Building a culture of positive parenting to help vulnerable families and children to get the support
Parenting digital support into social service delivery
Disrupted child and family services and social isolation from lockdown measures led to a vacuum of support around overburdened and stressed parents, making them unable to provide nurturing care to their children.
Many parents believe, when their kids go online, that they are searching for fun games to play and videos to watch, but this is not always the case. In Albania, 50 percent of parents are largely unaware of the negative experiences of their children on the internet, while 69 percent of children use the internet neither at home nor at school, with the average age of children accessing the internet for the first time being 9-years-old.
UNICEF in partnership with the local NGO “Shkej” has incorporated parenting digital support into social service delivery. One mobile team was created and the intervention focused on one of the most disadvantaged areas of Tirana district, the municipality of Kamza. This municipality’s population is heterogeneous with wide-ranging socio-economic problems that favor the vulnerability of children and young people and the whole family, as well. The mobile outreach team has provided informative sessions, orientation, referral, and direct assistance to access online services in the areas within the municipality of Kamza that lack these services and information about where and how they can be part of the support schemes at the local level.
UNICEF has been able to produce positive results for children. A total of 331 children and adolescents were outreached with awareness-raising sessions on the internet safety and mental health support via a mobile program. The mobile team “digital literacy and online safety curriculum” enabled children who are already at risk of being trafficked, at risk of violence, child labor, working and spending a lot of time in street situation and their parents, to better recognize and cope with the risks in the digital environment. Provision of training is one of the activities under the EU- funded and UNICEF- implemented project designed to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of children and families.
"When they return home from work, parents are tired out. Most of them do not have time to dedicate to their children. To the parents, it appears normal for children to sit with a cell phone in their hand or work on a computer, in case the family owns one. They think children are getting themselves prepared for school the next day. They didn't know much about the risks online. Hence, the importance of the meetings we held. Parents were made to realize the damage that children may sustain online,” said Bora Molla, the representative of “Shkej” the UNICEF implementing partner.
One of the parents participating in the informing session said: “I have 2 children. Not only during the pandemic but also before it, as a family, we spend a lot of time on our mobile phones. In the past, we only taught children to look out for cars on the street or not to talk to strangers when outside the home. Now things have changed. I learned that I need to have open conversations with children regarding online safety. I took part in several sessions and now I feel I can do better when checking on my daughters online.”
UNICEF will continue to support parents to do more to keep their children safe online as they are constantly exposed to violence, hatred, sexual content, bullying, and other inappropriate content when using the internet.
"When they return home from work, parents are tired out. Most of them do not have time to dedicate to their children. To the parents, it appears normal for children to sit with a cell phone in their hand or work on a computer, in case the family owns one. They think children are getting themselves prepared for school the next day. They didn't know much about the risks online. Hence, the importance of the meetings we held. Parents were made to realize the damage that children may sustain online,” said Bora Molla, the representative of “Shkej” the UNICEF implementing partner.
One of the parents participating in the informing session said: “I have 2 children. Not only during the pandemic but also before it, as a family, we spend a lot of time on our mobile phones. In the past, we only taught children to look out for cars on the street or not to talk to strangers when outside the home. Now things have changed. I learned that I need to have open conversations with children regarding online safety. I took part in several sessions and now I feel I can do better when checking on my daughters online.”
UNICEF will continue to support parents to do more to keep their children safe online as they are constantly exposed to violence, hatred, sexual content, bullying, and other inappropriate content when using the internet.
