Planning and Preparation

1. PlanningandPreparation Picture: Lindsay Stark Inter-agency Child Protection Working Group & Save the Children Training material developed by: Hani Mansourian

2. Who Should Be in Charge? • Whatever coordination mechanism for Child Protection is in place should also be used as the initial forum to discuss and coordinate rapid assessment activities; • Ideally, a Child Protection Rapid Assessment Working Group (CPRAWG) should be formed; • A lead agency, ideally with some Information Management capacity, should be identified.

3. Key Steps in Planning and Carrying-out a CRPA • Establish CPRA Working Group using existing coordination mechanisms; • Coordinate With Other Assessment Processes; • Sampling; • Develop an Assessment Plan; • Training of assessment teams; • Data management and analysis; • Agree on main parameters of the assessment report; • Commitment to programming for response.

4. Step 1: Establish a Child Protection Rapid Assessment Working Group (CPRAWG) • Within the CPRAWG, role and responsibilities of all actors should be clearly defined. This includes the responsibilities of the lead agency, if any. • If the cluster system is active within the context, try to use it when establishing the CPRAWG

5. Step 2: Coordinate with Other Assessment Processes to: • ensure that child protection considerations are integrated into any multi-cluster/sector assessments; • obtain the data and results from previous assessments to use it as secondary data; and • avoid duplication and unnecessary overlap of assessment activities. explore the possibility of piggy-backing Child Protection on other planned sector-specific rapid assessments.

6. Step 3: Sampling • Random sampling (and other probability sampling methods) allows for the production of generalizable data, but it is costly and time-consuming. • Recommended sampling methodology in a rapid assessment context is “purposive” sampling. Note: if we use purposive sampling, we will not be able to generalize the findings to the entire affected population.

7. Step 3 (continued): Purposive sampling is a sampling methodology whereby groups of people or communities are purposefully selected based on a set of defined criteria. Through this purposeful selection, we are striving to achieve a relatively complete picture of the situation in the all affected area.

8. Step 3 (continued): Key Steps for Sampling • Agree on the sampling methodology; • Define the “unit of measurement” or “site”; • Develop the Sample Frame; • Determine sampling scenarios (stratification) as necessary; • Determine the list of sites that will be visited.

9. Step 3 (continued): When facing limited time or resources to cover all the scenarios, consider prioritizing: • Severely affected areas - prioritize sites where secondary sources of information or experience indicate the humanitarian situation is the most serious; • Accessible areas - where overall needs are urgent, widespread and unmet, it’s justifiable to focus on accessible areas or affected population; • Where there are the most gaps in existing knowledge - cover geographic locations or groups on which little information is available.

10. Step 4: Develop an Assessment Plan that includes: • Number and composition of assessment teams; • Clearly defined roles and responsibilities; • Allocation of assessment teams to selected sites; • List of targeted resource persons (key informants, local authorities, etc.) • Tentative interview schedule; • Reporting lines, tentative plan for debriefing sessions, and frequency of interim reporting from field teams; • Logistics and security arrangements; • Standard Operating Procedure for Urgent Action cases; • Budget and Supply list

11. Step 5: Training for Assessment Teams • The training of the assessment team will basically be a shorter version of the current training with focus on: • some background information on the emergency and the child protection context; • key child protection definitions and principles; • Confidentiality and ethical considerations; • an orientation on the assessment tools; • roles and responsibilities of team members, • reporting and debriefing requirements; • logistics of data collection. • Note: if on-the-site translation is being used, assessors and translators should be trained on CPiE terminology through rigorous practices.

12. Step 6: Data Management and Analysis • One agency or person within the CPRAWG should be assigned to lead on data management and analysis; • Basic technical expertise including knowledge of excel and statistics is required; • Data management tool should be adapted upon the finalization of the tools. Picture: Janet Ousley

13. Step 7: Main Parameters of the Report • Anecdotal evidence suggests one of the main impediments to timely distribution and use of assessment info is disagreement on the how to share the results with others. • Therefore, it is important to: • Agree on the parameters of results sharing, including sign off process, at the outset; • Assign a lead agency or person for report writing; • Define realizable deadlines for information sharing.

14. Step 8: Commitment to Programming • As mentioned earlier, assessments are only ethically acceptable if there is a commitment to follow up actions, if necessary. Hence it is required that participating organizations commit themselves to programming based on the findings of the assessment. This commitment starts with a commitment to raise and/or earmark the necessary funds for the response. Click here for Group Excercise