Child Protection in Development Practice

Course details

Targeted specifically at development professionals this distance education course in Child Protection in Development Practice will empower you to:

• Become aware of the prevalence and nature of violence and abuse against children and the threat it poses to all development initiatives.
• Understand the relationship between our attitudes to children and violence and abuse against children.
• Appreciate children as full human rights holders and their right to be protected from harm.
• Equip yourself with the skills to ensure that your organisation’s safeguarding policies, practices and procedures follow best practice standards.

About This Course

This course on understanding and implementing Child Protection in Development Practice focuses specifically on:

• The importance of child protection as a central part of all development work
• International, national and mission organisations that are working in development practice – particularly those responsible for projects with and for children
• Non-emergency development settings
• International organisations that recruit and deploy expatriate staff

This distance education course comprises of two modules. Each module contains two units of study.

Module 1: Establishing the Need for Child Protection

Unit 1: Child Protection in Development Work

Unit 2: Child Abuse and Children’s Rights

This module aims to:

• Establish the necessity for child protection policies, procedures and practices in development organisations
• Explore the importance of childhood in different cultural contexts
• Introduce children’s rights and UN Convention on Rights of the Child
• Investigate the tendency for people to be silent and passive when faced with situations of child abuse

Participants will learn:

• Definitions of child abuse and how child abuse and neglect can affect the whole life of a person
• How children’s rights shape and inform child protection policies and practices
• The vital importance of having systems and procedures in place to protect children
• Our obligation to respond and act whenever or wherever child abuse is reported or suspected

Module 2: Putting Child Protection into Practice

Unit 3: Child Protection Policies and Procedures

Unit 4: Child Protection and Participation

This module aims to:

• Define essential child protection standards for all organisations
• Present how child protection policies and procedures can be developed and implemented
• Propose and suggest different practices that will encourage child protection
• Demonstrate how child participation within child protection procedures can enhance child protection practices

Participants will learn:

• How to establish organisational child protection standards
• How child protection policies and procedures can be developed or enhanced in your organisation
• Best practice in dealing with reports of child abuse
• Ways in which children can be included with child protection measures