and
responsibility
Linkage of community with health services
Peer education
Use of culturally relevant media—song, drama
Child leadership and messaging—‘5920’
Inclusion and outreach—sub-groups, home visits
Parent-child discussions
Role modeling
Legitimation by authority
17. Promising Findings, Pre-Ebola
Reduced teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse
Increased access to and use of contraceptives
Increased intent of girls and their close friends to ask partners to
use condoms
Stronger linkage of communities with the formal health system
Reduced school dropout
Girls say ‘No’ more often to unwanted sex
Parents and children discuss sex, pregnancy, and pregnancy
prevention in a constructive manner
Spin off effects—addressing early marriage
Strong community ownership and motivation to continue the work
without external support
18. Implications for Practitioners
Use elicitive, respectful methods in assessment
Learn about local power structure
Learn about and engage with natural helpers
Engage with people who are positioned differently
Encourage collective reflection, planning, and action
regarding children’s issues
Enable child and youth agency and leadership
Rethink our role—from ‘expert’ to co-learner and
facilitator
Document and learn from Do No Harm issues
Model and enable critical, reflective practice
19. Wider Impact
Revision of the national Child and Family
Welfare Policy
- balance and cooperation between formal and
nonformal aspects of the national child
protection system
- family and community mechanisms at center
- no new structures
Workshops with practitioner agencies
New mode of work by UNICEF—scaling up the
community-driven approach
National Child Protection Committee support
20. Conclusion
Respect the importance of supporting both the
nonformal and formal aspects of child protection
systems and their alignment
Community-driven action is a platform for
sustainable support for at-risk children and also
for social transformation
Both diversity and inclusivity are vital components
of change
Community-driven (bottom-up) strengthening of
the child protection system is an effective
complement to top-down approaches