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1 Child Protection Challenges and Opportunities: The Need for Evidence-Informed Strategies in South Africa ________________________________________ Human Sciences Research Council September 25, 2014 Gordon Phaneuf, MSW, RSW Chief Executive Officer Child Welfare League of Canada www.cwlc.ca 2 Presentation Outline • • • • • Context Child Protection: Challenges and Opportunities Evidence-Informed Strategies Public Health Surveillance Model Child Protection Data 3 Context • The WHO World Report on Violence against Children (2006) identified violence against children as a serious threat to global development • Children are one of the most vulnerable and resilient populations, who can experience multiple forms of violence over the course of their lives 4 Context • Violence against children is widespread and occurs in the home, family, school, work, community, in-care and justice arena. • Research and evidence are essential to develop comprehensive national strategies to respond to violence against children. • The lack of comprehensive nation-level data on child abuse has contributed to ineffective interventions, misdirected resources, re-traumatized children and the continued perpetuation of the cycle of abuse. 5 “There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.” N. Mandela 6 Child Protection: Challenges and Opportunities UNICEF Definition of Child Protection: “Preventing and responding to violence, exploitation, and abuse of all children in all contexts. This also includes reaching children who are uniquely vulnerable to these threats, such as those living without family care, in the street or in situations of conflict or natural disaster.” 7 Child Protection: Challenges and Opportunities • One of the key drivers for developing + strengthening child protection systems is to tie their development to nation-level social development strategies. • Child protection must be a defining focus for social development, rather than being conceived as an afterthought or as an appendage to broader development strategies. • Public policies that advance social development need to reinforce a child protective focus and those policies must be evidence-informed. 8 Child Protection: Challenges and Opportunities • Social development is a priority focus for virtually all countries. • In pursuing their social development agenda (governance, capacity building, institutional development, etc) nations must focus on the rights, needs and protection of children. • Social infrastructure and child protection should be seen as being complementary, not separate and distinct. • Key aspects of child socialization - family, school, social organizations and community, must serve to protect children. 9 Child Protection: Challenges and Opportunities • Need to situate cp system development in the larger context of the social determinants child health and wellbeing, eg. access to social support + recreation services; safe physical environments; social + economic equality; adequate housing, nutrition, etc. • Resist systemic pressures toward developing a reactive, fragmented, and isolated CP system. • Promote continuum of social development initiatives to reflect & complement the CP imperative. • Model evidenced-based, community-grounded, prevention-focused approaches. 10 Child Protection: Challenges and Opportunities • Invoke the legal and moral authority of international instruments & commitments, eg. CRC, Optional Protocols, MDGs, and instruments for peace building etc. • Re-focus and re-align international development assistance with child protection as a central focus. • Forge new cross-sectoral partnerships focused on child well-being and child protection, eg. Gates Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, WHO’s Violence Prevention Alliance, UBS Optimus Foundation, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. • Solicit the attention and secure the interest of the corporate sector. 11 Evidence-Informed Strategies “Without good data, national planning is compromised, effective policy-making and resource mobilization are hampered, and targeted interventions are limited in their ability to prevent and combat violence against children.” Marta Santos Pais Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children 12 Evidence-Informed Strategies • Evidence-informed strategies which address child protection serve to advance and reinforce social stability. • Reliable, accurate population-based data is instrumental to social development + it is fundamental to the development child protection responses. 13 Evidence-Informed Strategies • Drawing the connections between child well-being and social stability. • Promoting the progressive realization of children’s rights. • Constructing on-going CP data collection systems and generating child protection data that give voice to child rights. 14 Evidence-Informed Strategies • Experience shows that countries without basic data on child maltreatment have difficulties developing and implementing a child protection agenda. • Evidence equates with visibility: absence of evidence feeds with denial. • “If it’s not counted - it doesn’t count.” • The manager’s mantra “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” • Each successive form of child maltreatment has been met with denial, incredulity and ridicule the antidote is robust, incontrovertible evidence. 15 Without good data we don’t know which way we are going 16 Evidence-Informed Strategies • Many countries do not have comprehensive systems to register all births and deaths. • Child abuse data collection systems have major implications for child protection response and improved developmental outcomes. • Public sector resources are often directed to child welfare administrative data or worse for management information systems (MIS) rather than robust national child protection surveillance systems. 17 Evidence-Informed Strategies: Political Economy of Child Protection • Not knowing the extent of a problem is a key way to undermine efforts to resource the solution. • Need to think of evidence generation & data collection as some of the first things we do in formulating child protection strategies. • All major public investments are built on a foundation grounded in data. “an army moves on its stomach, and a bureaucracy is only moved with data” 18 Evidence-Informed Strategies • UNICEF: Global Monitoring for Child Protection - Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) • MICS provide data comparability across jurisdictions • Core MICS Indicators for Child Protection: Birth Registration Child Labour School Attendance among Child Labourers Child Labour among Students Violent Discipline Marriage before age 16 Marriage before age 18 Young women age 15-19 Years currently married or in union Polygamy Spousal age difference Approval for FGM/C Prevalence of FGM/C Attitudes towards Domestic Violence Child Disability 19 Evidence-Informed Strategies • International Labour Organization - Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC). • Assists countries in the collection, documentation, processing and analysis of child labour data. • Tanzania, for example, introduced a Child Labour Monitoring System under the guidance of the ILO, resulting in a National Action Plan to support vulnerable children. In turn this is generating a national/regional ILO conference on child labour 20 Public Health Surveillance Model Ecological Model on Child Maltreatment Source: Preventing Violence: A guide to implementing the recommendations of the World Report on Violence and Health (WHO, 2004) 21 Public Health Surveillance Model (Four Steps) • • • • Defining and monitoring the extent of the problem Identifying the causes of the problem Formulating and testing ways of dealing with the problem Applying widely the measures that are found to work 22 Public Health Surveillance Model Child Maltreatment Surveillance Cycle Data Collection & Analysis Issue Identification * Adapted from CDC On-going Reporting to Inform Action 23 Public Health Surveillance Model • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Violence Against Children surveys (VAC) are transformative in their impact. Do not reflect a population health or system development focus- “what is counted, counts” • Clinton Global Initiative, UBS Optimus Foundation & Violence Prevention Alliance (WHO) champion PH Model • PH Model has the allure, rigour and credibility of the health sciences. • In emerging democracies and societies with limited experience with political pluralism this approach can be uniquely persuasive. 24 Summary • What is counted – counts. • What is not counted, counts less. • Change happens, but positive change must be underpinned and reinforced with evidence. • Other sectors acknowledge they use and need data to generate their desired outcomes. • Corporate sector, thrives on evidence. Data is seen as an irreplaceable pathway to profits. • Child protection sector must “exploit” data to assisting protecting vulnerable populations. Child protection involves balancing the needs of the vulnerable with their right to self-determination 26 “Childhood decides.” Jean Paul Sartre 27 Child Protection Data: Nation-level Value for Practice • • • • • Assists with assessing the impact of maltreatment Supports identification & detection Documents familial & social context Determines distribution and burden of the problem Contributes to understanding developmental outcomes • Assists in planning 28 Child Protection Data Indirect Benefits • Increased child protection capacity • Facilitates intersectoral cooperation • Strengthened understanding of abuse and social determinants of health • Identification and documentation of service structure gaps 29 Child Protection Data Value for Research • Analysis of rates of different kinds of abuse • Explores the interaction of social determinants = risk of maltreatment • Identifies trends to inform planning + the political economy of prevention • Examines demographic characteristics of child, family, community and perpetrators 30 Child Protection Data: nation-level Value for Research • Establishes a national baseline to enable future trend analysis • Enables comparison of CP data with other population-wide datasets on children • Identifies areas for future research • Strengthens the salience of maltreatment as a priority concern for social scientific inquiry 31 Child Protection Data Value for Policy • Agenda-setting • Context-setting • Providing baseline data against which prevention efforts can be assessed • Facilitates evidence-based decision-making • Enables analysis at local, national and international levels 32 Child Protection Data Value for Advocacy • • • • Gives visibility to the issues Provides “Fact-based” advocacy Legitimizes demand for public resources Provides evidence to address reaction + denial • Provides benchmarks for accountability • Supports a children’s rights approach