Child Protection Case Management Information Systems: Promoting Appropriate Care for Children: A Framework for Engagement

Author(s): Molly Cannon, Stuardo Herrera, Patricia Mechael

Year: 2020

Abstract:

In March 2017 USAID, through its Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF), engaged the USAID-funded MEASURE Evaluation (MEval) project to reinforce and build on U.S. government programming on childcare and protection in Armenia, Ghana, Moldova, and Uganda. MEval works globally to strengthen country capacity to gather, analyze, and use data for decision making to improve sector outcomes. Successful implementation of child protection and social welfare services depends on the availability and effective use of relevant child protection and social welfare data. With countries’ and programs’ increased interest in advancing digital solutions for case management of children at risk, USAID DCOF asked MEval to convene experts from December 4–6, 2019, at Palladium’s office in Washington, D.C. to inform the development of a framework for case management information systems (CMIS) centered on child protection and care.

The main purpose of the Information Systems Framework for the Case Management of Child Protection and Care (hereafter, the framework) is to consolidate lessons learned from those who have developed, implemented, and used such systems and agree upon best practices when approaching the design and strengthening of such systems. This document is written from the perspective of supporting government-led and owned systems, but it recognizes that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may have other systems that feed into those government systems or operate independently for their programming purposes. S recommendations so ply to

The framework is a product of a participatory design workshop involving 25 women and 17 men from USAID DCOF and the Office of HIV/AIDS, UNICEF headquarters and field offices, case management experts, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) experts, and digital solution experts. Armenia, Cambodia, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Moldova, Romania, Uganda, and the United States were represented (https://www.measureevaluation.org/resources/publications/ws-20-57).