Convened by: Anne Edgerton and Vivi Stavrou
In crisis situations worldwide, children experience abuse, exploitation and violence on a mass scale. Whether in protracted armed conflicts, acute humanitarian emergencies, or transitional environments, children are exposed to a toxic mixture of protection risks such as attack, displacement, family losses and separation, gender-based violence, trafficking, living or working on the streets, forced early marriage, and engagement in crime and drugs, among others. At the same time, crisis situations weaken or damage the support systems such as families, schools, and community groups that normally provide protection and psychosocial support. This situation undermines children’s protection, imposes a heavy burden of distress, and harms children’s mental health and psychosocial well-being.
The promotion of children’s psychosocial well-being in crisis situations is an urgent need, and it relates closely with children’s protection. In many respects, child protection and psychosocial support are complementary and mutually enhancing. To have psychosocial well-being, children need to live in a safe, protective environment that is free of the risks outlined above. Also, to have protection, children need to free from emotional and social risks, which pose some of the greatest threats to children’s protection. For example, children who are abused at home may take to the streets, where they are subject to different forms of exploitation, or join armed groups, where they are exposed to extensive violence. The creation of a protective environment and the promotion of psychosocial well-being, then, go hand in hand.
The field of psychosocial support to children affected by crisis is still young but maturing steadily. Its maturation is visible in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which holds that psychosocial support for abused children is of fundamental importance and an entitlement. The maturation of the field is evident in the increasing agreement about how to organize psychosocial support in emergencies and crises. In 2007, the IASC released the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, the first global inter-agency consensus in the field. These Guidelines and psychosocial support in general are a recognized part of the global work on child protection. For example, the inter-agency working group on Child Protection in Emergencies of the global Protection Cluster views psychosocial support and well-being as an essential component of building a protective environment for children. Another valuable development is the formation of a global Network on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support that links Southern and Northern partners in a community of learning to improve effective practice.
Much work remains to be done to systematize the field and strengthen the quality of supports for crisis affected children. A persistent problem is that the field has been dominated by assumptions and has lacked quality evidence, design and measurement systems and tools, and theories of change underlying interventions. One of the top priorities is to strengthen the evidence base in regard to effective psychosocial interventions. This is best accomplished through a mixture of research and systematic approaches to evaluation that are integrated with program design and implementation.
The Global Technical Group on Psychosocial Well-Being focuses specifically on children’s psychosocial well-being. The group acts as a forum in which academic and NGO partners strengthen the evidence base through the collaboration of Southern and Northern partners and the use of conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and indicators that build on existing assets and resources, aid local empowerment, and respect the Do No Harm imperative. Further, through coordination of rigorous studies that help to expand the base of empirically proven practices that can be applied on a wide scale in humanitarian crises, the group seeks to strengthen practice and inform policy in regard to the care, protection, and psychosocial well-being of children and young people (15-24 years of age) in crisis situations. Its objectives are
- to build the base of proven practice through multi-context, inter-agency research using rigorous methodologies, and
- to create a global network of agencies that collaborate on strengthening capacities for evaluation and program learning and on advocacy to support evidence-based practice.
The technical group differs from strictly academic research initiatives, which typically prize knowledge development over the strengthening of practice. It also differs from strictly NGO documentation initiatives by bringing in a stronger set of methodological and analytic tools as well as an external perspective. A unique feature is its composition of Southern and Northern partners, which makes it possible to set a truly global agenda and to learn from diverse regions and indigenous practices.
The Psychosocial GTG is also unique in regard to the aspects of mental health and psychosocial well-being it addresses. The GTG will focus primarily on the nonclinical needs of the majority of affected children thereby filling in a key knowledge gap—the need for rigorous evidence regarding the efficacy of holistic, community-based psychosocial supports for crisis affected children.
