Bottom-up approaches to strengthening child protection systems: Placing children, families, and communities at the center

Abstract

Efforts to strengthen national child protection systems have frequently taken a top-down approach of imposing formal, government-managed services. Such expert-driven approaches are often characterized by low use of formal services and the misalignment of the nonformal and formal aspects of the child protection system. This article examines an alternative approach of community-driven, bottom-up work that enables nonformal-formal collaboration and alignment, greater use of formal services, internally driven social change, and high levels of community ownership. The dominant approach of reliance on expert-driven Child Welfare Committees produces low levels of community ownership. Using an approach developed and tested in rural Sierra Leone, community-driven action, including collaboration and linkages with the formal system, promoted the use of formal services and achieved increased ownership, effectiveness, and sustainability of the system. The field needs less reliance on expert-driven approaches and much wider use of slower, community-driven, bottom-up approaches to child protection.

Where there is no intervention: Insights into processes of resilience supporting war-affected children.

“…In the psychosocial field, practice and policy statements now frequently signal that local resources and agendas should be the foundation for interventions (CPWG, 2014;UNICEF, 2015). 'Community-based child protection mechanisms' are increasingly seen as the key resource supporting children's well-being in a culturally appropriate and sustainable manner (Wessells et al, 2012;Wessells, 2015). What sources of data can facilitate deeper understanding of such community resources and mechanisms?…”

Tackling the Physical Punishment of Children in Resource Poor Contexts

“…Ensuring a diversity in community perceptions is critical, as on many issues there are bound to be differences, at some level, within community perceptions and practices, based on variables such as gender, age, education, ability vs. disability, class and access to power (see Chambers, 1997;Korbin, 1981;Wessells, 2015). As Wessells (2015) found in his own study, many child protection programmes identify community leaders with whom they work to implement a programme of action relating to child protection. However, he argues that 'this approach is problematic because quite often there are marginalised people, including children and the poorest of the poor, who either do not attend such gatherings or remain voiceless when they do attend' (p.12).…”

“…In the child protection literature the idea of community ownership has also been identified as key to effective programming. Wessells (2015) who, in a paper based on a global review of community-based child protection mechanisms conducted in 2009, identified seven factors that contributed to the effectiveness of such programme, the most important of which was community ownership. Specifically, the review found that "the level of community ownership was higher when people identified the work as 'ours' and took responsibility for its effectiveness" (Wessells, 2015: 11).…”

“…These arguments are worthy of consideration by those seeking to initiate a change in child rearing practices, especially relating to the physical punishment of children in contexts where governments are limited in their capacity to ensure the effective implementation and enforcement of laws. This does not mean external actors cannot play a role in the process (An-na'im, 1992;Wessells, 2015), but the community must be in the 'driving seat', a term which has increasingly become popular in the international development literature (Contu and Girei, 2014).…”

“…However, the kind of partnership that is developed requires careful consideration as evidence suggests that partnerships produced on the ground can reproduce unequal relations and offer 'no scope for reassessment and dialogue over outcomes' (Contu and Girei, 2014:213; see also Wessells, 2015 Contu and Girei, 2014). Key to such partnerships are positive values such as mutuality, dialogue and reciprocity (Contu and Girei, 2014).…”