Webinar | Cash Interventions and Child Protection Outcomes for Children
Channel: The Alliance
Date: 14/07/2020

In this episode, Eleanora hosts a discussion on cash interventions and child protection, featuring Street Child’s model that combines cash interventions and social support in order to sustain child development and wellbeing. Marcello Viola begins the presentation by introducing Street Child and discusses the importance of education as a child protection strategy. Mohammed Turay continues the presentation by introducing the Family Business Scheme and discusses the key elements, steps involved in creation, criteria for vulnerabilities, and benefits from the scheme. Marcello closes the presentation by providing evidence and findings from two Street Child projects and discusses the strengths, limitations, and opportunities of these interventions. The final portion of this webinar is dedicated to a question and answer period between presenters and webinar participants. 

List of Speakers:
Eleanora from the Cash Transfer and Child Protection Task Force 
Marcello Viola from Street Child in Nigeria 
Mohammed Turay from Street Child in Sierra Leone

Main Points:
0:10 – Eleanora gives opening remarks and introduces Street Child and their presenters. 
1:36 – Marcello begins Street Child’s presentation by giving an overview of Street Child and their ultimate objective of child development and well-being. 
2:34 – Marcello discusses how education itself is a child protection strategy and service that must be provided and must be considered when developing child-care plans.
3:48 – Marcello shares the importance Street Child places on promoting child development and well-being when designing their integrated programs. 
5:51 - Mohammed introduces the Street Child cash model, the Family Business Scheme (FBS) and discusses the key elements of the FBS, which is a cash-transfer programs with soft components, such as monitoring, mentoring and saving schemes. 
7:36 – Mohammed shares the steps involved in setting-up the FBS, including identifying rightful beneficiaries and developing business plans with caregivers, etc. 
9:00 – Mohammed shares the many benefits that have come from the FBS, including providing reliable sources of income for the most vulnerable households and helping vulnerable families to promote the habit of saving. 
10:30 – Mohammed discusses the selection criteria for “the most vulnerable”, such as child status, family source of income, the bread winner, and the number of vulnerable children.
12:47 – Marcello shares Street Childs use of this model, which was made possible by bridging development and humanitarian approaches by giving examples of two interventions in Nigeria. 15:54 – Marcello discusses how these interventions are able to measure child well-being through baseline/endline self-reporting, observations, and group discussions with caregivers. 
17:10 – Marcello shares some of the findings from children and caregivers as a result of cash-livelihood interventions. 
23:22 – A side from the numerical data and figures, the Marcello shares the evidence from children and caregivers themselves collected through focus groups. 
24:32 – Marcello discusses the strengths, limitations, and opportunities of their programs and interventions. This concludes Street Child’s presentation. 
26:25 – Eleanora begins the Q&A period. 
26:35 – Q1: Can you explain how you have adapted these models to the times of COVID-19 and corresponding restrictions? 
28:48 – Q2: As seen in some projects throughout the world, there is evidence of parents who intentionally abuse or withhold food from their children whom then want to enroll in a cash-voucher program. Has anyone else seen this and are there ideas or tests for effective mitigation measures? 
32:02 – Q3: Is there any evidence that the saving scheme can gradually offset cash transfers for families? Which methods you then using to collect children opinion? 
35:15 – Q4: In regard to children associated with armed conflict and armed groups, how did you manage their integration and the stigmatizations from the community? How did you manage cases of ‘heads of household’? 
38:08 – Q5: How long is the cash transfer provided for? In terms of education, does it cover the child primary and secondary levels? If not, how can we ensure that the child remains in school when the programs ends? 
42:13 – Q6: In regard to the selection criteria for the most vulnerable, if there is a child with more than one protection concern, especially for unaccompanied children, is there any extra support for caregivers with these children? Looking at the timeframe of the projects, it seems that the time-frame is too short to make sure that there is an impact realized at the end of day. How do you ensure that there is an impact? 
47:36 – Eleanora concludes webinar with closing remarks.


Important Links:
Cash Transfers and Child Protection Task Force: https://alliancecpha.org/en/child-protection-hub/cash-transfer-child-protection-working-group