Improving access to protection, education and health services for children with disabilities

Background

The project “Access to Protection, Education and Health for Children with Disabilities and other Vulnerable Children in North Gondar Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia (the CBR project in short) is working with communities, teachers and government service providers to improve the lives of children with disabilities and other children without appropriate care.

Purpose/objective

The project review was commissioned by Save the Children Norway (SCN) to document a cross thematic model related to child protection and education, and to document results and gather lessons learnt. SCN and Save the Children Ethiopia will use the review internally to inform its approach to ensure Inclusion and Equality and the review’s findings may be used to influence the approaches of key external stakeholders such as Save the Children International at a global level and Norad.

Methodology

Field work was carried out in North Gondar zone in Amhara region in Ethiopia. The project review employed a cross sectional descriptive study design that employs a mixed method approach using mainly participatory qualitative methods, but also some secondary quantitative data collection and analysis techniques.

Key findings

The review finds that the CBR project is highly relevant in meeting the existing needs of the target beneficiaries including children with disabilities, their parents and caregivers as well as other children without appropriate care in the target community.

The project is particularly relevant in transforming the discriminatory attitudes and practices of communities towards children with disabilities and improving their access to basic services such as health, education and social protection and empowerment.

It has also improved children’s confidence to demand their right to services and protection of their rights. Children taking part in participatory exercises highlighted improved psychosocial wellbeing (happiness), better access to information and education opportunities, improved mobility and improved socioeconomic life in the family among the main improvements in their life. 

The project has managed to integrate components of the CBR model which are health, education, livelihood and social protection, and link them together to provide adequate support to children with disabilities and their families. Furthermore, both individual support and mainstreaming (systemic change) interventions were implemented by the project to ensure that children with disabilities, their parents/ caregivers and other vulnerable children have access to holistic and integrated services and opportunities to enable them to become active contributors and participants in their communities.

The review finds that despite continued efforts, the visible and sustainable results from intersectoral collaboration are not sufficiently evidenced. One of the challenges identified is how the sector offices prioritize their own sector specific activities which makes it difficult to organize a discussion forum where every sector is represented. The high level of staff turnover in the respective government sector offices also challenged the intersectoral linkage efforts and ownership among sectors. More advocacy is recommended to further strengthen ownership and systemic changes among key sectors and actors.

The review found that the project gives special focus for girls with disabilities because they face more challenges than boy children with disabilities. The project emphasizes the different risks that girls and boys face and the different needs they have and includes this in awareness raising activities and education of parents. Also issues such as gender-based violence and sexual abuse are specifically addressed and measures taken to prevent girls’ exposure. The project is also working with the Women and Children Affairs offices, community members, and teachers to strengthen the capacity of key law enforcement actors such as the police to ensure protection of women with disabilities or women with a disabled child.

Recommendations

Highlighted below are the recommended actions for Save the Children and University of Gondar. The review also provided more specific recommendations for several stakeholders in the country which have not been included as part of this summary.

1. Most of the projects effort on capacity building seems to have focused on individuals rather than strengthening the capacity of the system with in the key government sector offices. Investing more on capacity building of the system rather than individuals who are replaced every now and then can be a viable approach to ensure better sustainability. 
2. The project needs to reconsider its approaches to creating a functional and systemic partnership with key stakeholders. Among others, formal arrangements such as service agreements, memorandums of understanding and contracts that can help secure and sustain partners’ involvement could be considered. Furthermore, the nature and form of partnership required with each stakeholder and among stakeholders need to be clearly defined and roles and shared responsibilities of each should be outlined. 
3. The project needs to consider advocacy efforts at different levels to influence systemic changes to mainstream disability and other child protection issues in addition to its capacity building activities targeting individuals in key government sectors.

Comments from the organisation

Save the Children Norway has developed a management response and action plan based on the recommendations of the review.