Webinar | Working with communities to keep children safe in times of COVID-19

Infectious diseases like COVID-19 can disrupt the protective environments in which children grow and develop. Disruptions to families, friendships, daily routines and the wider community can have negative consequences for children’s well-being, development and protection. COVID-19 also has a direct impact on the ability of child protection actors to engage with communities, as well as on the ability of communities to self-protect and support each other. Learning from past infectious disease outbreaks has taught us that community members act to protect children from the onset of the crisis, and are best placed to identify both child protection and COVID-19 related risks and respond effectively and appropriately.

This webinar will present interagency guidance developed by the Community-Level Child Protection Task Force aimed at supporting child protection actors working with communities to keep children safe to adapt their programming to the contagious environment of COVID-19, in line with CPMS Standard 17. 

After a brief introduction of the guidance, frontline workers will share their key challenges and approaches to adapt their community level child protection work in light of COVID-19, after which the floor is open to share good practices and lessons learnt from different contexts. The webinar will be 1.5 hrs.