A Whole-of-Gov’t Approach to Child Welfare Protection

Progress in Fourth Report

U.S. Government Response to Haiti Earthquake in Review

Coordination Challenges:

• Weakened capacity to respond: Key organizations lost their capacity to work with the U.S. Government and other donors on the coordination, planning, and delivery of emergency assistance to children.
• Human resources constraint: Number of people available to focus exclusively on orphans and vulnerable children and child protection was minimal at first. Available personnel faced competing demands for responding to the situation and addressing urgent requests for information.
• Involvement of multiple actors: the large number of actors, offices, and organizations created coordination challenges.
• No child protection lead in Haiti or in USG
• Lack of official policy guidance

Protecting Vulnerable Children

• According to the report, “ highly vulnerable children” refers to a target group and includes children who lack child protection and require child welfare and protection assistance.
• “Child protection” concerns the interventions that many highly vulnerable children require. Protection involves efforts to prevent children from experiencing violence, exploitation, and abuse and neglect, or to assist children already experiencing such hardships.
• The report states that “there is universal acknowledgment that the optimal support for a child comes from a caring and protective family.” The U.S. Government therefore has the goal of preserving and enhancing the capacity of families to care for and protect their children in preventing children from becoming vulnerable and responding to children who face multiple risks.