Presenting the CPC Learning Network and LINEA 2018 Joint Webinar Series: In collaboration with the Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation, and Abuse (LINEA) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the CPC Learning Network is pleased to present our new and interactive webinar series! The key theme of the series will be social norms as they relate to the fields of gender-based violence, violence against children, sexual exploitation, and the abuse of children and adolescents. 

The first webinar will be Nigeria turns purple! Innovative approaches to creating and measuring social norms change: experience from Voices for Change in Nigeria. Voices for Change (V4C) sought to strengthen the enabling environment for young women’s empowerment in Nigeria.  It did this by taking a norms marketing approach to inspire young people’s attitudinal and behaviour change towards: women’s role in household decision-making, women’s leadership, and violence against women and girls.  In this webinar, we will take you through the innovations, lessons, and challenges. We will share insights around the robust monitoring system developed to track changes in young people’s attitudes and behaviours, how the change happened, and the audience response to the mass-media communications.

This first webinar will be May 31, 2018 from 8:00 AM - 9:30 AM EDT. Register for the webinar here, and check the CPC website for upcoming webinar announcements.

At the end of 2017, the Assessment, Measurement, and Evidence (AME) Working Group of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action undertook a research prioritization exercise, adapted from the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI), to identify and rank research priorities for child protection in emergencies. Forty-nine child protection experts working in a range of humanitarian contexts were consulted to inform this prioritization exercise. The results are intended to inform a child protection research and evidence agenda for humanitarian practitioners, academics, and donors. This Briefing Note was conducted by the CPC Learning Network and Save the Children on behalf of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.

Read the Briefing Note on the Global Research Agenda here. 

CPC Learning Network faculty affiliate Dr. Ben Cislaghi and colleague Dr. Lori Heise recently published an article in the Health Promotion International journal on "Using social norms theory for health promotion in low-income countries." Social norms theory is opening new programmatic avenues for health promotion in low- and mid-income countries. As practitioners have begun to deploy social norm strategies to improve health, however, there has been a tendency to focus on norms to the exclusion of other factors that inform people's actions. Using social norms theory without appreciating the place that norms occupy among other drivers of behavior might position interventions for failure, ultimately discrediting promising strategies simply because, in isolation, they are inadequate to improve health. The aim of this paper is to provide a framework that practitioners can use to embed a social norm perspective within integrated health interventions that address the multiple factors that sustain harmful behaviors.

Read the article here, or contact the corresponding author here. 

CPC faculty affiliate Dr. Virginia Rauh recently published an article in The New England Journal of Medicine on the failure of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban all commercial use of chlorpyrifos. The regulatory plan developed by the EPA before the 2016 elections was comprehensive and essentially prohibited all remaining uses of chlorpyrifos. However, this plan was shut down in March 2017 by incoming EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Read the full article here.

On April 17, 2018, The World Bank Group and Sexual Violence Research Initiative awarded 11 teams from around the world with funds to support evidence-based research and innovation to help address the global epidemic of gender-based violence. CPC faculty affiliate Dr. Arturo Harker Roa was one of 11 winners of the Development Marketplace 2018: Innovations in Addressing Gender-Based Violence Awards for his team's project in Colombia: Evaluación de impacto del Programa de madres adolescentes de la fundación juanfe para la prevención de violencia basada en genero. This project will conduct an impact evaluation of the Intervention of the Juanfe, known as Model 360, for adolescent mothers in Colombia.

Contact Dr. Arturo Harker Roa for more information about the award-winning project here. Watch the Development Marketplace 2018 Awards here.

Director of the CPC Learning Network Lindsay Stark, CPC faculty affiliate Marni Sommer and colleagues from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health recently published an article in Prevention Science on promoting resilience among displaced adolescent girls in northern Pakistan. The mixed-method evaluation revealed that promoting resilience may buffer against developmental risks such as violence exposure and associated longer-term consequences for physical and mental well-being. However, girls' access to such programming may be limited by social norms that restrict movement. Primary outcomes included improvements in movement, safety, and comfort discussing life skills topics with caregivers, operationalized quantitatively as number of places visited in the previous month, number of spaces that girls felt safe visiting, and comfort discussing puberty, education, working outside the home, and marriage, respectively. Taken together, findings illustrate positive impacts of life skills programming and the need for societal changes on gender norms to improve girls' safety in public spaces and access to resources. This study is part of the IRC's COMPASS program: Creating Opportunities through Mentoring, Parental Involvement and Safe Spaces.

Read the article here, or contact the corresponding author here. 

CPC Learning Network advisory board member Santi Kusumaningrum, who is the director of PUSKAPA, CPC's key affiliate in Indonesia, recently published an article in The Conversation on what is missing in Indonesia's plan to renew its criminal code. The article addresses several issues with Indonesia's criminal code, including: the criminalization of couples with no legal marriage; criminalization of people with no certificates; victimizing children, mostly girls; and clarity on local laws. The current bill discriminates against children, women, the poor, and marginalized groups. This article addresses the possible consequences of passing the bill to renew Indonesia's criminal code.

Read the full article here. 

CPC Learning Network Director Lindsay Stark and colleagues recently published an article in PLOS ONE on measuring movement into residential care institutions in Haiti after Hurricane Matthew. Governments have an ethical imperative to safeguard children in residential care institutions at all times, including in the aftermath of an emergency. Yet, a lack of accurate data about how the magnitude and characteristics of this population may change due to an emergency impedes leaders' ability to formulate responsive policies and services, mobilize resources and foster accountability. The purpose of this study was therefore to determine the feasibility of evaluating the movement of children into residential care following an emergency.

Read the full article here, or contact the corresponding author here. 

There are wonderful opportunities with l'Institut Bioforce for Child Protection in Emergencies Certificate Programs - one for advanced and one for expert professionals in the protection field. These training courses will help you acquire the professional skills and the essential knowledge to carry out responsibilities in humanitarian and development work. 

Read more about l'Institut Bioforce certificate programs here. Learn more information about l'Institut Bioforce trainings in English here.

The Global Social Service Workforce Alliance is hosting its 5th Annual Social Service Strengthening Symposium. The Symposium will provide a forum for practitioners, government representatives, scholars, and other experts from around the world to discuss efforts to strengthen the social service workforce to address a range of child protection issues related to care reform, violence, HIV/AIDS, and migration. This year's Symposium will feature countries that have formed multi-stakeholder national leadership groups or committees to create and implement comprehensive national workforce strengthening strategies. Country-based panels of speakers will provide examples of how they have helped to elevate the discussion about the workforce, brought more visibility to the topic, and designed and implemented strategies to better plan, develop, and support the workforce. A Call to Action to spur the development of similar national leadership groups in other countries will be launched during the event. The Symposium will take place on May 8, 2018 in Washington, D.C. and online.

Register to participate in the Symposium in person and online here.

The Learning Collaborative to Advance Normative Change is hosting an upcoming webinar on Social Norms Costing. The webinar will discuss the Costing of Social Norm Interventions Primer developed through the Passages Project, followed by costing case studies from the Reaching Married Adolescents, SASA!, Transforming Masculinities, and Growing Up Great! interventions. Panelists include Rick Homan of FHI 360, Prashant Bharadwaj of UCSD, Christine Michaels-Igbokwe of the LSHTM, Jennifer Gayles of Save the Children, and Francesca Quirke of Tearfund. The Social Norms Costing webinar will take place on Thursday, May 3, 2018.

Learn more about the webinar and register here.