Project aim
The Ministry of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare, UNICEF and partners recently concluded research on social norms that underpin violence against children (VAC), and the results identified promising approaches in which child protection programming could be improved to address VAC, especially for adolescents. Plan International, through their Champions of Change model, has been identified as the leading partner to pilot the approaches. The Champions of Change is a Plan International Strategy for promoting gender equality and social norm change through youth and parent engagement and peer-to-peer mobilization. The Ministry has adopted the model and adapted it to “Champions of Child Protection” in Zimbabwe, with the University of Edinburgh supporting its implementation. The goal of the programme is to support the Government of Zimbabwe, with financial and technical support from UNICEF to catalyse a social movement that challenges social norms and gains society wide support for gender equality and girl’s rights. The goal of this curriculum, which has been developed for a Zimbabwean context, is to influence parenting practices for social norms change and prevention of violence against children.
Objectives
- Inform learning and reflection and contribute to good practice on parenting that prevents violence against children.
- Reinforce existing good parenting practices and challenge negative parenting practices.
Outcomes
- Improved communication skills between parents/guardians and adolescents.
- Improved capacity of parents to build life skills for adolescents.
Implementation
This curriculum includes five sessions. Each session cover several topics and will last less than 2 hours 30 minutes. It will be implemented with parents of young people who also participate in Champions of Child Protection as well as other parents, and will be delivered by Community Care Workers (CCWs) who will be trained by Plan International trainers through a training of the trainer workshop.
Parenting curriculum:
Fry, D., & Casey, T. (2017). Champions for Child Protection Parenting Curriculum. Harare: MoPSLSW, UNICEF and Plan International.
Operations research plan