Inter-Agency Research on Strengthening Community Based Child Protection for Vulnerable Children in Sierra Leone

在世界许多地方，普遍滥用儿童获得照顾和保护的权利阻碍了在减轻贫困和确保最贫穷和最脆弱的儿童能够获得其基本权利方面取得进展。在各种情况下，儿童面临着广泛的保护风险，包括家庭分离、流离失所、袭击、性剥削和性虐待、被武装部队和武装团体招募或使用、贩运、童工、忽视和缺乏照顾等等。这些侵犯行为对儿童的福祉和长期成功产生重大和持久的有害影响。如何作出反应，在大范围内预防和减轻这些风险，是塞拉利昂新的机构间研究正在探索的一个深刻但尚未解决的问题。除了政府和家庭之外，社区是为易受儿童保护风险影响的儿童提供潜在支持的重要来源。一个重要的差距是，社区对儿童的保护往往没有得到社会工作者和警察等政府系统各方面的有效支持。这项研究将首次系统地评估社区主导的干预措施的效果，以更好地将社区与政府服务和系统联系起来，以支持弱势儿童。重要的是，这项研究将发展和衡量儿童的保护和福祉成果，即儿童在健康、安全和幸福方面所经历的真正变化。这项研究将提供一个独特的机会，告诉我们这些社区主导的干预措施是否有效，以及如何有效，如何可持续，以及如何扩大规模，影响更多的弱势和边缘化儿童。利用公共卫生方法，这项研究将制定基于人口的儿童保护和福祉结果措施。这项机构间评估首次将正在实施和资助儿童保护方案的主要国际组织聚集在一起进行合作。因此，这是一个难得的机会，可以填补一些重要的证据空白，并为这些组织和更广泛的组织的政策和实践的深刻变化提供信息。通过这一机构间评价倡议，将开始回答以下关于儿童保护政策的关键问题：社区主导的加强与正规系统联系的干预措施是否能改善儿童的保护和福祉结果？2. 如何使用以人口为基础的儿童保护和福利措施来衡量儿童保护机制有效性的变化，这些措施既反映了当地的理解，也反映了国际儿童保护标准？这项研究将从2012年到2014年在塞拉利昂的两个区——莫扬巴区和邦巴利区进行。这项研究是由哥伦比亚逆境儿童小组与救助儿童会合作进行的。

In many parts of the world, widespread abuse of children's rights to care and protection is hindering progress in alleviating poverty and ensuring the poorest and most vulnerable children are able to gain their basic rights. Across contexts, children face widespread protection risks including family separation, displacement, attack, sexual exploitation and abuse, recruitment into or use by armed forces and armed groups, trafficking, child labour, neglect and lack of care among many others. These violations have significant and lasting harmful effects on children's well-being and long term success. How to respond to prevent and mitigate these risks on a wide scale is a profound yet unanswered problem that is being explored in new interagency research in Sierra Leone.Alongside government and the family, the community is a crucial source of potential support for children vulnerable to child protection risks. A significant gap is that community protection for children are often not backed by effective support from aspects of the government system such as social workers and police. This research will for the first time systematically evaluate the effect of community-led interventions to better link communties with government services and systems to support vulnerable children. Importantly the research will develop and measure children's protection and well-being outcomes, that is the real changes that children experience in their health, safety and happiness. The research will provide a unique opportunity to tell us if and how these community-led interventions are effective, how they can be sustainable and also how they can be taken to scale to impact on larger numbers of vulnerable and marginalised children.Using a public health approach this research will develop population-based measures of children's protection and well-being outcomes. This inter-agency evaluation brings together in collaboration for the first time, key international organisations who are implementing and funding child protection programmes. It is therefore an extraordinary opportunity to fill some of the significant evidence gaps and inform deep changes in policy and practice across these organisations and more widely. Through this inter-agency evaluation initiative, the following critical questions for child protection policy will begin to be answered:1. Do community-led interventions to strengthen linkages with formal systems improve children's protection and well-being outcomes? 2. How can changes in the effectiveness of child protection mechanisms be measured using population based measures of children's protection and well-being be that reflect a mixture of local understandings and also international child protection standards?The research will run from 2012 to 2014 in two Districts in Sierra Leone - Moyamba and Bombali Districts. The research is led by the Columbia Group for Children in Adversity in partnership with Save the Children.