Standard 6: Children
Our Commitment:
We are committed to ensuring that
programmes are child-sensitive by
incorporating child development
and child protection in their design,
planning and implementation.
Children in Kasaba village,
Democratic Republic of Congo
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
The issues
Children in emergency situations are highly vulnerable and are often a major
beneficiary group in emergency relief projects. This vulnerability results from a
wide range of factors, such as lack of food and health care which leads to
malnutrition, a lack of access to education due to displacement and physical
damage to property, with the traumatic experiences they may have witnessed, or
separation from parents and loss of a stable environment. Large scale population
displacement can lead to a break down in family and social structures, moral
norms and a lack of traditional protection systems. Hunger, domestic violence,
lack of access to educational facilities and no prospects of a future are push
factors for boys and girls to be on the streets. Children as young as seven are
taking part in hostilities around the world as child soldiers. They are often
abducted from schools and refugee camps or from their homes, whether
voluntarily, forced or induced through money or other incentives to take part.
Children are impressionable and easily manipulated and therefore can become
unquestioning fighting machines, as has been seen in conflict in Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, DRC and elsewhere.
Children develop in four main areas:
1) Physical Development - refers to the child’s body and growth
2) Cognitive Development - what the child knows, understands or remembers
3) Emotional Development - feelings, control over emotions, learning through
social interactions and cultural background
4) Moral Development - knowing difference between right and wrong, influenced
by culture, belief and faith.
When children do not get the right kind of input and they grow up in an
environment where their needs and rights are not respected or fulfilled then their
development will be affected and can be unbalanced.
Biblical foundations
The Bible teaches us that children are made in the image of God, children are a
blessing, and that boys and girls are equally valued by God. Adults are to care for
children in a loving and caring way, based on respect. Discipline is to be in the
form of instruction and guidance in order that children are then able to explore
their environment within safe and healthy boundaries. Jesus severely warns
adults who misguide and sin against children. (Matthew 18:1-6; 19: 13-15).
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Good Practice commitments
Our commitment is to meet both child development needs – strategies which
support children’s wellbeing and development; and child protection needs –
policies which ensure their protection from abuse and exploitation.
We are committed to safeguarding children from all forms of physical or
psychological violence, injury or abuse, neglect, maltreatment or exploitation,
including sexual abuse. We are committed to ensuring that the child’s best
interest and well being is at all times of paramount consideration. Tearfund is a
member of the Keeping Children Safe Coalition, setting the international standard
for child protection.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989 and summarised
on page 153, sets out the rights of children. The convention was unanimously
adopted by every country in the world except Somalia and the USA, meaning that
countries have made a binding promise to enforce these rights and ensuring the
needs of children are met.
Close links to other Quality Standards
There are close links with Values, as child abuse is incompatible with our values
and standards of conduct; Accountability, as we need to make information on
our commitments to children publicly available and our feedback from
communities needs to include feedback from children and feedback on any child
protection issues; Technical Quality, as we need to ensure that technical design
is appropriate for the needs of boys and girls, Gender, with our commitment to
the development of both boys and girls; and HIV, recognising the impact that HIV
is having on children.
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Where to look for further information:
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Tearfund’s Child Protection Policy 2009
Tearfund’s Child Development Good Practice Guide & Study Pack (tilz)
Tearfund’s Roots Guide on Child Participation (tilz)
Keeping Children Safe Child Protection Training Pack (English, French,
Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, Portuguese): www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk
Children and Health: www.who.int
Child Rights: www.crin.org; www.unicef.org
Child Participation: http://www.iicrd.org/cap; www.planinternational.org
Children and WATSAN: www.schools.watsan.net
Education: http://www.savethechildren.org/programs/education/
Children and DRR: www.unisdr.org; www.quakeschool.org;
http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/emergencies/ClimateChange-Report-PDF.pdf
Child trafficking: www.childtrafficking.com
Children and the Environment: www.childreninchangingclimate.org
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Practical Steps for carrying out our Children commitment
Identification
Step 1: Ensure assessments
gather the perspectives of
boys and girls
Design
Step 2: Design projects in a
way that is child-friendly
and supports child
development
Step 3: Design specific
project activities
appropriate for boys and
girls
Implementation
Step 4: Carry out child
protection commitments
Step 5: Monitor and
evaluate the impact of your
child development approach
and child protection policy
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Step 1: Ensure assessments
gather the perspectives of
boys and girls
Boys and girls can be easily
overlooked when gathering views
from a community and designing a
project. A determined effort will
be needed to seek out their views
and opinions.
As with the Gender quality standard, it is important to carry out separate
discussions with similar age groups of boys and girls in order that they can speak
freely about their ideas, needs, capacities and vulnerabilities. Children have
their own ideas about what they want and they often know better than adults
about how things can and should improve for them. Children should feel safe to
raise their concerns and trust that their opinions will be taken into account when
decisions are made.
Questions should be open and age-appropriate to gauge the general situation for
children include: How old are they? Who do they live with (with other children?
family? institutions?) Do they access any education? Where do they go to when
they are unwell? Is there a safe place for children to play? What type of
environment are they in? Ask children who they consider are important people in
their lives. This may include their biological family, extended family, civil society
(which could include the local church or mosque, local NGOs, teachers etc),
INGOs and others.
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Step 2: Design projects in a
way that is child-friendly
and supports child
development
When designing your project consider the four
main ways that children develop, as explained
previously. In what ways are project activities
in general going to support these areas?
1) Physical Development –e.g. nutrition
support, hygiene and health, protection from
violence and witnessing of violence.
2) Cognitive Development e.g. education,
play, and safety
3) Emotional Development e.g. a supportive environment, families kept
together, protection from neglect and emotional abuse, support to work through
the effects of being involved in something traumatic.
4) Moral Development e.g. having positive role models to look to as well as good
parenting skills such as praising good behaviour, explaining why bad behaviour is
wrong etc.
Look at the design of each project sector in relation to these areas in order to
maximise the positive impact and avoid any negative impact on child
development.
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Step 3: Design specific
project activities
appropriate for boys and
girls
There are many projects in emergencies
which are intended specifically for boys and
girls. It is also widely recognised that boys
and girls have the capacity to learn quickly
and to adopt new ideas and behaviours. For
example, hygiene promotion teaching has
often been adopted quicker by boys and
girls than their parents, and they then become a positive role model for positive
hygiene behaviour in the home.
Full and meaningful child participation is essential for such projects, with both
girls and boys involved in the decision-making. Boys and girls should be
considered as partners in programme development rather than just passive
beneficiaries.
Child-focused projects in emergencies include:
• Child focused health: health-promotion clubs which meet in school or out of
school or both
• Child-friendly spaces: an age-appropriate safe play area, with structured
activities in a safe and normalised environment
• DRR in schools: teaching on the hazards of disasters (e.g. earthquakes and
cyclones) faced by the community and how to reduce its impact on children
through preparedness activities e.g. evacuation routes.
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Step 4: Carry out child
protection commitments
A child protection policy should be in place for
your organisation, explaining the practical ways
in which the commitment to child protection is to be carried out, how to reduce
risks when working with children and how allegations on misconduct should be
investigated and managed.
• Do staff and volunteers know and understand the organisation’s child
protection policy?
• Are they clear about what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour? (see also
Values)
• Are staff informed of their duty of care at induction and are they continually
updated through on-going training?
• Do community members and staff know where to go to if they need to raise
concerns? (see also Value Step 3 and Accountability Step 5).
• Are there clear guidelines once a child protection concern is identified?
Assess the level of risk to children by thinking about the amount of contact that
staff and volunteers are going to have with children in the project and the
community, and the context in which the project is taking place. The following
table can be used to identify the level of risk:
Area of risk1
Low Medium High
Staff & volunteers (how recruited? was identification
checked? were references verified? are they supervised?
Place/physical environment (is it a safe area?)
Activities & programmes (is it suitable? age-appropriate?
what is the adult/child ratio?)
Information (child-friendly? understood by staff?)
Organisational culture (open? closed? clear reporting
guidelines?)
1
Table from Keeping Children Safe toolkit
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
If the risks are medium or high, you
minimised:
Risk Do
Monitor closely and
2
no
nothing review again:
(specify time
period & who is
responsible for
monitoring and
review)
(low risk)
need to look into ways in which these can be
Change
activities/policies/
plans/procedures to
reduce risk (specify
action to be taken,
time period & who is
responsible)
(medium to high
risk)
Stop the
activity/hand it over
to another
organisation (specify
action to be taken,
time period & who is
responsible)
1
2
3
4
5
6
Step 5: Monitor and
evaluate the impact of your
child development approach
and child protection policy
Monitor the project to assess whether
the
project
is
supporting
child
development as intended and minimising
or preventing any negative impact. Monitor the project environment, capture the
learning and continually re-evaluate and re-assess the project to ensure child
safety, asking for example whether children are being protected from the risk of
kidnap, rape and forced recruitment. Are vulnerable children being adequately
educated and protected from the risk of sexual abuse and exploitation?
Monitor procedures such as recruitment and selection, performance management,
ensure programmes encourage openness and accountability and report your
concerns of inappropriate behaviour quickly to line management or the Child
Protection Officer so that they can be investigated and dealt with properly.
2
Table from Childhope’s Child Protection Policies and Procedures Toolkit, How to create a child-safe organisation
www.childhope.org
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009
Standard 6: Children
Project Examples
A partner working with children in Zimbabwe have an annual 3 day
conference for representatives of their beneficiary group (orphans) to
provide feedback and influence programming for the following year.
A youth-focused partner working in IDP camps in Sri Lanka saw that the
youngsters crammed into the lines of houses were exposed to violence due
to the adult stress levels following the tsunami and also they had no space
for study or for play. The partner therefore began to use the local church
building and grounds to run after school study centres, home-work space
with electric lighting and play areas for both genders. This provided the
young people with a more normal atmosphere than the cramped lines of IDP
housing, along with people who were willing to give time to each young
person to help them through the times of transition. Partner staff were able
to identify all the youth who had lost mothers in the tsunami and thus give
them extra support.
Quality Standards Field Guide – First Edition, December 2009