I spent a part of 2010 preparing two sets of materials on children's participation in child protection for The Child-to-Child Trust and The Keeping Children Safe Coalition:
1. A toolkit for adults working with children to involve them in their own protection; and
2. A module to support trainers of these adults to provide guidance in some of the key concepts and skills needed to do this work.
The project involved testing the toolkit and training module in Sierra Leone, with colleagues in a number of different organisations based throughout Africa. All these organisations are members of the Keeping Children Safe Coalition. The materials took almost a year to produce and after a few months (with rather a high price tag), I am delighted to say that you that online versions of both sets of materials can now be downloaded for FREE. The materials are also available in French and the Spanish version is coming soon. It is important to emphasise that while these materials aim to encourage children to get involved in child protection, it is the responsibility of adults to ensure children are safe.
Here is a bit more on the materials...
The Training Module on Child Participation in Child Protection is the 5th Module within the Keeping Children Safe Tool 3. You will need to download the entire Tool by clicking here. Module 5 is from pages 91 to 132 and is set out in the following way:
Module Five: Childrens’s Participation and Child Protection: A Guide for Training Adults
- Exercise 5.1: Children’s participation
- Exercise 5.2: Children taking action on child protection
- Exercise 5.3: Overcoming barriers against effective children‘s participation
- Exercise 5.4: Working with groups of children
- Exercise 5.5: Active Listening
- Exercise 5.6: Asking open questions
Tool 4 aims to provide adults working with children with exercises and activities that will get them started in learning about how to keep themselves and other children safer. Tool 4 can be downloaded by clicking here. Tool 4 is structured as set out below:
Introduction
Module One: Children recognise what is child abuse
- Exercise 1.1: Children’s rights
- Exercise 1.2: Feeling safe and
- Exercise 1.3: Understanding child abuse
Module Two: Children keeping themselves and others safe
- Exercise 2.1: Talking about feelings
- Exercise 2.2: Decision-making
- Exercise 2.3: Children keeping children safe
Module Three: Making organisations feel safe for children
- Exercise 3.1: Safe or Unsafe in communities, schools, and projects?
- Exercise 3.2: Listening and talking about feeling unsafe
- Exercise 3.3: Setting up children‘s groups to help keep children safe
Module Four: A Resources Guide
Over the next 2 months I will be writing a series of posts based on these materials.
Several organisations have already conducted training using the toolkit notably SOS Children's Villages and Plan International. It would be wonderful to hear your ideas and experiences of using and adapting the materials and to have links to any exercises you have improved, added to or expanded. I would be very pleased to feature these experiences, ideas, comments and cases studies on the blog.
*I was commissioned to write the toolkit and module by the Keeping Children Safe Coalition and The Child-to-Child Trust with support from The Oak Foundation.
it is relevant and necessary
Posted by: TESHOME REGASSA | November 10, 2012 at 04:17 PM