Safeguarding and Child Protection

We develop and support emerging, established, and mature child protection case management systems in low-resource and high HIV-prevalence settings. We partner with host governments to develop national case management frameworks and systems aligned to national policy that ensure timely case handling and access to services for abuse victims and their families. We collaborate with relevant government ministries to build the capacity of their social welfare workforce and community volunteer networks, aligned to national frameworks, policies, and referral pathways. These systems track case closure rates, referral completion rates, and other targeted orphan and vulnerable children case management metrics.  

More than a million children throughout the world are trafficked for the commercial sex industry and other forms of bonded labor. To combat the worst forms of child labor, we work to provide children and youth who are at risk of or caught in exploitative conditions with skills from vocational and practical training to basic literacy classes, and opportunities to enter or reenter the formal school system and improve their work and life prospects.

In collaboration with local, national, and international partners, we design and implement capacity building initiatives to strengthen organizations working to prevent child labor, trafficking, and commercial sexual exploitation in Africa and Asia. 

We have experience in a wide range of interventions proven to reduce child labor, including improving access to basic skills training, such as basic or functional literacy and lifeskills; providing family income-generation support; establishing or revitalizing local systems to monitor for child labor; providing psychosocial, health, and/or social welfare services; and strengthening national policies for the elimination of child labor.  

We work across the socioecological spectrum to mitigate and respond to gender-based violence (GBV). We equip women and adolescent girls with social and protective assets and life skills to reduce their risk of gender-based violence (GBV), increase their agency and empower them to navigate harmful gender norms, and promote health-seeking behaviors.

We provide community-based direct access to GBV prevention and response services, including medical, legal and social services. Engaging caregivers with positive parenting training, we also work with men and boys as partners in violence prevention and social norms change. We train teachers and school systems in sexual abuse prevention and response, and support governments to develop robust post-abuse response systems through strengthened national case management and a stronger social welfare workforce. 

The children our programs support struggle with poverty, poor health including HIV, abuse, family loss, and barriers to education with limited or no availability of support services. Psychosocial support (PSS) is a key facet of our comprehensive approach. Front-line workers are trained to provide basic PSS to children and link those in need of further support to necessary health and social services, often through a tracked case management system of care. Psychosocial support approaches are further layered onto club- or curriculum-based programming that engages vulnerable populations, including parents/caregivers, with content that builds their resilience. With PSS as a core aspect of our programming, we are better able to respond to and meet the ongoing emotional, social, and spiritual needs of children as they face life’s challenges.