Child-centred Accountability and Protection Evaluation (CAPE) Discussions - Young Partners in Development

CAPE Methods Review

2011-09-29T21:33:56.793Z

The following document, prepared by Rebeccah Nelems, analyzes a range of participatory methodologies as a first step in implementing the CAPE framework, approved by advisors in January 2011.

The review is intended to support the country teams in drafting and developing tools, which will be appropriate to context, build on existing, local child protection systems and mechanisms and be realistic to apply within the framework of the CAPE project. CAPE has conducted this analysis to ensure that the project both draws from and builds on existing good practices and approaches as well as contributes to the evidence and analysis available about effective, child-centred monitoring and evaluation within the Child Protection sector.

This document provides a brief overview description and analysis of each of the identified methodologies selected to be reviewed for the first phase of the CAPE project.

CAPE Ethical Review

2011-09-05T22:15:40.280Z

Greetings all,

On behalf of the Child-centred Accountability and Protection Evaluation (CAPE) project, Dr. Natasha Blanchet-Cohen prepared the attached package for Concordia University's Ethics Committee review and approval. Each of the case studies adapted the consent form to ensure that it met the needs (e.g. language) of the target participants.

Elaina

CAPE: Spring Update

2011-05-18T18:29:45.321Z

Greetings all,

Attached is a short note including highlights of emerging partnerships, selecting and developing methodologies for piloting, initial data collection and priorities over the next six months.

Stay tuned as the CAPE team will be very busy over the next few months working with partners and young people to collect and analyze data to measure child protection programmes and services in Thailand, Brazil and Colombia.

Feedback/comments are most welcome!

All the best,

Elaina

Case Study Story - Violence in Colombia: Involving Youth as Agents of Change

2011-05-18T18:21:49.841Z

Violence in Colombia: Involving Youth as Agents of Change

“I want to transform the mentality of young children, youth and adults (if possible) to develop their capacity to resist the bad that surrounds us.” Female Youth, 15

Violence is a lived experience for many young people throughout Colombia. Children and youth are especially vulnerable–both as potential victims and of becoming perpetrators of violence. To reverse this cycle of violence, Colombia needs new approaches that place young people at the centre of child protection policies, programs and services.

Conflict in Colombia

The ongoing presence and historical legacy of 50 years of conflict in many parts of the country means that children are vulnerable to many types of violence. Large numbers of families and children have been relocated due to political or military conflict, often resulting in poor living condition, malnutrition as well as intra-familial violence. This reality limits a child’s ability to lead a full and healthy life.

“The recently adopted Children and Adolescents’ Code provides a legislative framework for ensuring that the personal human rights of young people are upheld, with a specific responsibility for the poorest segments of society,” says Manuel Manrique, Centro Internacional de Educacion y Desarollo Humano (CINDE) Advisor and IICRD Associate. “Even with a national policy and political commitment, more work needs to be done to strengthen Colombia’s capacity to enforce the framework. Young people need to be leaders in this journey to prevent violence.”

Protecting Early Childhood from Violence

This journey needs to start with strengthening the capacity young people, from very young children to older youth, young parents, as well as their families and close community allies, to create healthy environments for young people to live up to their full potential. Bringing many different organizations and stakeholders together is critical to addressing the complexity of violence in Colombia.

The Colombia Protecting Early Childhood from Violence (CPECV) is a partnership with local governments, universities, NGOs, daycares, schools, and parents to protect children (0-8) from the devastating impact of violence in Colombia. The lead partner, CINDE — a Colombia-based educational research and development centre – is building on seven years of community-based work to better protect children and promote their healthy development in Communa 13 (Medellin). Seeing the important role of involving all young people to preventing violence, CINDE has been working with groups of youth to reflect on their own role and capacity to improve the situation for themselves and younger children.

The International Child Development Programme (ICDP) is also building on their relationships and 15 years of work in Colombia focusing on the prevention of violence through the development of empathy, particularly with families as the entry point.

The International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), a Canadian-based technical partner, is supporting CINDE and ICDP to meaningfully involve children and youth as part of this process, nurturing the development of indicators as well as fostering local, national and international policy changes and links.

Critical Conversation: Workshop with Youth

On February 21, 2011, Dr. Natasha Blanchet-Cohen (IICRD Researcher) and CINDE promotoras Mayerlin Velasquez and Dora Osorio facilitated a session with 30 young participants ages 11-18 (est.) in Comuna 13. Four high schools were represented. The workshop was held at a local library, seen as a neutral space to allow participants to freely and safely participate in an open dialogue without fearing repercussions from community or gang members.

The purpose of the workshop was to:

Gather information on youth perspectives on violence
How it has impacted their lives and young people they know and
How young people (many young parents themselves) understand their ability to be the force behind change

Public spaces are risky

During the session, participants mapped out the everyday risks and protective factors that exist in their community.

Participants described the places in their community they consider to be dangerous. Public spaces were identified as dangerous because of the presence of gang members, the risk of confrontation or their location close to what is known as the ‘imaginary line’ such as the:

Recreational facilities
Parks
Bus terminals
Churches

Another interesting finding was how males and females experienced violence differently. According to the youth participants, males are more at risk because gang members actively pursue them, which is not the case for females. “The men are those who suffer the most from the armed gangs because they are always being pursued by the gangs.” Later discussions revealed that females, while largely exempt from the gang violence, were almost all targets of sexualized violence.

Supportive People and Places

Young people identified their homes and family, the school and the library as key protective factors to prevent violence in their community. Interestingly, they identified police and bus drivers as both protective and risk factors, as some representatives are seen to be connected to armed gangs.

Youth see themselves as change agents

“Despite the amount of violence and the seriousness of the issues, youth were hopeful,” says Dr. Blanchet-Cohen. “I was inspired by the compelling insights into how young people saw how they could individually play a role to reduce the violence that they experience.”

Young people’s ideas included:

Organizing peace campaigns
Raising awareness on the consequences of the conflict
Giving advice to younger people on the impacts of joining the armed gangs
Seeking resources to help young people to use their time positively
Creating safe spaces for youth
Seeking support from authorities and institutions

“As change agents, we have the capacity to share knowledge that will give life lessons and will help people to communicate more positively without aggression,” says one young person.

Plans for the future

Youth in Comuna 13 can play a critical role in breaking the vicious circle of violence that dominates life in many Colombian communities. Following this workshop, CINDE, IICRD and other partners explored how the young people’s perspectives can be integrated into other strategies for preventing violence in the community. Discussions focused on some next steps to work with promotoras and other community institutions to strengthen the capacity of young people (e.g. through hip hop dance and music).

“It will be important to nurture a new kind of ‘youth force’ in the community to counteract the strong power of gangs,” says Dr. Blanchet-Cohen. “Moving forward, it will be important to think about how to involve youth who do not attend schools; how to support youth as mentors to younger children; and more broadly, how youth engagement can become an automatic reflex to prevent violence.”

Emerging CAPE Partnership: Strengthening Child Protection Systems in the Global South

2011-05-18T18:09:16.808Z

Protecting children, particularly those living in the global South, from difficult challenges requires a significant shift away from generic responses towards more holistic approaches that place children and communities at the centre of programs and services.

“Generic solutions to addressing diverse challenge such as sexual abuse and exploitation, trafficking and the HIV/AIDS epidemic to armed conflict and natural disasters can be not only wasteful, but can introduce secondary risks for the very children that national and international agencies are trying to help,” says Philip Cook, Executive Director of the International Institute for Child Right and Development (IICRD).

The International Institute for Child Rights and Development, the Care and Protection of Children Network (CPC), based at Columbia University, and UNICEF Global met in New York in January 2011 to forge a strategic partnership. Drawing on their extensive network and experience, the partners hope to:

develop capacity among key child protection actors in select countries
strengthen child protection systems in select countries by engaging government and civil society including communities, youth and academia

“Countries in the global south are starting to establish more comprehensive child protection policies and organizational systems. However, employees in many relevant government ministries and civil society agencies have not had adequate training to develop effective social policy, generate critical data, or evaluate programs. Universities can provide a forum for government actors and community members, including children, to implement these plans,” says Neil Boothby, Director of the CPC Network.

Over the next few months, the partners will review potential pilot countries to see how the new cooperative initiative could unfold over the next 3-5 years. Activities of the collaboration may include facilitating regional policy and learning forums, undertaking community-based research as well as developing and teaching curricula with Southern university partners.

“Increasing the capacity and number of child protection workers able to respond to global challenges affecting children is pressing,” says Susan Bissell, Director of Child Protection at UNICEF. “In particular, we need expertise to protect children affected by armed conflict and humanitarian disasters as well to support child protection system building for young people living in developing countries.”

In the long term, UNICEF, the CPC Network, IICRD and regional partners hope that our collaborative efforts will contribute to building stronger child protection systems that are more accountable to the rights and lived realities of children.

CAPE: Fall Update

2011-01-15T01:24:42.000Z

Greetings all,

Please see the attached note below describing some of the fall activities and next steps for the Child-centred Accountability and Protection Evaluation (CAPE) project.

Many thanks for your ongoing contributions and involvement in this exciting pilot project. We look forward to working with you more closely in 2011.

Onwards!

The CAPE Team

Revised CAPE Framework

2011-01-15T00:44:13.000Z

Thank you all for your comments and input into revising the CAPE Framework.

Some members of the CAPE team (Natasha Blanchet-Cohen, Michele Cook, Philip Cook, Bruce Lund, Elaina Mack and Rebeccah Nelems) met in December to discuss the comments and finalize the framework, taking this input into account.

Next Steps and Actions Requested of you:

• Timing: We welcome your feedback and comments on the revised framework below. Unless there are substantial reservations voiced by the Advisory group, we intend to proceed with it in January 2011.
• Country Groups: In January, we ask that the country groups participate in country-level discussions on how each group proposes that the framework be operationalized in the distinct pilot countries. Country groups should develop a 1-2-page document that includes:
o A rationale for 1-2 pilot sites with a description of the particular children and/or youth with whom the CAPE project would work
o An overview of the other key actors that the team recommends be engaged in each country (including an explicit definition of which community actors in each of the pilot sites, and different levels of the child protection system)
o Identification of existing resources, methodologies and local mechanisms they want the project to build on
o Recommendations for how the CAPE project will best build on other IICRD initiatives to date in that country
o An analysis of how the issue of sexual exploitation will be addressed through the project in each country
o An analysis of how the project will incorporate considerations of indigenous rights and gender

• Tools for testing: A limited assessment of select methodologies and tools will be initiated in January 2011 to assess potential validity and applicability to the project. These will then be made available to country teams to consider their potential utility or validity in each context.

To provide your feedback or participate in the country team discussions, please:

-Go to the Child Rights in Practice site (www.childrightsinpractice.org). Sign up to the site if you have not already done so. Instructions are in a box on the right side of the site.
-Click on “groups”
-Select CAPE. A separate e-mail has been sent to you to join the group.
-Scroll down to “discussion forum”
-Click on “CAPE Framework Questions” or one of the country discussions, which are identified by country name.
-To share your own feedback, insert comments in the box provided and click “add reply”. It will be posted on-line for other members of the group to read.

See the full framework document attached below.

Thanks,

CAPE Team

CAPE Methodology: Tools and Resources

2010-11-29T19:45:49.000Z

Note from Philip:

Dear CAPE Methods Team ,

As a first start in sharing relevant documents on research methodologies applied with children that may be of use to our CAPE methods discussion I share this recent large study on community based care for children in India using the Most Sig. Change technique. We have already discussed using MSC in the context of CAPE and this may provide some ideas on how we can adapt to suit the needs of our project.

BTW I found this on the latest Drum Beat Dev’t Communication newsletter on participatory research at http://www.comminit.com/en/drum_beat_568.html

Philip

Proposed CAPE Framework: Seeking your Input and Feedback

2010-10-20T22:38:43.000Z

The scope of every monitoring and evaluation (M&E) project is defined by the questions it seeks to ask. We asked many questions at the 15-16 September advisory committee meetings, which led to a very fruitful discussion. However, the group recognized that given the limited scope and timeline of the project, there is a need for us to focus and hone in on the key questions that this project will seek to address. The group also identified key areas of "niche" for the Institute.

Since we met, an IICRD team (Philip Cook, Elaina Mack and Rebeccah Nelems) has kept the discussion going and based on the recommendations and reflections that have emerged, we are circulating the following questions and activities as a proposed framework within which the project will operate. Reference to objectives in the document refers to the objectives as outlined in the original Concept paper submitted to

the Oak Foundation.

To share your own feedback, insert comments in the box provided and click “add reply”. It will be posted on-line for other members of the group to read.

We would appreciate your feedback and input by November 10, 2010 so we can continue to move this discussion and project forward.

Thanks,

Philip, Elaina and Rebeccah.

Global Workshop - Meeting Documents: Briefing Note, Agenda and Participant List

2010-10-18T21:29:38.000Z

The following documents were prepared for the Advisory Committee meeting on September 15-16th in Victoria, British Columbia.

They include:

Welcome Package - including the agenda and participant list

Briefing Note - provides an overview of the project, contextualized the IICRD-Oak project within the field of Child Protection M&E and highlights other key issues for consideration

Story from Workshop - shares the key highlights of the workshop, including key points, discussion and next steps