Module 5: Module 5 - Children's rights: planning, monitoring and evaluation

Introduction to Module 5

This is the fifth module in a course of five modules designed to provide health workers with a comprehensive introduction to children’s rights. While the modules can be studied separately, they are designed to build on each other in order.

Module 1: Childhood and children’s rights

Module 2: Children’s rights and the law

Module 3: Children’s rights in health practice

Module 4: Children’s rights in the wider environment: the role of the health worker

Module 5: Children’s rights: planning, monitoring and evaluation

Module 5 consists of two study sessions that introduce how to make plans to affect a change that will contribute to the achievement of children’s rights. It will also illustrate the tools you can use to check if the plan is effective. Each of these sessions is designed to take approximately two hours to complete. The sessions provide you with an introduction to these topics and are supported by a range of different activities to help you develop your understanding and knowledge. The activities are usually followed by a discussion of the topic, but in some cases there will be answers at the end of the study session for you to compare your own answer to before continuing. We have provided you with space to write your notes after an activity, however if you wish, you can use a notebook.

• Study Session 1 introduces the planning cycle and how you can go about making a properly structured action plan that can help to advance children’s rights. It explains some of the important terms that are used in relation to planning, and discusses the importance of involving children and others in developing plans. By the end of the session you will have a better understanding of how you, as a health worker, can make and contribute to action plans.
• Study Session 2 directly follows on from the first session as it explains the terms monitoring and evaluation. Both of these techniques are vital to know whether action planning has been successful. The session also explores the importance of involving children. By the end of the session you will understand the whole planning cycle and be able to plan a simple action plan to contribute to the achievement of children’s rights.

1 Action planning and implementation

Key words: action planning, objective, task, resource, measure of success

1.1 Introduction

As a health worker, you have the potential to identify problems that violate children’s rights and the opportunity to work with others to develop solutions. When you decide to make an action plan, you are acting to change something that you consider to be a problem for children. You learned about your role in contributing to making changes in children’s lives in the previous module when you explored advocacy and community mobilisation.

In this study session, we will explore how to create and implement an action plan, and demonstrate how this can help to advance children’s rights. Action planning is a formal and structured approach to achieving change.

The session will also discuss the importance of involving children and others in developing plans so they are more likely to be relevant to children’s needs, more likely to be implemented, and more likely to deliver the results you want.

1.2 Learning outcomes

At the end of this study session, you will be able to:

• define and use correctly all of the key words above
• understand the importance of structured action planning
• understand the value of both children’s and other’s participation in developing an action plan
• create an action plan that links objectives, actions, measures of success and resources
• state the characteristics of a good action plan.

1.3 What is action planning?

When two or three people, or a larger group, meet together to discuss a problem or an issue they have identified, it is because they have decided that something needs to change. Similarly, an individual working alone may decide they want to see something change and can think about how this change should be made. As soon as we begin to think about what needs to change, we think about how the change can be made and we also think about who can make the change happen. When we think about these things, whether we know it or not, we are making plans. As humans, we do this informally all the time. When something is of particular importance, then we can think about the actions we want to take in a more structured way. The process of developing actions is called action planning.

In all action planning, the most important point to consider at the start of the process is the objective. What is the change you are trying to make? An objective can be defined as the specific result, goal or change you want to achieve. It is important to develop objectives that are:

• Specific: The objective should be well-defined and clearly understood by anyone with a basic knowledge of the work area.
• Measurable: It must be possible to know with certainty, if and when the goal has been achieved.
• Achievable: There must be agreement amongst all the stakeholders involved that the goal is within reach.
• Realistic: There needs to be sufficient knowledge, skills, resources and time to achieve the objective.
• Timely: There should be enough time to achieve the objective with the resources that are available and a clear end point.

These are known as SMART objective because in English the first letter of each bullet point spells the word 'SMART'.

Action plans can be developed for changes you want to see happen at any level from the immediate community to the international level. For example:

• a.Many children in your community suffer illness as a result of poor sanitation and water-borne diseases. Many parents lack awareness or knowledge of how to prevent these illnesses. You introduce a plan to provide children with information and practical guidance on how to make water safer. You then support them to take these messages out to the local community and participate in clean-up activities within local villages.
• b.At the East Africa Conference on Child Marriage, held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in June 2013, representatives from 20 organisations met to discuss the harmful effect of child marriage, which they described as ‘a neglected human rights violation’. Girls and young women affected by child marriage also attended the conference. The participants identified eight key actions that they believed would safeguard children’s rights and welfare, including enacting laws that establish a minimum age of 18 for marriage of both men and women, and enforcement of these laws. The participants recognise that their action plan is ambitious and that they cannot achieve the actions alone. Others, including governments, have the power to make some of these actions a reality.

We will return to the importance of involving others later in this study session, but for now you can note that the bigger the change you are aiming to bring about, the more people you will need to involve to make it happen.

Understanding action planning as part of a process

Action planning is part of a cycle of activity designed to create sustainable change in the realisation of children’s rights, as you can see in Figure 1.1. In this study session, we will explore two stages in the cycle: making plans and implementing them. Study Session 2 examines how to measure whether or not those plans have been effective.

Figure 1.1 The action plan cycle

The importance of action planning

When a project is relatively small and short-term, for example designing, producing, printing and distributing a leaflet, it may not be necessary or beneficial to develop an action plan. This is particularly the case where there are few people to be involved and what has to be done, and the steps to achieve it are clear. Tasks that are repeated often generally do not need an action plan. For medium-sized projects, such as organising a conference, an action plan can be very beneficial. For larger projects or programmes, such as opening a new health centre, an action plan is essential.

Action planning has a number of specific advantages over and above a list of things to do, or scheduling work using a calendar or diary:

• It provides an opportunity for reflection. Before beginning something, it is helpful to think about what has happened before, what actions have brought about success or partial success and what actions have not helped.
• It brings people together. Action planning can bring together individuals who are knowledgeable in the area of work (experts), individuals who are experiencing the problem and stand to benefit from the change (beneficiaries), and individuals who can contribute to the project (resources). In many cases, a person can have more than one of these roles.
• It clarifies the objective. It is often assumed that if a group of people come together to create an action plan, they will have the same objective, but that is usually not the case. A conference on forced child marriage, for example, may include people who are interested in influencing adults, people who are interested in empowering women and girls, people who want to work with young men, and people who want to create legal change. The emphasis of a project will change depending on the objective, and action planning provides the opportunity to clarify exactly what change is required.
• It builds consensus. Just as consensus on the objective can be achieved, consensus on priorities can also be achieved through the action planning process. Everyone involved can contribute their ideas, and gradually, through discussion, negotiation and compromise, the most important actions will emerge.
• It creates ownership and accountability. When people are involved in developing an action plan, they are more likely to contribute realistic suggestions that are often things they have some influence over. The involvement process creates a sense of individual and collective ownership for the action plan. This ownership allows for tasks to be allocated to different people, creating accountability. Individuals who are assigned tasks know they are responsible for these and that they will need to report progress at agreed intervals.
• It clarifies timescales. Setting out all the tasks that need to be done to achieve a particular objective and making decisions about how much resource is available for each task, allows for a realistic assessment of how long the overall action plan will take. Every action in an action plan should have a clear completion date.
• It identifies measures of success. Measures of success are like stepping stones towards a larger objective. They provide a way of measuring progress towards that goal. For example, if an objective is to prevent early pregnancy, there may be many steps towards that goal, including providing contraception, educating children and tackling child abuse. Each of these steps can be measured to ensure it achieves its aim and contributes to the larger objective of preventing early pregnancy.

Tasks, resources and measures of success

An action plan states what specific action needs to be taken (tasks), who will undertake each task and how (resources), and the immediate or short-term measurable result for each task (measures of success). Table 1.1 shows these different components in an action plan tackling the low level of birth registrations in a community.

A number of things can be observed about the structure and headings used in this action plan:

• The objective is clearly stated at the start of the action plan.
• The activities that need to be completed are broken down into a number of separate tasks, four in this case.
• The tasks are listed in a logical order.
• The tasks all start with a word that conveys a sense of action, indicating that something will happen.
• Each task has been assigned to a person and the work has been divided between a number of different people. People are project resources.
• Each person has access to additional specific resources, that will support them in completing the task.
• Each task has a completion date.
• Each task has a specific measure of success, a way of assessing the immediate measurable result.

You can hopefully see that an action plan contains a very significant amount of important information. As described above, it might be helpful to a limited extent for a small project and it can be enormously valuable for medium and large projects.

We will now examine some of these components of an action plan in more detail.

1.4 Creating an action plan

Now the different components of an action plan have been introduced, it is your turn to create an action plan for a specific change you would like to see.

Activity 1.1: Creating an action plan for a change that you would like to see

If you studied other modules on this course, you will have learned about many different rights that children have. You will also know from your experience and local knowledge about difficulties that children might have in realising their rights, including securing their right to health.

Based on your knowledge and experience of this subject to date, can you think of a change you would like to see happen involving children’s health and/or their rights in your region or your community? What specifically would you like to see change? What would need to happen to make a difference to realising or advancing children’s rights? This should be something that you can influence, even if it means you need to involve other people. For this activity, think about a relatively small to medium-sized change you would like to see, for example a project to inform children about their rights, or a project to educate parents, or a project to make your practice more child-friendly. You could undertake this activity in your workplace and involve co-workers if you can.

1. The first step in creating your action plan is to define your objective clearly. When you have thought about a change you would like to see, write this in the form of an objective in the table below. Remember that objectives should be: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. You can check back on the definition of an effective objective described earlier if you are not sure.

2. The second step is to think about the tasks that will be needed to help you achieve your objective. Try to identify at least four tasks. Write the tasks in the task column, in a way that describes the act of doing something.

3. Next, think about who will lead each task. It might be you for all the tasks, or you might be able to ask others to take a lead. Do you need to consult them first? Write the name of one person under the 'Responsibility' column for each task.

4. Are there specific resources you and other responsible people can call on? Write these in the next column.

5. Now think about the timescales. It is sometimes helpful to think about the end date first. When would you like to have completed the plan by? Think about how long each task will take. Be realistic about this, bearing in mind the people and other resources available, conflicting tasks for other objectives, and whether any tasks can be carried out at the same time.

6. Finally, what will be your measures of success for each task? This is often the most challenging part of the action plan. Be as specific as you can here and try to describe measures in a way that contribute to your overall objective. If you are having difficulty identifying a suitable measure of success, then this is sometimes an indication that you have not defined your task clearly enough. Go back to the task and try to be more specific about the action that will be taken.

Once you have completed the action plan, spend some time reading and reviewing it. Read each action carefully, thinking about where improvements can be made to the plan.

Discussion

Did you find this activity difficult to do?

If you developed the action plan on your own, you may have found it more challenging, as you only have your own experiences and views to draw on. You might not have all the information you need and you have no way of checking with others whether the plan is achievable or realistic.

It is not unusual for one person to begin the process of drafting an action plan, but it is nearly always necessary to involve others before finalising it. Involving others as early as possible in the process is one of the best ways of building support for your plan. We will return to this discussion in the next section.

Ten characteristics of a good action plan

There are different views on what a good action plan should look like. It can depend on the scale and complexity of the change to be achieved. However, the following characteristics are important in all action plans.

1. There is a single, clearly defined, objective.
2. The timescales are realistic.
3. The plan is informed by the past, but focused on the future.
4. The plan takes into account external factors and constraints.
5. The tasks in the plan all contribute to the same objective.
6. The plan does not include anything unnecessary for the achievement of the objective.
7. The plan is sufficiently detailed for its purpose.
8. Responsibility for who does what is completely clear.
9. The measures in the plan are clearly aligned to success.
10. The plan is revisited and updated at appropriate intervals.

1.5 Involving children and others

Involving children

Involving children in action planning can provide a valuable source of information about their needs and experiences. Children of all ages can be involved, providing the methods of involving them are age-appropriate. By listening to children’s views and taking them seriously, children are empowered and can contribute meaningfully to the action planning process. By enabling children to participate, you are helping them to realise many of their rights under the UN Convention and the African Charter. This includes the right of children to access information, to express themselves freely, to have their views taken into account and to be active participants in their communities. They are also being prepared to take on responsible roles as adult citizens.

Children can be involved at a number of different levels, depending on their evolving capacities. There are numerous techniques available to enable children’s participation. You can refer back to Module 4, Section 2.7: Advocacy with children, for suggestions on how to involve children. In addition, some helpful resources are listed in the Bibliography at the end of the module.

Here we will talk a little about some of the good practice and ethical issues you will need to consider if you are to involve children in action planning, or in monitoring and evaluation.

Involving others

At several points in this study session, we have mentioned the importance of involving others in the action planning process. We talked about the importance of:

• bringing people together to contribute different ideas
• building support and consensus
• agreeing ownership and accountability.

These three elements are important throughout the process, but they each have greater importance at different stages of action planning. Listening to experiences and asking for ideas is more important at the beginning of the process. As the action planning process continues, building consensus and support for the plan that is emerging becomes more important. As the development of the action plan nears completion, agreeing ownership and accountability become the most important element. Figure 1.2 shows the relative importance of each element at different stages and also provides a summary of some of the benefits and challenges in managing each stage.

Figure 1.2 Three stages of action planning

Revisit you own action plan from Activity 1.1 and think about how you might ensure children and others are involved.

Remember that action planning is not a one-off exercise. Planning actions and implementing those actions are steps in a process of continuous improvement in your practice. Action planning and learning from experience will give you a structure to advance children’s rights and improve the health of the people you work with. This is over and above the immediate services and support that you provide every day.

1.6 Summary

In this study session you have learned what structured action planning is and how it can be used to advance children’s rights.

In particular, you have learned that:

• An action plan is a list of key tasks that need to be undertaken to achieve a particular goal or bring about a particular change.
• In all action planning, the most important point to consider at the start of the process is the objective. Objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
• The action planning process is valuable because it provides an opportunity for reflection and brings people with shared purposes together. It also allows the objective to be clarified and consensus to be reached, and it creates ownership and accountability.
• Action plans have a number of components, including tasks, resources and measures of success.
• There are numerous techniques to enable children’s participation in action planning and in monitoring and evaluation. When children are involved, there are a number of good practice and ethical issues to be considered.
• It is important to involve others in action planning. This enables you to hear about different experiences, to gather ideas for the plan, to build consensus, and to divide the tasks so people know what they are responsible for.

1.7 Self-assessment questions

1.8 Answers to activities

2 Monitoring and evaluation in your practice

Key words: evaluation, indicator, outcome, output, monitoring

2.1 Introduction

As a health worker who understands children’s rights, you are in a unique position to understand children’s experiences and to respond appropriately. You will do this every day at an individual level, however, you may not have a complete picture of many of the key issues and challenges, and your ability to influence change will be limited by this. Monitoring and evaluation are tools that can help you gain a more detailed picture. You can identify patterns, and understand which challenges are common and what kinds of actions are effective. This follows on from your work in Study Session 1 on planning as once you have implemented a plan you need to know if it is working or not, and the skills of monitoring and evaluating will help you do this.

In this study session you will learn what monitoring and evaluation are and how they can be used to advance children’s rights. You will appreciate the importance of involving children in monitoring and evaluation and you will develop skills to enhance monitoring and evaluation in your practice.

2.2 Learning outcomes

At the end of this study session, you will be able to:

• define and use correctly the key words above
• understand the importance of monitoring and evaluation to advancing child rights in your country
• understand the value of children’s participation in monitoring and evaluation
• use monitoring and evaluation tools in your practice as a health professional.

2.3 What is monitoring?

Monitoring involves the collection of information for a specific purpose. A simple example of monitoring in daily practice is keeping a record of the sex of the children that come to a medical facility and the medical problems that they bring. This type of monitoring information can help to determine accurately whether boys and girls are equally likely to seek medical assistance, and if they have different health needs. It can also help to find out whether boys or girls are being discriminated against. That information can then be used to plan services and ensure the right training and facilities are in place.

Effective monitoring can help us to:

• Gather useful information from the routine tasks and activities that we carry out each day.
• Measure changes in services and experiences of individuals over a period of time.
• Assess whether resources are being used effectively or as we planned.

Monitoring is a vital part of action planning. In Study Session 1, you became familiar with making action plans and implementing them: the first two stages in the cycle shown in Figure 1.2. However, once you have put your plan into action, how do you know if it is working? If you had clear objectives and indicators for your plan it is through monitoring that you can see if they were achieved. So monitoring is a stage in a continuous process of improvement. Figure 2.1 is a reminder of the stages of this process.

Figure 2.1 The five stages of planning and implementation

Making decisions about monitoring

When introducing the monitoring of a plan to enhance child rights, it is important to consider the purpose of the monitoring and how the information will be collected and used.

The following questions are helpful to consider:

• What is the purpose of the information? Is it to support planning of services, to identify gaps in services, to help make decisions, or to help evaluate the impact of a project or take-up of a new service?
• What types of information will be needed? Examples may include, records of people seeking consultation, being tested or treated, or being referred elsewhere. It may involve recording characteristics of those individuals, such as their age, gender and whether or not they have a disability.
• How can the information be collected with the least possible effort? Monitoring is not an end in itself. The information collected will help to improve services, but too much time spent processing information will reduce the time available to provide services.
• Who will collect the information? Is it a single person, or will many people collect and record similar information? Is there a standard way of collecting information so it can be compiled more easily?
• Who will analyse the information? Information analysis may be fairly simple, such as manually adding up the number of children with a physical injury who attend a clinic. It may be more advanced, such as calculating the average age of those children with physical injuries that attend. It may be complex, such as identifying common issues from the feedback received from children.

Tools to assist with monitoring: outputs and indicators

Outputs and indicators are important tools to assist the process of monitoring. In particular, they allow progress towards an objective to be monitored.

Outputs are generated as a result of particular efforts or activities. For example, the effort of researching, writing and editing, has resulted in the production of these educational materials on children’s rights for health workers. The material produced is the output of the effort that has been made. The output contributes to the objective of educating health workers about child rights. Whether or not it delivers that objective is dependent on many other factors, for example, the time that health workers have to study the materials. Other examples of outputs include the number of people that have been trained on a topic, the number of children that have been vaccinated against a particular disease.

Indicators, or success indicators, as they are sometimes called, can help to measure progress towards a specific objective in a consistent and objective manner. Indicators are generally agreed in advance of activities that aim to bring about change, so that the effect of these changes can be measured. Returning to our example above of the production of educational materials on children’s rights for health workers, a success indicator in this case might be that 50% of health workers have access to the materials. In your work, an indicator that is more challenging would be that violence against children is shown to reduce over a period of time.

2.4 What is evaluation?

The purpose of evaluation is to determine if a desired objective has been achieved and the factors that led to that achievement. Evaluation provides an opportunity for reflection on what has worked well and what can be improved. It can also assist in identifying positive changes that can be made to services or practices to advance children’s rights. It can also avoid repeating activities that were ineffective. Look back at the planning cycle in Figure 2.1 to see where evaluation is in the process.

The main focus for evaluation is on outcomes. You want to know whether the action you took led to a desired change. This can be illustrated by returning for the final time to our example of the production of these education materials on child rights for health workers. Evaluation is less concerned with outputs (e.g. the materials produced), or indicators (e.g. the proportion of health workers that have access to the materials), and much more concerned with outcomes. An important example of this would be whether health workers now have better knowledge of child rights and what difference this is making in their practice.

Planning for evaluation

In relation to projects or any activity that aims to bring about a change, it is important to plan the evaluation at the same time as planning the project itself, not during or afterwards. This will allow you to measure results as you implement changes.

Monitoring might be carried out on a continuous basis or, at regular intervals such as monthly or quarterly; evaluation generally tends to have a longer time period. Projects that run for several years might typically include a planned evaluation at annual intervals.

Responsibility for monitoring and evaluation

It is important to know who has responsibility for monitoring and evaluation, and at what level these activities are taking place, and how the evidence produced can be used to bring about positive changes to practice.

The importance of evaluation

Look back at Figure 2.1 at the beginning of this study session. Evaluation is one part of a continuous process of improvement. As indicated earlier, improvements generally come about by learning from experience and learning can take place through effective monitoring and evaluation.

Effective evaluation can help us to:

• improve our understanding of the many factors that violate children’s rights, helping us to see patterns that we do not normally see in our work
• generate the evidence we need to make recommendations or seek additional resources to make improvements to services
• assess whether specific projects or activities are on track and are delivering the outcomes expected

2.5 Involving children in monitoring and evaluation

A project involving children in evaluation – Tanzania

Child participation is increasingly being seen as good practice in community development programmes. As a result, children now participate in many programmes, not just when they start, but also in their planning and design. It is just as appropriate that children participate in the monitoring and evaluation of programmes that are intended to benefit them.

Involving children in monitoring and evaluation is important as children can provide a valuable source of information about their own needs and experiences. Parents and guardians may not be aware of all of their children’s individual circumstances, and children may not want to discuss some experiences with parents or other elders in their community. You will know from your study of Module 4, that children of all ages can be involved, providing the methods of involving them are age-appropriate.

As a health worker, you can involve children in ways that make them feel more respected. By listening to their views and taking them seriously, children are empowered and can reduce their dependence on others.

The UN Convention includes a number of articles that promotes children’s right to participation and to have their voices heard. You will have been introduced to these already if you studied earlier sessions.

Levels of involvement

Children can be involved at a number of different levels, and their age, capacity and capabilities will have a bearing on what is feasible:

• Consultative involvement means collecting information from children as part of monitoring, for example, asking children their opinions about what they think is important and what might be monitored.
• Collaborative involvement means sharing decisions about what is monitored and what actions should be taken in response to particular issues.
• Child-directed involvement means that activities are initiated or led by children, and adults provide support to enable this to happen. An example of this would be, for example, supporting older children to obtain views from younger children through use of group drama.

Child-directed activities represent the higher quality of involvement, but because of the requirement for additional time and capability in these activities, it is usually only possible to involve fewer children. Figure 2.2 represents these different levels of involvement, with the highest point representing fewer children involved in higher quality engagement.

Figure 2.2 Three types of child involvement

Some of these tips and issues are discussed in more detail in Module 4. There are also some references at the end of this module.

Techniques to use with children in monitoring and evaluation

A wide variety of child-friendly techniques can be used to enable effective participation by children in monitoring and evaluation. These include:

• role-play, drama or use of songs, allowing improvisation to tell children’s stories
• photographs and video making
• children’s writings, essays, diaries, or recall and observations
• storyboards
• individual or collective drawing
• interviews.

There is not room in this study session to explore all of these techniques in detail. One example – body mapping – can be seen below.

2.6 Summary

In this study session you have learned what monitoring and evaluation are and how they can be used to advance children’s rights.

In particular, you have learned that:

• Monitoring and evaluation are stages within a continuous process of improvement.
• Monitoring involves the collection of information at regular intervals for a specific purpose. It can be used to assess the quality of a process or service, and it can be used to measure progress towards a specific goal.
• Outputs and indicators are important tools to assist the process of monitoring. In particular, they allow progress towards an objective to be monitored.
• Evaluation is a structured assessment of the extent to which activities that have been undertaken have resulted in achieving a desired change.
• Effective monitoring and evaluation can help us to measure changes in services and experiences of individuals over a period of time and assess whether resources are being used effectively or as we planned.
• Involving children in monitoring and evaluation is important. As a health worker, you can involve children in a variety of ways, and at different levels through a wide range of participation techniques.

2.7 Self-assessment questions

2.8 Answers to activities

3 Answers to self-assessment questions

Study session 1

Study session 2

Bibliography

Bonati, G. (2006) Monitoring and Evaluating with Children: A Short Guide, Plan Togo. Available at http://plan-international.org/files/Africa/WARO/publications/monitoring.pdf (Accessed 7 May 2014).

Lansdown, G. and O’Kane, C. (2014) A Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluating Children’s Participation, Save the Children. Available at www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/toolkit-monitoring-and-evaluating-childrens-participation (Accessed 20 April 2014).

Morrow, V. (2009) The Ethics of Social Research with Children and Families in Young Lives: Practical Experiences, Working paper no. 53, Young Lives. Available at www.younglives.org.uk/files/working-papers/wp53-the-ethics-of-social-research-with-children-and-families-in-young-lives-practical-experiences (Accessed 27 May 2014).

UNICEF (2002) ‘Children participating in research, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) - ethics and your responsibilities as a manager’, Evaluation Technical Notes, No. 1, UNICEF Evaluation Office. Available at www.unicef.org/evaluation/files/TechNote1_Ethics.pdf (Accessed 7 May 2014).

Acknowledgements

This is one of five modules in the CREATE curriculum on children’s rights education for health care workers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It has been developed through a partnership between the MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation based in Arusha in Tanzania, The Open University in the UK and Child Rights Education for Professionals (CRED-PRO), an international programme committed to strengthening the understanding and application of children’s rights in professional practice.

We would like to thank the Oak Foundation in Geneva for its generous funding for the development of this programme and OPITO for additional funding to support advocacy and engagement activities.

CREATE was produced by a team of experts from the four participating countries, including representatives from government, academia, professional practice and the NGO sector. They were led in Child Rights Advocacy by Gerison Lansdown from CRED-PRO and trained and supported by experts in blended learning pedagogy from the CREATE team at The Open University. Many thanks to the governments and agencies who enabled them to participate. The authors are:

• Humphrey Onyango Wandeo, Children Services, Government of Kenya
• Kellen Karanu, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, Government of Kenya
• Kabanda Obed, MD, Executive Director, Action for Community Development (ACODEV), Uganda
• James Kaboggoza Ssembatya, Assistant Commissioner/Children’s Affairs, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Uganda
• Hajat Safinah Kisu Museene, Principal, Jinja School of Nursing and Midwifery, Uganda
• Sarah Bunoti, PhD, Lecturer Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Kyambogo University, Uganda
• Stella Ayo-Odongo, Executive Director, Uganda Child Rights NGO Network (UCRNN), Uganda
• Yodit Tesfaye, Child Protection and Promotion Officer, Ministry of Health, Ethiopia
• Samrawit Tassew Mekuria, MD, Medical Education Team Coordinator, Ministry of Health, Ethiopia
• Stephen Ataro Ayella, MD, Save the Children, Tanzania.

The contributors of original material are:

• Gerison Lansdown, Co-Director, Child Rights Education for Professionals
• Andy Rixon, Lecturer in Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University, UK
• Tony O’Shea-Poon, Head of Equality and Information Rights, The Open University, UK
• Anna Peachey, Deputy Director (Academic) for International Development, The Open University, UK.

We would like to particularly acknowledge the additional material for this curriculum that was produced by TAMASHA in collaboration with District Youth Networks in Temeke (Dar es Salaam), Arusha and Magu. This was research conducted with young people by young people in Tanzania on their experiences of health care.

We would also like to thank those who acted as critical readers for the CREATE curriculum:

• Kate McAlpine, Freelance Consultant, Caucus for Children’s Rights, Tanzania.
• Els Heijnen-Maathuis, Technical Adviser Education, Save the Children International (Uganda)
• Richard Mabala, Director, Tamasha
• Dr Terry DiPaolo, Freelance Consultant
• Dr Helen Yanacopulos, Senior Lecturer in International Development, The Open University, UK.

The CREATE Team are:

• Gerison Lansdown, Co-Director, Child Rights Education for Professionals
• Andy Rixon, Lecturer in Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University, UK
• Tony O’Shea-Poon, Head of Equality and Information Rights, The Open University, UK
• Lindsay O’Dell, Senior Lecturer in Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University, UK
• Lesley-Anne Long, Deputy Director (Academic) for International Development (until April 2013), The Open University, UK
• Anna Peachey, Deputy Director (Academic) for International Development (after April 2013), The Open University, UK
• Ellen Scott, Senior Project Manager for International Development, The Open University, UK
• Alison Robinson, Senior Operations Manager for International Development, The Open University, UK
• Gail Vardy, Projects Coordinator for International Development, The Open University, UK
• Delphine Mugisha, Training Coordinator, MS-TCDC, Tanzania
• Steven Ndosi, Manager for Cross Cultural Department, MS-TCDC, Tanzania
• Anna Mbwambo, Programme Assistant, MS-TCDC, Tanzania.

Photographs and illustrations:

• Courtesy of Action for Community Development (ACODEV)
• Child-to-Child in collaboration with Unicef Ethiopia, March 2010.

All editing by Learning and Teaching Solutions at The Open University.

The opinions expressed in the CREATE materials are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the donor organisations whose generous support made the production of this material possible.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources:

Cover image: African children with Obama belt, ©iStockphoto.com/1001slide.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. If any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.