User guide

Our vision

Children are protected from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence, and those who have responsibility for acting in their interest have the capacity, motivation and will to do so.

Our goal

To provide those working in emergency and post-emergency contexts with the knowledge and skills to improve child protection programming, practices and interagency collaboration, based on the principles and provisions of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law.

Welcome to the ARC resource pack CD-ROM

Child protection and child rights are everyone’s concern
and everyone’s responsibility.

Children are vulnerable to many complex and interdependent protection risks, in emergencies and in day-to-day life. It is crucial to factor this into emergency responses and long-term development activities.

The ARC resource pack provides an essential collection of information and training material on CD-ROM, to strengthen people’s capacity:

• to tackle the root causes of children’s vulnerabilities
• to build effective child protection systems for use in emergencies and long-term development
• to ensure that no activities inadvertently compromise children’s rights or safety.

The pack is the result of interagency collaboration over a number of years and has the additional purpose of bringing practitioners together from different organisations to share understandings, experiences and training opportunities. It is a priority initiative of the Child Protection Working Group of the Global Protection Cluster. The pack includes the latest standards and best practices and reflects the realities of present-day emergencies, with increased emphasis on natural disasters and internal displacement.

This guide explains what is on the CD-ROM and the range of users for whom it is relevant. It will help you to decide how to build ARC materials into your work and outlines the relationship between the ARC resource pack and other materials.

We wish you every success in ensuring the protection of children and their rights.

The ARC steering committee

An overview of the CD-ROM

The CD-ROM will open to display a welcome screen providing menus leading you to all the ARC resource pack materials. All the documents on the CD-ROM are provided as Acrobat PDF files and most are also included as MS Word files that are editable for local use. The pack comprises 14 modules, in two groups.

Foundation modules

1 Understanding childhoods
2 Child rights-based approaches
3 Programme design
4 Participation and inclusion
5 Advocacy
6 Community mobilisation
7 Psychosocial support

Critical issue modules

1 Abuse and exploitation
2 Education
3 Children with disabilities
4 Sexual and reproductive health
5 Landmine awareness
6 Separated children
6 Children associated with armed forces or armed groups

Foundation modules 1 and 2 cover core concepts; the underlying theory, international instruments establishing child rights, and principles and standards.

Foundation modules 3, 5 and 6 cover methodology; rights-based tools and approaches.

Foundation modules 4 and 7 cover cross-cutting rights such as children’s right to be heard, to be included in decisions that concern them and to enjoy their rights without discrimination.

Critical issue modules all cover issues likely to arise in emergencies.

All modules include:

• study material giving detailed information on the module’s subject and a list of further reading
• slides giving a summary of the study material
• training material for participatory workshops that comprises
  exercises giving practical guidance for facilitators and handouts for participants.

A consistent approach has been followed for the sequencing of the parts of all modules, based on the ARC programme cycle.

This cycle is applicable to many activities, from awareness-raising events to the development of entire child protection and child rights programmes.

Critical issue modules all follow the same sequence of five topics, directly reflecting the five stages of the programme cycle.

Topic 1 The issue for children
Topic 2 The law and child rights
Topic 3 Assessment and situation analysis
Topic 4 Planning and implementation
Topic 5 Monitoring, evaluation and learning

Throughout the materials of the pack, every opportunity has been taken to maximise the clarity and accessibility of information. The study material for each module begins with a summary of its parts and a list of relevant definitions of terms. The parts of each module begin with key learning points and end with a list of available training material.

An ARC training manual and Facilitator’s toolkit are also included on the CD-ROM to provide guidance and ideas on designing and presenting learning and training opportunities.

ARC resource pack users

The pack is a comprehensive resource for anyone wanting to strengthen their understanding and working practices in terms of how they relate to and impact upon child protection.

Although the pack has been developed mainly for humanitarian workers with responsibility for designing interventions, building capacity or raising awareness about child protection in emergencies, the intended range of users is far broader than this.

Primary users build the capacity of others using the pack, and include:

• Managers with responsibilities for planning and resource management wanting to improve programming for children. This could be managers with overall programme responsibility (eg. at country or district level) or thematic or sectoral responsibility.
• Facilitators with responsibilities for developing and delivering training and supporting capacity-building initiatives such as staff briefings. Recommended for this would be facilitators with first-hand experience of emergencies and competency to be able to advise managers how to make best use of the pack.
• People with responsibilities for child protection or child rights capacity building and training This could be people acting as focal points in local or international organisations, or government, police or military institutions, or the community.
• Coordinators and members of child protection clusters with responsibilities for building cluster members’ capacity to address child protection issues in emergencies, and provide interagency training opportunities.
• ARC champions able to promote the ARC resource pack and its continued development, and the use of rights-based approaches. This could be people working on child protection in emergencies who keep an oversight of relevant materials.

Secondary users may be briefed or trained using the pack, and include:

• Staff of humanitarian and other agencies, including community-based organisations This could be people with responsibilities for service delivery, support to government staff, community mobilisation and direct or indirect work with children.
• Staff of government organisations These could be duty bearers in relation to the realisation and protection of particular child rights. The pack has been used to train a wide range of participants, including peacekeepers, military personnel, police, border guards and judiciary and it has been used to mobilise community committees for children.

Indirect users of the pack include:

• Rights holders This could include children, their parents or community members. Although the resource pack has not been designed to be used directly by children, parents or community members, much of the pack’s content can be adapted by other users (eg. ARC facilitators or champions) for local use. The pack can also be used to complement other materials, such as those in local languages.

Using the ARC resource pack

The pack is a set of related parts that can be used in combination or individually, depending on the context and issues of relevance.

Uses of the pack include:

• self-study
• researching and developing codes of conduct
• child rights-based programme planning
• briefing staff facilitating training workshops and events.

It is not expected that the whole pack will be used in its entirety in one training event, but that material will be selected and used according to the priority issues for participants.

As a training resource, the pack can be used to strengthen capacity-building initiatives be they a few hours briefing to a senior manager or a series of training workshops and interactions over an extended period of time to develop specific skills and approaches. The key is to determine the purpose of a planned activity and then select whichever modules are most relevant to support that. In order to make full use of the pack, for whatever purpose, it is important to bear in mind the related nature of Foundation and Critical issue modules. Foundation modules have particular relevance in providing supporting information for Critical issue module topics as follows.

• Critical issue module Topic 1 The issue for children
  Foundation module 1 Understanding childhoods
• Critical issue module Topic 2 The law and child rights
  Foundation module 2 Child rights-based approaches
  Foundation module 5 Advocacy
• Critical issue module Topic 3 Assessment and situation analysis
  Foundation module 3 Programme design
  Foundation module 4 Participation and inclusion
• Critical issue module Topic 4 Planning and implementation
  Foundation module 4 Participation and inclusion
  Foundation module 5 Advocacy
  Foundation module 6 Community mobilisation
  Foundation module 7 Psychosocial support
• Critical issue module Topic 5 Monitoring, evaluation and learning
  Foundation module 2 Child rights-based approaches
  Foundation module 3 Programme design

When using the pack to strengthen the development of programmes and child protection systems, it is also important to remember that it should not be used in isolation. Linkages between children, community members and leaders, government workers and leaders, and the role of other organisations all need to be harnessed.

Initial planning workshops can be used to identify these linkages, capacities and interrelationships between different levels of responsibility for the rights involved. Capacity-building roll-out can then be designed in such a way that each level of responsibility is supported by, and can support others. Foundation module 3 Programme design has particular relevance for this.

Remember, capacity building for child protection is unlikely to be as straightforward as a one-off workshop, and will inevitably involve a number of interrelated initiatives, in cooperation with other organisations and sectors. To achieve sustainable improvements in children’s lives and contribute to building up child protection systems, a broad scope of interventions should be considered. Some concrete examples of sample programmes for capacity building for child protection systems are provided in the ARC training manual.

When can the ARC resource pack be used?

All work on child protection issues and child rights should be seen in the continuum of children’s lives before, during and after emergencies.

Looking broadly at the deficits in protection for all children requires the assessment and strengthening of existing child protection systems, planning before emergencies during periods of long-term development activity, long-term development thinking alongside responses during emergencies and grounding all actions with duty bearers in the long term.

The pack can be used:

• as part of a preparedness plan before the onset of an emergency
• as a response to the onset of an emergency or state of instability
• in chronic emergency situations in supporting rehabilitation and durable long-term solutions, including the establishment of sustainable child protection systems
• in supporting the development of agency good practice and conduct before, and after humanitarian interventions (in conjunction with agency codes of conduct).

How does this ARC resource pack differ from previous editions?

Key developments that will be new for users familiar with previous editions of the ARC resource pack include the following.

• Expanded knowledge base and interagency commitment with two new members of the ARC steering committee: Terre des Hommes and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
• New standards, definitions and guidelines on child protection and child rights responding to developments in the field over recent years.
• Broadened scope of emergencies to include a stronger focus on natural disasters and internally displaced children, where previous versions have been primarily concerned with refugee emergencies.
• Adoption of a rights-based approach both in terms of the content and perspective of study materials and the capacity-building methodologies for training and workshop environments. This again is a response to changes in development practice and the establishment of common understandings on rights-based approaches for engaging with issues facing children.

Resources key to the development of the ARC resource pack

The starting point was the common understandings, policy and practice guidance of ARC steering committee members.

Child protection

• Child protection in emergencies: priorities, principles and practices Save the Children Alliance, 2007
• Child protection in humanitarian settings Terre des Hommes, 2007 Child protection strategy UNICEF, 2008
• Introduction to child protection in emergencies: an interagency self-learning CD-ROM Led by UNICEF, with Christian Children’s Fund, ICRC, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, Terre des Hommes and UNHCR.
  The ARC resource pack is complementary to this CD-ROM and a natural next step when building capacity on child protection in emergencies. Many of the same organisations were involved in both.
• Refugee children: guidelines on protection and care UNHCR, 1994
• The first line of protection: community-based approaches to promote children’s rights in emergencies in Africa Save the Children Sweden, 2009

Policy guidance on human rights approaches

• Common understanding Save the Children Alliance, 2005
• The human rights based approach to development cooperation: towards a common understanding among the UN agencies including OHCHR, UNICEF and UNHCR, 2003 (known as the UN common understanding)
• UN common learning package on human rights-based approach, 2007

Practical application of human rights approaches

• A community-based approach in UNHCR operations UNHCR A human rights-based approach to programming in humanitarian crises UNICEF PPPM, 2007
• FAQ in human rights-based approaches OHCHR
• Getting it right for children, a practitioner’s guide to child rights programming Save the Children Alliance, 2007

Child participation

• Child participation practice standards Save the Children Alliance
• Tool for participatory assessment UNHCR

Best interests

• Guidelines on determining the best interests of the child UNHCR

Other complementary capacity building initiatives

Several sector-specific networks and professional interest groups focus on challenges to child rights and child protection. They have also developed material which provides a context to the development of the ARC resource pack. Examples are listed in the ARC training manual.

Who is responsible for the ARC resource pack?

The main responsibility for this edition is held by the ARC steering committee, with Save the Children taking a lead role.

International Rescue Committee	Laura Boone, Eduardo Garcia Rolland
OHCHR	Allegra Franchetti
Save the Children	Minja Peuschel, chair, Sweden Misty Buswell, coordinator, Alliance Lisa Laumann, US Johanna MacVeigh, UK
Terre des Hommes	Sabine Rakotomalala
UNHCR	Ron Pouwels
UNICEF	Ayda Eke

 

Other agencies that made important contributions

• Handicap International
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• International Labour Organization
• Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies
• Jesuit Refugee Service
• UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
• UN Population Fund
• World Health Organization

Acknowledgements for contributions to specific modules can be found in those modules.

Many thanks for essential support

We are grateful for the generous financial support of ECHO and SIDA for revision, piloting, translation and printing of the pack.

We also wish to thank the following people without whom this resource pack would not have been possible:

• Maureen O’Flynn and Peter Dixon, who drafted several modules of this resource pack, reviewed the entire package, planned and facilitated the three pilot workshops and provided overall guidance and vision to the project.
• Platform 1 Design, who took an idea and translated it into reality, developing and implementing a plan for making sense of a massive amount of material.
• Joshua Cole, who volunteered his time on many essential tasks that were needed to complete the material.
• Rigmor Argren who stepped in at the last minute when time was critical and strengthened key parts of the material.
• Ylva Sperling, Dan Rono, Jane Warburton, Veronica Birga, Rada Noeva and Pernille Ironside who previously represented Save the Children, IRC, OHCHR and UNICEF on the ARC steering committee.
• All those who participated in the material piloting workshops in Geneva, Mombasa and Bangkok and provided feedback that helped to shape the contents.

And thanks for using the ARC resource pack

Please provide feedback and keep us informed of any activities or events relevant for the ARC resource pack.

Up-to-date information is available at www.arc-online.org
you can contact the ARC coordinator at info@arc-online.org

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