Globally, children are highly vulnerable and unjustifiably affected by the difficulties afflicting society. They face social, physical, psychological, and emotional turmoil that stems from varying degrees of violence, abuse, neglect, abandonment, bereavement, and other psychosocial needs that often affect their education. Parental and other key stakeholders’ involvement is essential in ensuring that children develop to their full potential. Provision of Psychosocial Support and Education of Vulnerable Children highlights the plight of children and explores a transdisciplinary and multisectoral approach in providing sustainable psychosocial support to have quality education that is inclusive of 21st century skills. Childhood is an inimitable experience that is common to every individual child in the world irrespective of their ethnicity, culture, or any other arbitrary extractor we choose to apply. Covering topics such as life skills education, psychosocial support, and holistic integration, this book is an essential reference for education stakeholders, school personnel, private pre-primary schools, teacher training institutions, parents, pre-service teachers, human services professionals, researchers, and academicians.

DFIDs assistance to Zimbabwe : Eighth report of session 2009-10, Vol. 2: Oral and written Evidence

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

This report describes the substance of the various interventions implemented by the HSRC and its donor partners in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, as part of the research-driven, multi-country and multi-site intervention project on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), funded by the WK Kellogg Foundation. The report provides information on what is happening on the ground and also the basic data required to develop 'models of best practice'. It is organised according to the project's four focus areas: home-based, child-centred development programmes; family and household support programmes; strengthening of community-support systems and HIV/AIDS awareness, advocacy and policy programmes, reported by country. The main purpose of the OVC project is to develop 'models of best practice' that will facilitate the development of community-driven strategies for responding to the increasing burden of OVC in Africa.

This fully revised and expanded edition considers the meaning of 'vulnerability' – a key concept in early intervention – and the relationship between vulnerability and the individual, communities and society. It includes new chapters on children’s voices, young people and vulnerability, and working with vulnerable parents. Introducing students to a broad debate around what constitutes vulnerability and related concepts such as risk and resilience, it examines how vulnerability has been conceptualised by policy makers with a clear focus on early intervention for preventing social problems later in life. It adopts a case study approach, using chapters examining the concept of vulnerability from sociological, psychological and social policy perspectives before looking at examples around leaving care, victims of violence, sexual abuse, and the Internet. Supporting students in engaging with and evaluating the conceptualisation and application of vulnerability in professional practice, this book is suitable for anyone either preparing for or currently working within the children’s workforce, from social work and health care to education and youth work.