PROTECTING CHILDREN
Our Approach
Street Child are experts in protection programming and our integrated interventions create protective environments to assure safety as well as access to schooling.
We prioritise children in the most marginalised populations and those fighting to survive in low resource environments or living through conflict. Those children who have lost or do not live with their parents, children living in conflict zones and children living and working on the streets are some of the most vulnerable.
We seek out situations where there are gaps between aid, assistance and need and, as such, are often one of the only organisations supporting children in these tough circumstances.
Family mediation, counselling, mental health support and education services are part of the services offered by our trained social workers. This includes children associated with armed groups, who face stigma on return to their community after being forcibly or voluntarily recruited into active conflict.
We provide this support in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Liberia, North East Nigeria, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
Street Child run safe spaces, child help desks and offer counselling for thousands of distressed and displaced children, many of whom have experienced trauma due to conflict. This service also helps us to identify more acute needs that need specialist care.
We offer this help for children in Afghanistan, North East Nigeria, for refugee children in Bangladesh and Uganda and for children impacted by conflict in Cameroon and Mozambique.
For children who have become estranged or separated from their parents, we provide family tracing and reunification. Where this is not possible, or children have lost their families, we offer alternative care placement in collaboration with the national government accompanied by foster parent training.
We provide this service in Afghanistan, Liberia, North East Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
As many schools remained closed during Covid-19 there was an increased need to highlight the importance of mental health and create foundations for long term improvements. In Ugandan refugee settlements Street Child worked to improve the mental health of children by training teachers, mentors and caseworkers in addition to a strengthened referral system. In Afghanistan, Street Child created 56 Community-Based Child Protection Committees, training them to recognise risks and to administer psychosocial support for children and vulnerable adults.
the impact of our protection programmes
13,075
The number of children in Afghanistan reached by case management officers and counsellors to help address the trauma caused by the coinciding of conflict and Covid-19.
4,500
The number of conflict-affected children reached with specialised child protection case management services in Cameroon against the backdrop of the continuing Anglophone crisis.
5,585
The number of primary school children in Ugandan refugee camps who were able to access psychosocial first aid through the provision of trained teachers, mentors and caseworkers and strengthened referral systems.