AfriChild: The Center for the Study of the African Child and the Care and Protection of Children (CPC) Learning Network are pleased to announce a joint webinar series focused on late-breaking research calling attention to the realities of vulnerable children in Uganda to better inform innovative interventions that protect and advance children’s rights to protection, development, and well-being. In an effort to more meaningfully link global and national-level actors and strengthen the relevance of research, AfriChild’s researchers and Ugandan practitioners, working on the frontlines of child protection, will share the latest research on issues affecting Ugandan children today and showcase practical experiences of putting evidence into practice. Join us in the coming months for webinars exploring themes related to street-connected children; learnings from efforts to bolster child-focused research capacity in Uganda through inter-university training and collaboration; understanding linkages between parenting practices and educational outcomes; and risks and protective factors for violence against children living in residential care institutions.  Click here to register and access recordings

YasmineAnwar, Mohamoudou Sall, Beniamino Cislaghi, Angelo Miramonti, Courtney Clark, Moussé Bar Faye, Mark Canavera Background Locally representative research and data on violence against children are important to understand the nature and scale of the issue and to inform effective prevention and response programs and policies. In Senegal, few population-level data estimating the prevalence of physical, emotional, or sexual violence against adolescents exist. Objective This study assesses whether the gender of adolescents in two Senegalese districts is associated with having experienced emotional, physical, or sexual violence and whether such associations vary depending on district of residence and poverty status. Participants and setting The sample comprised of 833 adolescents aged 13–18 residing in the peri-urban district of Pikine and rural district of Kolda. Methods Cross-sectional population-based household survey data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Results Adolescent boys had 1.6 times greater odds than adolescent girls of having experienced emotional abuse in the past month (adjusted OR = 1.6, 95 % CI 1.1, 2.5) in Pikine. Adolescents living in Pikine and in households with low poverty scores were more likely to have experienced physical abuse in the past month. Gender was a significant predictor of sexual abuse in Kolda, where the prevalence of sexual abuse among adolescent girls was twofold higher compared to boys (adjusted OR = 2.09,…

In 2018-2019, the Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation, and Abuse (LINEA) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Care and Protection of Children (CPC) Learning Network at Columbia Universityjointly hosted a webinar series. The key theme of the series was social norms as they relate to the fields of gender-based violence, violence against children, sexual exploitation and the abuse of children and adolescents. "How can we better understand what norms underlie and sustain such violence and exploitation, and how can we transform them through promoting positive norms for child and adolescent development and well-being?  Academics, practitioners, and activists shared their latest learning about the linkages between social norms and violence, exploitation, and abuse. They aimed to profile the most cutting-edge research and programming to advance knowledge and understanding of these issues among members of our networks and beyond. Explore the riveting and ground-breaking approach of how understanding the impact of social norms can present itself as a novel avenue to address issues surrounding the prevention of all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse of children and adolescents." Please click here to access the series recording. This webinar took place 2018-2019.

As we near the end of 2019, we would like to thank our community, our olleagues, and our partners around the world for a fruitful year of partnership and support in building a healthy and just world for children and families worldwide. We wish you a very happy holiday season and a peaceful and prosperous New Year! To close out 2019 and open 2020, we've created a photo calender of the CPC's Year In Review: click on a photo to discover a "surprise" learning endeavor that we initially shared during that month and see what awaits! Additionally, we would also like to call your attention to the recently launched Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Protection of Children in Humanitarian Settings. This course is free until June 2020, so make sure to register now. Designed by CPC co-director Mark Canavera, senior research associate Tina Fischer, and faculty affiliate Mike Wessells, the course examines how children's social environments at different levels, such as the family, community and societal levels, influence children's adversity, development, and resilience. This course is aimed at child protection practitioners who work internationally in humanitarian settings and is also designed for those who want to learn more about, or start working in, the…

This month marked the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most-signed global treaty in the world.  There has been significant progress since that treaty was signed, but we are still so far from a world where children's rights are realized systematically.  We must all recommit to the action and practice of children's rights, and that new commitment may take new shapes and forms as forces like the climate crisis and record-breaking levels of forced migration reshape our world and threaten children's futures. Of the many interesting items below, we would like to call your attention to three consultancies that we are recruiting: one consultancy for 75 days of work over seven months in the Democratic Republic of Congo (field coordination), one for 100 days of work over seven months in the Central African Republic (field coordination), and one three-country consultancy (research coordination) for 220 days of work over 12 months.  To apply for any of these consultancies, please send an email with your CV, three references, and your daily rate in USD to info@cpclearningnetwork.org.  Please specify which consultancy you are applying for in the subject line and email text. Click through to see the full newsletter.

In this newsletter you will find a round-up of CPC news, highlights from the recent work of our faculty affiliates, learning opportunities, and relevant vacancies. On this last day of October, I have the privilege to write to you from Kampala, Uganda, where the AfriChild Centre of Excellence for the Study of the African Child at Makerere University has just completed its annual general meeting. We heard about AfriChild’s busy beehive of activity throughout Uganda, including an innovative program to bolster faculty capacity to undertake child-focused research in seven universities. Another unique program helps practitioners to better evaluate the quality and nature of evidence and then use it to improve their programs. All the while, AfriChild has undertaken research that centers children on the margins, including street-connected children and children living in residential care facilities. The CPC Learning Network Secretariat has been involved with the AfriChild Centre from its humble beginnings. The seed for the AfriChild Centre grew from a small team of passionate researchers, government officials, and service providers who were working with children and families under duress. Recognizing the need to come together to better understand and then improve the services and supports on-offer to these children and families, that team came together and created the AfriChild…

INSPIRE: Seven strategies for ending violence against children is an evidence-based technical package to support countries in their efforts to prevent and respond to violence against children aged 0-17 years. The package includes the core document describing what the INSPIRE strategies and interventions are; an implementation handbook that provides details on how to implement the interventions, and a set of indicators to measure the uptake of INSPIRE and its impact on levels of violence against children. The strategies will advance efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal target 16.2 to end all forms of violence against children. They are based on the best available evidence of what works, and include: 1. Implementation and enforcement of laws: such as those limiting access by young people to firearms and other weapons and those criminalizing the violent punishment of children by parents; 2. Norms and values: by changing beliefs and behaviours around gender roles; 3. Safe environments: by targeting violent “hotspots” and enhancing the built environment, for example, by improving housing; 4. Parent and caregiver support: such as the provision of training in parenting; 5. Income and economic strengthening: including microfinance combined with training around gender norms; 6. Response and support services: such as treatment programmes for juvenile offenders; 7. Education and…

With the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child coming next year, we decided last year to reflect upon where children’s rights are heading in a world that seems increasingly beset with challenges for children, for families, and for communities.  We also wanted to revisit the issue of children affected by armed conflict, mobilization around which has served as a motor for the broader child protection agenda for years.  We worked with Joachim Theis, who developed The State of International Children's Rights, and Riva Kantowitz, who wrote Children and Armed Conflict: A Field Scan.  These documents both synthesis and analysis, recognizing gains that have been made while asking, “Is there a new way of doing things?  What new paths forward might we forge, collectively?” The documents served as a springboard for a two-day in-person meeting in August of last year.  Bringing together thought leaders who have made contributions to children’s rights and child protection through a variety of lenses and approaches—human rights activism, legal reform, women’s rights, community-driven work, measurement and evidence generation, child welfare, and others—we challenged ourselves to think about what we are doing right—and wrong—to promote child protection and children’s rights in a world that…

This report presents both the process and the findings from a recent attempt to better understand customary caregiving arrangements for refugee children living in two camp-based populations in Rwanda. Commissioned by UNHCR, the study emerged from that organization’s recognition that although the globally accepted definitions of unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) do include provisions about customary caregivers, this concept has only rarely been operationalized in field settings. In Rwanda, UNHCR noted that the inclusion of children who are living with customary caregivers—in some cases the same customary caregivers with whom they were living before fleeing their homes while, in other cases, new customary care arrangements in which they have come to live in the camp settings in subsequent years—within their definitions of UASC had created a tremendous administrative burden on UNHCR staff and processes, taking precious time away from the agency’s ability to focus on more urgent child protection needs and vulnerabilities. This study, then, sought to explore if a more grounded definition of customary caregiving might, in fact, determine that many children classified as UASC are in fact living in customary caregiving arrangements that are socially and customarily acceptable for the populations living in these camps, care arrangements that…