Child Protection
The Child Protection programme works in partnership with Ministries of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs, Ministries of Social Welfare and Justice, Civil Registry Departments, Judiciaries, Police and NGOs/INGOs (such as ILO, UNFPA, Save the Children Fiji and Save the Children Australia) to build a protective environment for children free from violence, abuse and exploitation. The programme aims to: Looking Back (1) Ensuring that children are increasingly protected by legislation and are better served by justice systems that protect them as victims, offenders and witnesses The Child Protection Programme assisted Governments in aligning national laws and regulations with child protection principles and good practices. Using the baseline recommendations for legislative reform, arrangements were made in Vanuatu, Kiribati and Solomon Islands to carry out legal reform, draft new laws and amend existing ones where children and young people are consulted.
(2) Ensuring that children are better served by well-informed and coordinated child protection social services that ensure greater protection against and response to violence, abuse and exploitation The Programme supported the Governments in Kiribati, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Fiji to keep its current budget allocations to social welfare and maintain its current capacities in responding to and preventing child protection abuses.
(3) Supporting families and communities in establishing home and community environments for children that are free from violence, abuse and exploitation The child protection baseline research reports for Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were launched at the Annual Pacific Regional Child Protection Meeting, in November in Nadi, Fiji. The baseline findings provide a useful ‘roadmap’ for the work ahead under the Child Protection Programme and the recommendations were carefully considered in developing multi-year plans in different areas. The baseline will continue to provide a benchmark against which results and changes will be measured in the years to come. National level launches are scheduled to follow before the end of the year and in the beginning of 2010. Based on the research findings in relation to community behaviour and social change, UNICEF facilitated an in-country process for the development of ‘Communication for Social Change Plans’ in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The implementation of activities outlined in these Plans have begun with first results expected in 2010. With the aim of enhancing the Programme’s capacity to document and report on real results and changes, the Programme has introduced “Most Significant Change” (MSC) technique to be used to measure changes experiences by stakeholders. The use of MSC will provide a systematic, qualitative measure to capture data on changes and impact in domains that are difficult to measure in the short-term, including social mobilization, awareness raising and capacity building. The first ‘stories of change’ will be collected at the end of the first quarter of 2010. Moving Forward The Programme will maintain its approach to: strengthen the legal and regulatory system; strengthen the social welfare system; and address community/individual behaviour for social change. The findings and recommendations by the Baseline research will continue to provide a roadmap for action and a benchmark against which progress will be measured. 2010 will see much implementation of community-based activities for social behavioural change, addressing violence, abuse and exploitation of children under the “Communication for Social Change Plans”. The introduction and use of a monitoring tool - “Most Significant Change” - to gain evidence of real behavioural and social changes happening as a result of the work of the Programme. Under the legislative reform initiative, several new child protection-related laws will be drafted and amendments will be made to existing laws. The Programme will continue to improve capacity of the social welfare system and child protection services. A ‘panel of experts’ from Universities will be established to review lessons learnt, baseline recommendations and develop the most suitable model for the future ‘social welfare’ and ‘child protection service’ model for the Pacific. In collaboration with the Policy, Advocacy, Planning and Evaluation (PAPE) Programme, the Child Protection Programme has finalised the ‘child abuse costing analysis’. This analysis establishes the cost of child abuse in at least one country and weighs such costs against the cost of investing in better child protection systems for prevention, early intervention and response. The results of the analysis will also assist Child Protection partners in undertaking more effective advocacy and gain support for the investments needed to create a protective environment for children in the Pacific. The Child Protection Programme will also move its focus from the five countries to include the Northern Pacific island countries of Palau, FSM and RMI. The Child Protection baseline research will be undertaken in these countries with the aim of completing the research by mid-2010.
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