This guidance has been produced for UNICEF’s East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office and UNICEF Australia. This document is intended for frontline workers, including UNICEF partners, health personnel, social workers, teachers, help line staff and community volunteers engaged in the COVID-19 response. It is recommended that this document is read in conjunction with the Minimum Care Package, CBM’s Disability Inclusion in COVID-19 Preparedness and Response guidance note, UNICEF’s EAPR Child Protection Emergency Preparedness and Response to COVID-19 and the global Technical Note: Protection of Children during the Coronavirus Pandemic
This research brief details the main ethical challenges and corresponding mitigation strategies identified in the literature with regard to the ethical involvement of children with disabilities in evidence generation activities. Evidence generation activities are defined as per the UNICEF Procedure for Ethical Standards in Research, Evaluation, Data Collection and Analysis (2015), as research, evaluation, data collection and analysis. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 12) states that children have the right to form and express views freely in all matters affecting them and that the views of the child must be given due weight in accordance with her/his age and maturity.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art. 7) states that children with disabilities must enjoy human rights and freedoms on an equal basis with other children, and that they have a right to express their views freely and should be provided with assistance where necessary to realize that right. The two conventions in general, and these two articles specifically, frame this research brief, which aims to encourage practitioners to explicitly consider ethical ways to involve children with disabilities in evidence generation.
The findings detailed in this summary brief are based on a rapid review of 57 relevant papers identified through an online search using a systematic approach and consultation with experts. There was a paucity of evidence focusing specifically on the ethical challenges of involving children with disabilities in evidence generation activities. The evidence that did exist in this area was found to focus disproportionately on high-income countries, with low- and middle-income countries markedly under-represented.
This guidance has been produced by CBM Australia for UNICEF’s East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office and UNICEF Australia. The document is intended for UNICEF staff, education policy makers and planners in the East Asia and Pacific Region. Its purpose is to provide guidance on critical considerations and actions that should be undertaken to ensure an inclusive return to school for children with disabilities, as children return to school after the temporary closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A guidance note on considerations for children and adults with disabilities in the COVID-19 response. The guidance describes what we need to know about the situation of persons with disabilities in COVID-19 response, and what we need to do in five key points: Limit human to human transmission and protect individuals from exposure; minimise morbidity and mortality; prevent and address the secondary impact of the outbreak- minimise the human consequences of the outbreak; enhance risk reduction and in-country preparedness including coordination; inclusion in UNICEF operations
This technical guidance was commissioned by the UNICEF Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office to enable UNICEF Country Offices to advocate and support particular programmes and projects related to the deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities through:
Promoting better decision-making among policy makers and child welfare professionals in the region regarding deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities;
Supporting governments to understand the need for such work and to plan, monitor, evaluate and sustain the reforms, as well as linking these reforms to broader disability- inclusive changes across sectors and making a contribution to social justice;
Increasing political will, passion and vision for the development of a child care system to address the range of needs of children, stimulating preventive work to reduce overall numbers placed away from home, and promoting family-based alternatives for the majority of children in the care system
This guidance is designed for UNICEF field staff – including humanitarian field officers, coordinators, specialist and advisors – as well as UNICEF’s partners and others involved in humanitarian work. It provides practical tips and offers entry points for making sure that humanitarian action takes children with disabilities into account. There are 5 other associated guidelines.
All nutrition humanitarian staff can contribute significantly to the inclusion of children with disabilities, even if not an expert or specialist on issues related to disability. This booklet provides practical tips and entry points to start the process
Chapters include:
impact of emergencies on nutrition of children and women with disabilities
why children and adolescents with disabilities are excluded from nutrition and food security interventions
This guidance is designed for UNICEF field staff – including humanitarian field officers, coordinators, specialist and advisors – as well as UNICEF’s partners and others involved in humanitarian work. It provides practical tips and offers entry points for making sure that humanitarian action takes children with disabilities into account. There are 5 other associated guidelines.
Chapters include:
impact of emergiencies on health of children and adolescents with disabilities why children and adolescents with disabilities are excluded health and HIV/AIDS interventions frameworks and approaches programmatic actions preparedness response and early recovery recovery and reconstruction practical tips
"The purpose of Including Children with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action is to strengthen the inclusion of children and women with disabilities, and their families, in emergency preparedness, response and early recovery, and recovery and reconstruction. This series of booklets provides insight into the situation of children with disabilities in humanitarian contexts, highlights the ways in which they are excluded from humanitarian action, and offers practical actions and tips to better include children and adolescents with disabilities in all stages of humanitarian action. The booklets were created in response to UNICEF colleagues in the field expressing a need for a practical resource to guide their work. The information and recommendations are based on evidence and good practices gathered from literature and field staff experiences. The six booklets on how to include children and adolescents with disabilities in humanitarian programmes are as follows: 1) general guidance; 2) child protection; 3) education; 4) health and HIV/AIDS; 5) nutrition; 6) water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)".
General guidance available July 2017. Others to follow.
In addition to the PDF versions in English, Arabic and French, the guidance is also available in a range of accessible formats, including EPUB, a Braille-ready file and accessible HTML formats.
The guidance was developed in collaboration with Handicap International.
One of the major challenges facing governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations in their responses to children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS is the lack of data on the quality and effectiveness of their interventions. This document provides guidance to these institutions in the monitoring and evaluation of the national response for children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. It includes methods and tools for measurement at the national level. The guide is organised into two parts. The first discusses issues relevant to the general monitoring and evaluation of orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS and the second part provides specific guidance in the use of the recommended indicators
