On June 29, 2015 at 10am EDT, the CPC Learning Network hosted a webinar featuring Dr. Sarah Meyer, Associate Director of Research at the Centre of Excellence for the Study of the African Child (the Africhild Centre). This webinar focused on the experience of the CPC Learning Network and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in developing, piloting and refining a Child Protection Index (CPI), designed to assess child protection system strength in humanitarian settings. This presentation situated the CPI within discussions, frameworks and research on the strengths of child protection systems in the child protection field.
…the overarching vision of the framework is to enable children to live without exploitation, neglect, and abuse and to ensure the overall well-being of children
Gita Swamy Meier-Ewert
Sarah presented findings from studies conducted in 2013 and 2014 in refugee settings in Uganda and Rwanda, identify strengths of the CPI, and shared challenges in conceptualizing and measuring system strength in refugee settings. She additionally explored areas for future improvement to frameworks and tools for measurement of child protection system strength. You can read the report here.
This approach is really trying to explore the actual functioning of a system and how that maps onto communities needs and actual child protection outcomes so we really use this as a launching point for our study in order to really try and combine different approaches in terms of understanding what the child protection system is.
Dr. Sarah Meyer
A full description and recording of the webinar are now available here.
Although only in its pilot phase, the study is focused on measuring protection outcomes of child protection systems within humanitarian settings. Efforts are underway to assess how this tool can complement existing assessment and analysis tools, like the CPiE Rapid Assessment tool. Information collected from the CPI may provide additional data to support stronger analysis and protection strategies.
