Join us as Catholic Relief Services (CRS) showcases innovative and
promising practices from its orphan and vulnerable children (OVC)
programming around the globe.
Who it is for: People interested in children, colleagues working in
organizations supporting orphans and vulnerable children around the
world, policy makers, and donors.
View the schedule.
This document provides guidance to governments, international organizations and NGOs in the monitoring and evaluation of the national response for children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. It includes methods and tools for measurement at the national level.
The framework considers families and communities as the foundation of an effective, scaled-up response. The framework's key strategies are as follows:
- Strengthen the capacity of families to protect and care for orphans and vulnerable children by prolonging the lives of parents and providing economic, psychosocial and other support;
- Mobilize and support community-based responses;
- Ensure access for orphans and vulnerable children to essential services, including education, health care, birth registration and others;
- Ensure that governments protect the most vulnerable children through improved policy and legislation and by channelling resources to families and communities;
- Raise awareness at all levels through advocacy and social mobilization to create a supportive environment for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.
This guidance document has been developed as part of an internal investment review process to provide guidance to USAID country missions and both local and international implementing partners on how funds from the USAID Displaced Children and Orphans Fund will be used in the area of programming for street children.
Research about children's lives conducted in the volatile setting of armed conflict places particular demands upon researchers. The suggestion that researchers should, whenever possible and appropriate, involve children as meaningful participants in that research may seem unreasonable or inappropriate. However, the production of this paper has been motivated by the conviction that participatory research is especially valuable because of the emergency context. Firstly, such an approach is likely to yield richer and more detailed data than a conventional, adult-led approach. These data can be invaluable to the design of interventions. Secondly, engagement in well-planned research activities can offer direct benefits for young participants by enhancing their skills and awareness. In settings of conflict where the young may be required to play an expanded role in their own protection and in the care of others, their personal development is especially important. Our aim here is to equip researchers to most safely and profitably pursue participatory research with children and, to that end, we explore the specific conceptual, ethical and methodological issues concerned.
This paper considers the situation of youth and adolescents affected by war and displacement throughout the world, and provides a summary of the key issues to be explored with regards to their protection. It draws upon insights and experience from researchers, practitioners and war-affected young people themselves in an attempt to better understand the challenges they face during war and the resulting implications for policy and practice.
This guide offers a step-wise approach to conducting a situation analysis with orphans and vulnerable children in conjunction with social science expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methods.
The report documents outcomes from the Special Session on Children. It contains 21 specific goals and targets for improving the well being of children the next decade, and four key priorities: promoting healthy lives; providing quality education for all; protecting children against abuse, exploitation and violence; and combating HIV/AIDS.
CARE designed the "5x5 model" to illustrate and integrate critical early childhood needs into a simplified holistic and replicable program, capable of delivering early childhood development interventions in resource constrained areas through community based childcare centers catering for the 2-8 year old age group. This document is part of the "Promising Practices" series.
This fact sheet provides a brief overview of how the Child Status Index (CSI) can be used by community health works to monitor the wellbeing of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The CSI measures six broad areas of a child's wellbeing: food and nutrition; shelter and care; protecting health; psychosocial; protection; and education and skills. The CSI is designed so that measurement can be performed by people living in the same communities as the affected children, who are in the best position to monitor the health of those children on a regular basis.
