addressing poverty and child welfare: the integrated community development and child welfare model...

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Addressing poverty and child welfare: The integrated Community Development and Child Welfare Model of practice

Alice K ButterfieldUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, USA

James L ScherrerDominican University, USA

Katarzyna OlconUniversity of Texas at Austin, USA

AbstractThe Integrated Community Development and Child Welfare Model (CD-CW) engages workers with families and communities to reduce poverty, and at the same time, improve the well-being of children. Skill building in asset-based development, family enterprise, and child trauma is delivered through a three-stage, applied training model. CD-CW was pilot tested and implemented with 100 livelihood and child welfare workers in Ethiopia. Data from Learning Portfolios, team consultations, and a 2-day evaluation retreat are reported. Findings include the importance of using asset-based assessments, applied assignments, and integrated training to address poverty directly as a root cause of child maltreatment.

KeywordsCommunity development, child welfare, poverty, training, portfolios, Africa, Ethiopia

Introduction

Throughout the world, poverty is recognized as creating situations that directly relate to child abuse and neglect. Due to the large number of children at risk, international scholars call for inte-grated community-based approaches to child welfare (Dominelli, 1999; Freymond and Cameron, 2006). Although scholars point out that an effective child protection system must work to reduce poverty and, at the same time, work to decrease the risk of child abuse and neglect (Besharov and

Corresponding author:Alice K Butterfield, Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607, USA. Email: [email protected]

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2 International Social Work

Laumann, 1997), little attention is given to the integration of community development and child welfare as a training or practice model.

The Integrated Community Development and Child Welfare (CD-CW) Model of Practice is an applied training curriculum designed to develop skills to reduce family poverty and promote child well-being. The training model is based on three propositions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (Scherrer, 2012). First, families are essential in providing the environment that best promotes the healthy growth and development of children to ensure their well-being. Second, poverty impedes the ability of families to protect and nourish children and violates their right to develop to their full capabilities. Third, family- and community-based child protection must confront family poverty by building upon and supporting the strengths and capa-bilities of families to increase their capacity for the production of goods and services in order to care for children outside of institutions and programs.

The CD-CW training model integrates community development and child welfare practice. The model emphasizes children’s rights by building the capacity of families in parenting and reducing poverty through community development. This article describes the training that integrated the fields of Community Development and Child Welfare. It provides the results from a qualitative analysis of documentation submitted by participants over the course of the applied training program.

Community development and child welfare?

Why develop an integrated community development and child welfare approach? The idea for our model came from our previous engagement with people living in poverty and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ethiopia. For example, the HIV/AIDS crisis in Ethiopia has created the commonplace situation that an aging grandmother is raising her five grandchildren as well as her neighbor’s son. Two separate workers from local NGOs visit her. Worker 1 is a child welfare worker. Her attention is on the orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). She delivers food supple-ments, book bags, and other types of sponsorship. Worker 2 is a community worker focusing on livelihood production. With the goal of reducing family poverty, typically, the grandmother receives a couple of goats or some chickens. In essence, however, Worker 1 does not have the knowledge or skills to deal with poverty, although poverty is known to put children at risk of mal-treatment. Conversely, Worker 2 does not have the knowledge or skills to deal with trauma or child maltreatment related to the children’s status as OVC.

The repetitiveness of this scenario led us to turn to the literature. We searched academic journals in databases such as EbscoHost, JSTOR, and books through the Multiple Resources search tool at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Our search used the terms community development and child wel-fare. We wanted to locate material that gave specific attention to community development as a child welfare method since we were interested in cross-training child welfare workers in poverty reduction through the family-based production of goods and services, and livelihood workers in promoting child well-being and reducing child maltreatment. Our search located no material that specifically integrated community development with child welfare. We did find, however, some mention of ele-ments of community development (e.g. community planning, community participation, and collabo-ration) in child welfare in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Drawing from efforts for Aboriginal children in Canada, Barter (2001) provides a conceptual framework for community building as a means to child protection: ‘Children’s protection goes beyond being the sole responsibility of any one agency or profession’ (p. 262). This shift – from traditional child rescue approaches and more recent family strengthening approaches to community building efforts – fosters collaboration, empowerment, and innovation. Chalker Place is an example of collaboration between communities, families, child-serving programs, and professionals working to build community capacity as an alternative to Canada’s child welfare system. Initiatives include



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a community food bank, clothing exchange, and free programs for children (Barter, 2007). In Rethinking Child Protection: A New Paradigm (PeakCare Queensland, 2007), representatives of major NGOs in Australia call for indigenous and community capacity building approaches to child welfare, as well as an increased focus on prevention and strengths-based models. The Discussion Paper emphasizes Strengths-based, Prevention, Empowerment, Changing Community Conditions (SPECs) and establishing Community Partnerships for Protecting Children (CPPC). CPPCs organ-ize neighborhood networks to support at-risk families and develop community-based plans for these families. Ways to engage the wider community include involving local media, providing parent workshops for personal growth, and advocating by parents and communities, which are means of community involvement in child protection. Although the project of the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse in Australia omitted community planning, it fostered community dia-logue about child welfare and protection. From 2002 to 2005, nearly 70 community development projects, many of which focused on child welfare and protection, were launched in the native com-munities. Community development projects included indigenous kinship care, children’s play-groups, skill development for young people, youth social entrepreneurship, and youth leadership development (Mondy and Mondy, 2004). Based on the belief of communal responsibility, support from indigenous groups is a core component of child protection and community development. ‘This does not just mean protecting them from harm. It goes further than this; it also means providing a positive sense of self, the world, and the future’ (Burchill et al., 2006: 51).

Efforts in the United Kingdom to integrate preventive and community-oriented approaches within the existing child welfare system takes wider community circumstances, the role of social networks, and social capital into consideration (Jack, 2004). Wright’s (2004) approach emphasizes community development focused on the safety of children. Local people in London defined com-munity issues and developed solution-focused strategies through community conferences and youth forums. The Area Child Protection Committee (ACPC) in London is another example of involving the community in child safety. Davies (2004) describes the formation of a community network of protective adults organized through mapping local groups and members of the com-munity who worked with or had contact with children. In the United States, community partner-ships to prevent child maltreatment are innovative (Mulroy, 1997), but do not include efforts to reduce poverty. At best, community-based child welfare practice involves interagency collabora-tion with the participation of community members (Solomons et al., 1981), and planning for pri-mary, secondary, and tertiary prevention with neighborhood residents (Mulroy and Shay, 1997).

In summary, without a clear guide from the literature on models that integrate community development for poverty reduction with improving child well-being, we set out to cross-train live-lihood and child welfare workers in Ethiopia. Our goal was to develop an applied training model that would deal with family poverty in tandem with engaging families and communities to improve the well-being of children and protect them from maltreatment.

The training program

As in other developing countries, many Ethiopian workers receive a plethora of training on vari-ous topics. These trainings are essentially one-shot deals where workers are trained and then return to their work environments with the expectation that they will implement their new train-ing. However, supervisors often have not gone through the same training and, generally, are not receptive to doing things differently. Consequently, there is a fairly rapid abandonment of what was learned. Trainees then relapse into their former ways of doing things, and more or less, the benefit of the training is lost.

Three factors are at work in the aforementioned model that sabotage any benefits gained from training. First, the trainees are exposed to the new ideas embedded in the training only once. They




are then expected to carry out these new ideas with little to no support when the reality of their work does not completely conform to what they have learned. Second, these new ideas are not connected to what the trainees are already doing. Thus, the context in which they apply what they have learned is not taken into account, and the ideas in the training become isolated events that may or may not be relevant to their practice. Third, nothing is done to engage supervisors actively in the training. They may not know what was learned, are suspicious of it because of the implication that what they are doing is wrong, or they may not have an understanding of the relevance of the training.

CD-CW sought to address deficiencies in single-shot training through three modules: Teamwork- and Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), Family-Based Community Development (FBCD), and Child Welfare. Each module builds sequentially one on the other in emphasizing not only the practice of skills in poverty reduction, but also the knowledge and skills for protecting and strengthening poor children at the family and community levels. Two cohorts of trainees repeatedly used the learning in their practice during 6 months of training. They could then experience the relevance of their learning to their practice, and receive continuous support from their peers and from the trainers throughout implementation. They could experience how all three modules needed to work together, and involve their supervisors from the beginning in their learning.

One hundred people received training, most of whom were grassroots workers from organiza-tions that serve poor children or organizations that work with livelihoods to reduce child poverty. The pilot group consisted of 33 representatives from government organizations (GOs) and NGOs engaged in community development and child welfare efforts in Ethiopia, and 11 graduate students from Addis Ababa University’s School of Social Work. Training for the second cohort consisted of 45 representatives of NGOs and GOs, plus 11 graduate students from various Ethiopian universi-ties. Trainees held very different levels of education – mostly high school diplomas, with some having bachelor’s degrees and only a few having masters degrees – but in areas other than social work. This diversity of levels of education and organizational auspices was important in establish-ing inter-organizational linkages and applying the training to practice.

Each of the three training components lasted 10 days, for a total of 30 days of training spread over a 6-month period. After each 10-day session, participants went back to their agencies and communities to carry out an applied assignment during a 6-week period. They wrote a report of their work, and presented it to their peers for feedback at the beginning of the next 10 days of train-ing. They then met as a team with the trainers to go over how the application of their learning worked, what they had learned from it, and how to move forward by incorporating their new learn-ing into their next activity. The trainers viewed failed projects as equally valuable as projects that succeeded because both provided opportunities for skill development and would likely contribute to sustainability. In order to obtain a Certificate of Completion, trainees were required to submit a Learning Portfolio that documented their work and included personal reflections on learning. This process of training, completing the three applied assignments and the Learning Portfolio as well as getting feedback, took a total of 156 days from beginning to end.

Teamwork- and asset-based community development

We began with training in Teamwork and Asset-Based Community Development because it most closely represented the work the trainees were already doing. It provided a structure to their work by covering the basic skills necessary to work effectively with teams and an organized way to perform a community assessment based on the strengths and assets of individuals, families, and communities (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1993; Mathie and Cunningham, 2003). The purpose of this training was to provide not only a strengths-based perspective on the community, but also to identify economic and noneconomic assets that could be leveraged toward reducing poverty. Participants were to apply the skills of teamwork to solve and manage challenges.




During the first training session, participants were asked to form teams that included repre-sentatives of government, NGOs, and universities. In general, team members lived in the same town or region of the country, so that they could collaborate on the assignment. Each team was given the first applied assignment, Asset-Based Community Assessment. It included identifying a geographic community and describing its characteristics. This involved gathering data from government and key informants. Each team was asked to identify the strengths and skills that members of the community possessed, the issues that community members felt were important and on which they were willing to work, and the strategies that the community believed would enable them to organize themselves and take action. The assignment was seen as a way to train workers to work with a community to address community-identified challenges, rather than as experts who impose professional solutions upon a community from the outside. It was also designed to help trainees develop professional skills in a way that respected that community’s strengths, culture, and its own methods of addressing challenges. Table 1 shows the questions guiding Assignment 1.

Family Based Community Development

The second component focused on the philosophy, stages, and skills of FBCD (Kordesh, 2006). It is widely recognized that the family is the fundamental building block of a society. Thus, the actualization of community assets toward poverty reduction requires an understanding of fami-lies’ assets and production capabilities. FBCD provides the structure to make that determination. In addition, FBCD builds the resilience of children by strengthening the productive, protective, and developmental capacities of families. Such capacity aids in poverty reduction and the preven-tion of child neglect through small enterprise development, and the improved ability to manage family assets and to provide nurturing developmental settings for children. FBCD also identifies the way in which families co-produce important good things such as education, recreation, and

Table 1. Asset-based community assessment: teamwork and communities.

With other members of your small group, identify a geographic community which is a focus area of your agency or collaborating organizations. Plan and carry out a Community Assessment. Your assessment should emphasize community strengths and assets, while accounting for community problems or needs. Apply the principles and practice the skills learned in Session 1 on small groups and communities.Answer the following to complete Assignment 1 on Community Assessment:1. Describe the geographic community and/or group you have selected.2. There are many different methods that can be applied to community assessment. Some of these include

participant observation, individual interviews, small group sessions, and existing data from government and non-governmental organization (NGO) agency reports. Describe the methods of community assessment that you used.

3. Identify the gifts and skills of the group or community you have selected.4. Identify ‘what people care about (enough to act)’.5. Discover the ‘duck call’ used in the group or community to solve their own problems together.6. Reflect on what you have learned in Session 1 about group processes and community skills while

carrying out the Community Assessment.7. Write how you will use the concepts and ideas that you have learned in your future work as a

grassroots community worker.8. What additional questions need to be answered about how to use the principles and practice skills of

working effectively with small groups and communities in the settings where you work?




safety for children with schools, associations, and local organizations (see Kellette and Tripple, 2000). Content focuses on the interactions between families and communities in dealing with poverty by providing both an economic and a noneconomic environment to help children become productive adults.

For Assignment 2, FBCD and Income Generation through Community and Family Enterprises, teams revisited the community they had selected. Each team identified the kinds of families in the community, including the vulnerable families such as single parent and child-headed households. The FBCD Assessment named the productive assets, goods, and services generated by families, and discovered how families, associations, and institutions co-produced positive quality-of-life things such as income, child safety, education, and care for the sick and elderly. Teams found com-munity assets that could be used to create new family business or expand existing family busi-nesses. They explored what products or services could be created, what markets would be served, and what strategies and/or partnerships would be needed to start, expand, and sustain such busi-nesses. They reflected on what they had learned and developed a plan for generating income and enhancing the family and community resources available for promoting child well-being. Table 2 shows the questions guiding Assignment 2.

Child welfare

Child Welfare, the third curriculum module, not only addresses child welfare services in the con-text of child developmental stages, trauma-informed practice, and family and community develop-ment, but also integrates ABCD, FBCD, and Child Welfare into a unified program that supports child well-being through reduction in poverty and increase in programs that benefit children. Trainees are instructed in child developmental stages so they become familiar with expected behavior from children. Through early recognition, response, and an understanding of adaptability in children, trainees learn effective ways to minimize the short and long-term effects of trauma.

Table 2. Assignment 2: family-based community development and income generation through community and family enterprises.

Revisit the community in which you carried out the Community Assessment (Assignment 1). Go deeper to assess and focus on asset-based and family-based community development and income generation through community and family enterprises. Apply the concepts and practice the skills learned in Session 2.Answer the following to complete Assignment 2 on FBCD:1. Describe the kinds of families that one finds in the community. a. Identify the gifts, productive assets, and productive goods and services that are generated by families

in the community. b. Identify how families, associations, and institutions in the community co-produce good things, such as

safety for children, education, income, care for the sick, and so on.2. Identify assets that the community can use to create new businesses or to help existing businesses

generate expanded income for families and the community. a. What products or services would they create? b. What markets would they serve? c. What strategies and partnerships would be needed to help start and sustain such businesses?3. Reflect on what you have learned from the training sessions and the assessment of families and business

opportunities.4. Write about how you will use these concepts and ideas in your future community work.5. What additional questions need to be answered about how to use these concepts, skills, and ideas

effectively in the settings where you work?




The philosophy of care for at-risk children and families is grounded in the CRC (Scherrer, 2012). Training emphasizes the role of families and communities in providing an environment likely to help children overcome trauma and loss and develop into well-adjusted adults. Participants learn about community-based and family-oriented child welfare programs.

Teams revisited their selected community for the Child Welfare, Trauma-Informed Practice, and Service Delivery assignment that asked participants to view families and communities through the eyes of a child. They accomplished this by drawing on a three-part framework on child develop-mental stages with the associated expected behaviors, the CRC and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), and trauma-informed practice. Table 3 shows the ques-tions guiding Assignment 3.

Assignment 3 entailed developing and implementing a concrete plan of action for a community-based child welfare program. Building on the results from the ABCD and FBCD assessments, teams focused on four specific tasks. First, teams were to target the community and family assets identified earlier towards children’s needs. Second, teams were to involve children directly as sig-nificant partners. Third, they were to identify missing elements in a structured plan for children with traumatic experiences, and provide these missing elements within the community and family context. Fourth, teams were charged with educating the community on the developmental needs of children, their rights and welfare under CRC and ACRWC, and the impact that traumatic experi-ences have on children.

Methods

To evaluate the CD-CW training, we analyzed written trainee feedback and reflections after each 10-day session of the integrated program. At the end of the training, participants submitted Learning Portfolios that contained documentation and critical reflection on three applied assignments they carried out in communities through local GOs and NGOs. Through a process of content analysis

Table 3. Assignment 3: child welfare, trauma-informed practice, and service delivery.

Revisit the community in which you carried out the Community Assessment (Assignment 1) and the FBCD Assessment (Assignment 2). This time, go deeper to focus on and assess children’s needs. Apply the concepts and practice the skills learned in Session 3.Answer the following to complete Assignment 3 on Child Welfare:1. Describe what already exists in communities that support families and children and the challenges they

face using UNCRC and ACRWC as guides.2. Describe how the assets, resources, and skills you have identified in families and the community can be

used to address the challenges of assuring the well-being of children.3. Describe the way in which children’s input can be involved in addressing these challenges.4. Determine which Essential Element(s) in Trauma-Informed Practice is/are being challenged in the

community. Develop a strategy to address it/them using ABCD and FBCD.5. Develop a plan to coordinate service providers to support children’s safety, health, education,

and well-being in harmony with UNCRC and ACRWC in the community. Discuss how this plan might be implemented through the work of your organization in the community or through the community.

6. Develop a plan to heighten community and family awareness of the impact of trauma on children and ways to address and manage the consequences of that trauma. Discuss how this plan might be implemented through the work of your organization in the community or through the community.

7. What additional questions need to be answered about how to use these concepts, skills, and ideas effectively in the settings where you work?




and coding, our team identified five thematic areas of learning and practice skills: training across sectors and levels of education, assets- and strengths-based approach, involvement of the whole community, Ethiopian-based intervention, and personal level impact. These themes were cross-checked with verbatim field notes from face-to-face team consultations after the first and second training sessions, and from group work reports taken from flip-charts presented during the final 2-day evaluation retreat.

The results of this study are subject to some limitations. Each country has its own development context. In Ethiopia, NGOs and local government are both involved in reducing poverty and in promoting child well-being, but this may differ elsewhere. Second, in benefitting from the training, trainees may have been more positive in their evaluations than the reality of their work. However, since participants received only travel expenses, this effect is minimal. Positive bias for the training model is lessened by the fact that the applied assignments were not graded. Participants received Certificates of Training based on their participation. Thus, although the Integrated CD-CW Model of Practice is not presented as generalizable, the results hold promise for replicating and testing integrated models in other country contexts.

Results

Group training across sectors and levels of education

ABCD and FBCD were relatively new concepts for skill development in Ethiopia (cf. Cunningham, 2008), but both types of assessments resonated as an excellent fit in the Ethiopian context of per-vasive poverty and children at risk of child abuse and neglect. The training was supplemented with field visits and applied assignments, which made all the difference in constructing a CD-CW Model relevant in Ethiopia. Despite the wide difference in level of education between community workers and child welfare workers, government professionals, and graduate students, all trainees demonstrated an understanding of the principles of ABCD, FBCD, the developmental stages of children, and the requirements of the CRC and ACRWC. Trainees commented on the importance of investigation, documentation, analysis, and evaluation in CD-CW efforts, and many committed to this type of practical assessment.

One trainee summarized the general view that practical skills were taught in CD-CW training: ‘It assisted me in building a bridge between community experiences and the theories’ and ‘shifted my thinking toward community development’ (Demissie, 2010: 1). The applied assignments rein-forced experiential learning so that a deeper level of learning occurred. Trainees reported that no one knew the dynamics of Ethiopia and its communities better than they did, yet acknowledged that they felt empowered by the training delivered by faculty not native to Ethiopia. The environ-ment was one of active and reciprocal learning among the participants and trainers. Introducing and promoting the concept of asset-based development was a new approach for trainees: ‘The training program sought to accommodate my assets, gifts and skills, thus allowing me to develop self-confidence’ (Getachew, 2010: 3).

Teamwork across different organizational sectors was crucial in providing an interdisciplinary approach to implementing CD-CW interventions. Field visits, presentations, and discussions aided trainees in getting to know each other and sharing knowledge and experiences. It is unusual in Ethiopia to train people with wide differences in educational levels, or for that matter, to train repre-sentatives of government, NGOs, and the university together as equals. In general, there was a suspi-cion of government officials, but even this view diminished through teamwork and cross-training:

I realized that they are different in the way they tackle problems, management styles, relations with stakeholders, [and] problem solving methodologies … Bringing all these diverse experiences together




– even those who are dealing with similar issues – gave a good lesson for all participants. (Mohammed, 2010: 4)

Assets- and strengths-based approach

Since ABCD and FBCD perspectives are based on the philosophy that every person has a gift to contribute, looking at their own and their community’s gifts struck a deep personal chord among trainees. Trainees were asked to identify their own gifts and categorize them according to the con-cept of the gifts of the Head, Heart, and Hands (Green, 2006). One trainee shared the power of that exercise when he saw all of the gifts listed by every participant, and realized how much each indi-vidual and the overall community must have to offer. When working on the Community Assessment, he asked street children to talk about their gifts and skills:

When my teammate and I sorted all the gifts they had and told it back to them, I could see that they were excited and felt good because of the assets that they had and never knew they had them. (Alazar, 2010: 8)

Another participant prepared a Community Asset Map and talked with community members about an approximate 240 children living on the streets of his town. ‘I made a commitment from the start to the ABCD approach, to give my time and skills to help the street children’ (Getachew, 2010: 10). The Learning Portfolios provided many examples of the way in which trainees were integrating the training in their regular work. Trainees reported that the ABCD curriculum helped them look at what they were doing with children from a strengths-based perspective. Many started establishing or improving children’s clubs in their organizations to motivate the children to use and develop their gifts and skills. ‘By establishing different clubs with music, drama, talent show, library, and questions and answers, I have tried to identify gifts’ (Rahel, 2010: 3).

ABCD was helpful in bringing about the realization that local communities first have to identify and utilize their own resources, assets, and gifts, instead of relying completely from the beginning on externally generated assistance. The usual method of solving local problems was through needs-based assessment, and so followed the expectation that solutions were to come from outside of the community:

In contrast, ABCD is a new approach and believes that the local problem can be solved by the people of the community themselves by discovering and mobilizing the resources already existing in the community … Everyone has gifts to give and contributions to make to solve the local problems. (Zikaragachew, 2010: 2)

Six of 15 groups of trainees shared, however, that in practice, this principle was difficult to apply. Families living in poverty had difficulty making the connection between generating resources through FBCD, and using these extra resources to enhance or develop child welfare services. The tendency was to rely on NGOs, or community-based associations that provide mutual aid, to pro-vide child welfare services. At the same time, nine groups reported that local community members requested training, not aid, and remarked on their distrust of NGOs and government in providing services:

There is a lack of productive families. Families have skills but previously we did not think about that. Now, this new approach will take time because of the ‘dependency syndrome’. But not only clients, but also stakeholders need to change their attitudes, plus donors have their own ideas. So, donors, the implementing agencies, and government need to work together with this new approach, and this is the first challenge in promoting and applying this idea. (Ephrem and Dunnia, 2009)




Involvement of the whole community

The training helped the participants recognize that in order to develop successful and sustainable projects to reduce poverty and provide safe environments for children, the whole community must become involved. Participants agreed that community development must put people in the center and they felt that this could be done only by organizing people and strengthening local associa-tions. An Ethiopian saying repeated by trainees in their portfolios summarizes the importance of community involvement in all planning and decisions affecting people: What you do for others without the others is against the others. CD-CW interventions would require more than efforts made by NGOs or government alone:

Our community faces different problems … Children are the most vulnerable members of the community who are exposed to different kinds of abuse and exploitation because of poverty and other issues. Families and the community are responsible for protecting children from abuse and exploitation. (Kidest, 2010: 3)

Trainees also embraced the idea that community development and child welfare cannot be sepa-rated. Realizing that the success of community programs correlates with the reduction of poverty, participants expressed readiness to become more involved on a wider scale. ‘Community develop-ment is everyone’s business, it is the process through which people work together to define their vision, solve their problem. Community development needs not only community members but also support from local government and the state’ (Sabah, 2010: 5). One trainee who worked in a gov-ernment-sponsored orphanage emphasized the need to design interventions focused on and involv-ing children:

I believe that sustainable community development is unthinkable without taking into account the future generation … Any community development program should put first the welfare and wellbeing of the newly coming members of the society, especially those who are in danger. (Nardos, 2010: 1)

The training prepared the trainees to conduct community assessments, and many started using this new tool immediately. They started discussions in their communities and workplaces on incor-porating these new concepts into practice. Keeping in mind an asset-based rather than a deficit approach, they identified skills and assets in their communities and engaged diverse stakeholders in discussion about how to utilize those gifts for the benefit of all community members. To corre-late with the government’s poverty reduction strategy, one participant outlined a three-step plan to implement CD-CW in his organization. The plan culminated with several day-long meetings with community representatives and stakeholders to ‘exchange ideas, promote mutual learning, build common understanding and motivation and create commitment’ (Shimelis, 2010: 6). In general, the trainees expressed having developed a deeper understanding of the need to work with whole communities to improve the child welfare system and prevent child abuse and exploitation, rooted in the country’s poverty.

Ethiopian-based interventions

Some participants expressed a concern that in recent years, Ethiopian home-based knowledge has been losing its meaning and importance. In its place, foreign theories and practices are treated as more relevant and effective in solving social and economic problems. Trainees reported that rarely are these theories and practices modified to fit the local context, and usually, they do not bring any positive results. ‘Home based knowledge should be given priority for home based problems’ (Desalegn, 2010: 3).




It was the curriculum’s emphasis on skill development, alongside the strengths- and asset-based approaches of ABCD and FBCD, which bolstered trainees’ interest and encouraged them to bring forth and develop their expertise through the applied assignments. Site visits to innovative pro-grams and productive family enterprises provided the opportunity to discuss ABCD and FBCD principles in the Ethiopian context. FBCD resonated with Ethiopian culture since it focused on the family as the primary productive unit. Several trainees committed to starting family gardens in urban settings to work together to grow their own products. Family-owned businesses and other family-focused initiatives help people maintain or develop thick family roles that are essential for healthy child development as well as for successful community development (Kordesh, 2006). Trainees reflected on establishing programs that would teach children entrepreneurial skills, which in turn would lead to families producing for themselves rather than only being consumers.

Personal level impact on the trainees

One area that presented emotional stress for the trainees was Trauma-Informed Practice. The expe-riences defined in the curriculum as traumatic for children were similar to the childhood experi-ences of many of the trainees. The training brought these traumatic childhood experiences to consciousness, and created a crisis for some. Reflections showed that, as adults, many trainees had normalized the traumatic experiences they had as children. Consequently, as adults, they tended to ignore some types of traumatic events for children or view them as part of growing up. Physical abuse was accepted more easily than other types of trauma. Participants voiced opposition to harm-ful traditional practices such as early marriage and female genital mutilation, but many admitted that they tended to ignore such practices, which were widely accepted in the communities where they work, and for some, within their own experience. Everybody agreed, however, that child homelessness, trafficking, food deprivation, and sexual abuse were certainly trauma-inducing problems. The trainers ensured that the participants for whom the training uncovered traumatic experiences received necessary attention and guidance outside of the training sessions.

Team consultations

The CD-CW trainers remained in contact with teams in between the three training modules to provide consultations and incorporate their feedback into consecutive modules. Some common themes emerged during these consultations, which speak to the uniqueness and strengths of the CD-CW Model as well as the challenges encountered. For example, trainees pointed out the extent and urgency of needs in all the communities they assessed, but they also observed two very differ-ent attitudes about possible solutions. Team 2 encountered people’s expectations for immediate solutions in spite of the limited resources: ‘One problem is the “dependency syndrome.” When NGOs ask participants to do something, they expect something (monetary) in return, like a per diem’ (Butterfield, 2009: 3). Team 1 also encountered community resistance while carrying out their community assessment: ‘People are very angry. They are expecting something from us to meet their immediate needs’ (Butterfield, 2009: 1). Team 8 had distinct experiences in that com-munities are weary of NGOs providing aid rather than sustainable skills. ‘From our community assessment work, we identified that people need training, financial loans and they have strong motives to change their lives. On the other hand, people hate aid from NGOs’ (Butterfield, 2009: 10). Team 12 had similar experiences:

There is a great difference between needs assessment (which was our previous experience) and ABCD/FBCD assessment. In implementing our assignments, this was our first experience to hear such kind of




confidence from the community. In this area, there is a fear of NGOs coming into the area because the people in this community hate ‘aid’. They want training instead of aid. We always used to see the community as poor, as weak, but this training has opened our eyes to see that they have survived for years. ABCD causes us to look internally at people, not externally at them. (Butterfield, 2009: 16)

Trainees found the CD-CW Model an effective medium in approaching both types of people in communities as it shifted attention from deficits to assets and is action oriented. ‘Before, we simply went to the community to work without assessing people’s assets, skills and strengths. Now we ask them about skills and try to turn this into a way from skills to a business aspect’ (Butterfield, 2009: 3).

From these team consultations, we also learned about the actions trainees were taking to incor-porate CD-CW into their organizations:

We want to incorporate the ideas into our work, and we [Team 3] have briefed … our supervisors and have planned to train staff on ideas and concepts of ABCD and FBCD. We are planning to train community workers, leaders, and planners. (Butterfield, 2009: 3)

Since women who were selling items on the street faced obstacles from local businesses and the police, Team 8 planned to introduce CD-CW to the local police department. Team 1 pointed out the need to network and coordinate with other organizations and work on policy change to fully incor-porate the CD-CW Model: ‘We have to focus on the formulation of policies and the system. [The university] has the power to coordinate government and non-governmental systems to cooperate’ (Butterfield, 2009: 1).

The major challenge of the CD-CW Model perceived by several participants was the potential tension between the concepts of assets and child labor. Some trainees pointed out that many chil-dren are working and generating income, which is considered an asset by the family and commu-nity. Some trainees wondered whether family business could be a risk for children’s development because of child labor. Encouraging families to use extra income for children’s well-being and monitoring for the excessive use of child labor were discussed as important principles for CD-CW interventions.

Evaluation meeting

To evaluate the trainees’ experience in implementing CD-CW in their home communities and regions, a 2-day evaluation retreat was held. Approximately 100 participants attended, including NGOs, GOs, and university trainees and decision makers representing regional Bureaus of Labor and Social Affairs and Women’s Affairs. Participants were divided into groups that mixed them across different communities and regions to discuss the impact the training had thus far, and what challenges they experienced in bringing CD-CW concepts and practice to their areas. Generally stated material from the three areas of training – ABCD, FBCD, and Child Welfare – were equally useful at the local and regional levels. Results of the training ranged from broad characterizations of changed ways of thinking and philosophical orientations to concrete steps such as initiating child participation in organizations, sharing materials and training coworkers, and networking with other organizational and community stakeholders to implement CD-CW principles.

Overall, CD-CW participants tried to improve the integration of services to children, whether liv-ing in orphanages, on the street, or in families. Many participants gave concrete examples and plans in their portfolios of applying the models and concepts in their area of residence or work. Because most trainees – whether livelihood workers or child welfare workers – work with children who have




experienced trauma, the Child Welfare training found immediate application. Several trainees began discussions with community members on the impact of trauma on children. One participant sought the opportunity to talk to the media. Another designed and started implementing a trauma-informed child welfare structure with community stakeholders and children involved. Others committed to prevention efforts, such as starting children’s parliaments at their organizations, and working with parents and communities to address children’s homelessness and exploitation.

In their post-training period, trainees encountered some resistance in adopting an asset-based approach in place of the predominant deficit-based one. High turnover in child welfare and livelihood staff was another challenge in terms of sustainability. Other issues included financial and time con-straints, limited interest and involvement of decision makers, and difficulties coordinating efforts with other trainees in other organizations. To address the challenges and further reinforce the action phase, participants met with their original training teams to engage in planning the next phase of CD-CW. Discussions focused on building regional networks to further the CD-CW training and networking. Teams from different areas differed with respect to what should be the center of their regional network, with preferences ranging from local universities, specific NGOs, to community-based organizations.

Conclusion

The Integrated CD-CW Model directly addresses the connection between poverty and child welfare. The CD-CW Model is a modular approach to training wherein trainees are divided into teams and provided opportunities to apply the three modules (ABCD, FBCD, and Child Welfare) after training in each one. ABCD connected with the trainees’ experiences by looking at their communities’ assets rather than problems. FBCD integrated ABCD and viewed families as producers rather than con-sumers. Child Welfare provided training on child development, UNCRC and ACRWC, and trauma integrating the three modules into a unified approach. Trainees with greatly varying levels of educa-tion experienced working in interdisciplinary and cross-sector teams and diverse teams in a way that added to the strength of the changes they were advocating with the community. Reviews of the trainees’ Learning Portfolios, team consultations, and follow-up evaluation indicate that the CD-CW Model was successful in changing how trainees worked with their communities in addressing pov-erty, directing community assets toward resources for children, and improving child well-being.

A particular strength of the model is its adaptability to the community’s culture and environ-ment. Using the principles of the UNCRC as a framework, the CD-CW Model’s emphasis on skill development through applied assignments can incorporate the approaches that harmonize with community practices, beliefs, and environment in ways that support families’ responsibilities in providing for healthy child development. Community assets, community direction, and commu-nity identification of issues are incorporated in the model, thereby providing community owner-ship of the resulting projects. Thus, although the CD-CW Model was demonstrated in the Ethiopian context, its principles are readily transferable to other national contexts, communities, environ-ments, cultures, and societies.

Funding

The CD-CW Training Project was supported by the Oak Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland [OUSA-08-093] and EveryChild UK, England [G6202]. The authors received no financial support for the authorship or pub-lication of this article.

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Author biographies

Alice K. Butterfield is a Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been involved in social work education, training and technical assistance, and research in Ethiopia since 2001. She is an editor of Social Development and Social Work: Learning from Africa (2013), Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

James L. Scherrer is an Assistant Professor and Director of Field Education at the Graduate School of Social Work, Dominican University. As a child welfare expert, he has worked with social workers in Germany, England, South Africa, Morocco, and Ethiopia. He is Chair of the Committee for the Ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Illinois.

Katarzyna Olcon, LCSW, is a PhD student at the University of Texas-Austin School of Social Work. She completed her Master of Social Work with a concentration in community health and urban development at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2011. She worked as a research assistant and a coordinator of projects on community development and social work in Ethiopia.


http://c.cld.pw/129/cms/files/E006-RethinkingChildProtection-ANewParadigm.pdf

http://c.cld.pw/129/cms/files/E006-RethinkingChildProtection-ANewParadigm.pdf


addressing poverty and child welfare: the integrated community development and child welfare model...

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