Module One: Childhood and children’s rights

• Study Session One: Understanding childhood explores the nature of childhood and how it is understood differently in different cultures. This session examines how childhood is understood in East Africa, values and attitudes towards children in the region, and how those attitudes differ towards different groups of children.
• Study Session two: Child development looks at the different stages of development that a child goes through as they mature from birth to 18 years, and the characteristics of children at each stage in terms of physical, social, emotional, mental and moral development. It also highlights the significance of the individual experiences of children in informing their development. Understanding these factors helps guide the health worker in acknowledging and respecting children’s evolving capacities and the levels of protection they need to ensure their optimum well-being.
• Study Session Three: Children’s needs, rights and responsibilities focuses on the broad range of different needs children have if they are to experience safe and healthy childhoods and be enabled to develop fully as they grow up. This session examines what these needs are and introduces the idea that children’s rights provide the basis for the achievement of these needs.