The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have newly developed "Caring for Child Survivors of Sexual Abus
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e Guidelines" for health and psychosocial providers in humanitarian settings - “CCS Guidelines”. The CCS Guidelines are based on global research and evidence-based field practice, and bring a much-needed fresh and practical approach to helping child survivors, and their families, recover and heal from the oftentimes devastating impacts of sexual abuse. The guidelines walk the reader through the core knowledge, attitude and skill competencies required for service providers to effectively care for children and families affected by sexual abuse. In addition, the guidelines outline how to provide case management and basic psychosocial care for child survivors, as well as best practices for coordinating care.
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To survive and thrive, children and adolescents need good health, adequate nutrition, security, safety and a supportive clean environment, opportun
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ities for early learning and education, responsive relationships and connectedness, and opportunities for personal autonomy and self-realization. To promote their health and wellbeing, children and adolescents need support from parents, families, communities, surrounding institutions, and an enabling environment. Scheduled well care visits provide a critical opportunity for support of individual children, adolescents, parents, caregivers and families promote health and wellbeing. This guidance on scheduled child and adolescent well-care visits is the first in a series of publications to support the operationalization of the comprehensive agenda for child and adolescent health and wellbeing. It provides guidance on what is required to strengthen health systems and services to ensure healthy growth and development of all children and adolescents, and to support their parents and caregivers.
The guidance focuses on scheduled routine contacts with providers to support children and adolescents in their growth and developmental trajectory, as well as their primary caregivers and families. It outlines the rationale and objectives of well care visits and proposes a minimum 17 scheduled visits; describes the expected tasks during a contact; provides age-specific content to be address during each contact; and proposes actions to build on and maximize existing opportunities and resources.
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Sexual abuse perpetrated against children is one of the most significant crises of our time. Child sexual abuse is a significant risk factor for ch
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ildren, in common with other forms of child maltreatment. Sexual abuse can have severe short- and long-term consequences on the physical, mental, social, emotional and economic well-being of children, families and communities. In emergencies, the threat of all forms of child abuse and gender-based violence (GBV), including child sexual abuse, is acute and widespread.
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Produced by UNICEF and IRC, with the support of the German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH (GIZ) and the generous funding from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation
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and Development (BMZ), the Caring for Child Survivors of Sexual Abuse (CCS) Resource Package (Second Edition, 2023) is a revision of the original CCS Guidelines and associated Training (First Edition, 2012). The Second Edition offers an up-to-date global technical guidance on providing a model of quality care for children and families affected by sexual abuse in humanitarian settings. The new resources include both revised and content additions based on practitioner feedback, the most recent evidence and learning. In particular, the Guidelines aim to bring a stronger focus on gender inequality, intersectionality, as well as the connections between the best interests of the child and a survivor-centered approach.
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This Review summarizes many of the persistent biological alterations associated with childhood maltreatment including changes in neuroendocrine and neurotransmitter systems and pro-inflammatory cyto
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kines in addition to specific alterations in brain areas associated with mood regulation. Finally, I discuss several candidate gene polymorphisms that interact with childhood maltreatment to modulate vulnerability to major depression and PTSD and epigenetic mechanisms thought to transduce environmental stressors into disease vulnerability.
Neuron Review, vol. 89, March 2, 2016 pp.892-909
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In this report, we describe early childhood trauma and its effects, offer promising strategies for ECE programs and systems to help young children who have experienced trauma,
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and present recommendations for state policymakers and other stakeholders looking to support trauma-informed ECE for this vulnerable group.
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Global concerns: Implications for the future
Child Mental Health Atlas
EVALUATION REPORT. This report is a synthesis of the evaluation of UNICEF's response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Indonesia that was undertaken in August 2008 to July 2009. The evaluation assessed UNICEF's response in four sectors where it had major involvement:
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child protection; basic education; water, sanitation and hygiene; and child and maternal health and nutrition.
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These guidelines are informed by evidence of ‘what works’ and lessons learned in the field. They are designed to accelerate UNICEF regional and country offices’ programming on social service w
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orkforce strengthening, and support work to better plan, develop and support the social services workforce with national and regional partners.
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A step-by-step guide for child protection programmes to the design and implementation of KAP survey methods. In particular, this guide will help to strengthen the quality of our research, monitoring
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and evaluation work, and enable Save the Children to contribute to a step-change in the child protection evidence base that is so critically needed. Document also available in French, Spanish and Arabic.
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Mental Health Policy and Service Guidance Package
Languages: Arabic, English, French, Chinese, Russian
The toolkit aims to provide researchers with guidance for improving the quality of studies that use administrative data to better ascertain child maltreatment incidence, response and service deliver
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y. However, these are complex studies to conduct, and the toolkit is not meant to be comprehensive. Researchers using the toolkit should be prepared to follow up on the recommended resources contained within and to consult with other professionals, such as statisticians, to further improve the research design and execution
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Guidance | Preparedness - Response and early recovery - Recovery and reconstruction
This Training Manual is developed based on the Child Protection Working Group Interagency Guidelines for Case Management. The Facilitator’s Guide provides guidance on the key steps to take before, during
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and after training, including customizing the training to different contexts and audiences.
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The report showed commitments made three decades ago to protect the rights of children remain unfulfilled for millions. Violence still affects countless children. Discrimination based on age, gender, disability, sexual orientation and religion harms
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children worldwide.
Key factors include a lack of investment in critically important services. Most countries fall well short of spending the 5-6% of GDP needed to ensure universal coverage of essential health care. And foreign aid, which many lower income countries rely on, is falling short in areas such as health, education, protection and child care.
Another factor, the report said, is the lack of quality data. Governments tend to rely on data that reflects national averages, making it difficult to identify the needs of specific children and to monitor progress. Comprehensive data collection and disaggregation of data by gender, age, disability and locality, are increasingly important as rights violations disproportionately affect disadvantaged children.
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This document is one of eight PDF documents that comprise the Guidance on Child-focused Victim
Assistance. All are available in PDF at . The full document is also available.
This first section contains the Ack
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nowledgements, Foreword, Acronyms and Chapters 1 through 4: Chapter 1. Introduction: The Need for Child-focused Victim Assistance Guidance; Chapter 2. Mine Action, UNICEF and Guidance on Child Victim Assistance ;Chapter 3. Victim Assistance: Stakeholders and International Standards; Chapter 4. Principles, Coordination and Cross-cutting Aspects of Victim Assistance
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The report focuses on several key areas where health outcomes are falling short, and provides insight into ways in which countries can improve the situation for their children and adolescents. Areas
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in focus include mental health, overweight/obesity and adolescent risk-taking behaviour.
The report shows, for example, that:
- mental health remains a neglected subject – only one quarter of countries are collecting data on the number of children treated by a mental health professional;
- half of countries do not regulate the marketing of food to children, despite the fact that childhood obesity rates are high across the Region and physical activity rates are low;
- almost half of countries have no policy that affects the availability of unhealthy foods at school;
- 2 in 5 girls and 1 in 3 boys who are having sex do not protect themselves; and
one third of countries do not offer legal access to contraception without parental consent for those under 18 years of age.
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