Partner Resources

New resource developed at the Safer Young Lives Research Centre. The comic, ‘Seeing things from both sides: A comic to help young people and professionals understand each other’s views about young survivors’ participation in efforts to address child sexual abuse and exploitation’, is based on an international research study exploring the outcomes associated with the participation of children and young people affected by child sexual abuse and exploitation. The study involved 58 expert panel members from 18 countries. The panel included young people with lived experience of child sexual abuse and exploitation and a range of adult professionals who work in this field. We found there was general agreement on the potential benefits of young survivors informing and influencing decision-making, but that there were also concerns, and differences of opinion, about the potential risks and tensions of involving young survivors in different activities and initiatives. Based on these findings, they are developing a range of outputs including this comic. The comic shares the differing perspectives of young people and professionals surrounding four specific themes that were identified as particularly complex. We hope that through the comic, we can show that a consideration of different views can help to support opportunities for safe and meaningful participation for young survivors.

My Body is My Body Information Guide

The State of the World’s Children 2023 (SOWC 2023) examines what needs to happen to ensure that every child, everywhere is protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a disaster for childhood immunization – in just three years, the world lost more than a decade of progress. 67 million children missed out on essential vaccines over the last three years. The report explores the current context and sets out recommendations to catch up, restore and strengthen immunization systems and primary healthcare, for every child. The launch of the report aims to shine a spotlight back onto routine childhood vaccines. It is also a kick-off moment for UNICEF’s new global vaccine advocacy campaign and call to action to reach every child with all essential vaccines. The report is accompanied by an interactive and accessible webpage which takes readers through the current context, the causes of immunization backsliding, and importantly the solutions, with comprehensive case studies and animations.

This webinar introduced the WHO guidelines on parenting interventions to prevent maltreatment and enhance parent-child child relationships; provided a state-of the science overview of the underlying evidence that informs the guideline recommendations; offered snapshots of selected national and local initiatives to scale up evidence-based parenting interventions, and included reflections on how best to further advance uptake. The webinar recording and presentation should be of interest to everyone working on advancing the uptake of evidence-based parenting interventions, and the following stakeholders in particular: Relevant government personnel involved in either establishing parenting interventions or approving the implementation of these by non-state actors. This can include personnel responsible for providing normative guidance and training for intervention delivery at the national level, and personnel working at subnational levels, and Donors, project developers, programme managers, and outcome evaluators from research organizations, nongovernmental organizations, faith-based organizations, and bilateral and multilateral development assistance agencies.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted our lives all around the world and put some of the most vulnerable among us – children and young people – at increased risk of experiencing violence. In our latest report, we have used data on the contacts received by our child helpline members from around the world, both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, to investigate the effects the pandemic has had on violence against children. We have used 2019 data as a baseline, and data for the years 2020 and 2021 for comparison purposes. From this data, we can make the following observations: There was a steady increase in counselling contacts from year to year. There was an increase in violence-related contacts after the pandemic broke out, to a level at which our child helpline members were registering, on average, 103 contacts a day during 2020. Of these, around a quarter were contacts being made due to the caller being exposed to some kind of violence. Most strikingly, contacts concerning neglect (or negligent treatment) spiked in 2020, doubling in frequency, and then returned to their pre-pandemic levels in 2021. In general, although the pandemic continued into 2021, violence-related contacts during the year subsided. Throughout the 3-year period, violence-related concerns accounted for around one in every four of the contacts made by girls or young women. This ratio remained fairly consistent across the three years, implying that the incidence of violent-related concerns was not affected by the pandemic. On the other hand, for boys there was a steady decline in the proportion of violence-related concerns being the reason for contacting a child helpline. We observe substantial variations between child helplines in the amount of contacts made due to violence-related concerns compared to all counselling contacts across all three years. Some of our child helpline members report a decrease, some report an increase, and others report a relatively unchanged share of violence-related contacts out of the total number of counselling contacts they received.

Developed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime, the Vicarious Trauma Toolkit (VTT) includes tools and resources specifically designed for those in the fields of victim services, emergency medical services, fire services, and law enforcement to provide the knowledge and skills needed for organizations to address the vicarious trauma needs of their staff.  Includes A Gecko’s Guide to Building Resiliency in Child Abuse Staff and Volunteers.