SCHOOLS

Childline Mpumalanga is visiting school through the prevention programme and conducting training to children and teachers : services available for children, children’s rights and responsibilities, different forms of child abuse

Prevention of child abuse and neglect through awareness rising in schools and communities

Feedback from calls received on the Crisisline, shows that children are not well informed about their rights and responsibilities, do not always know when they are abused and is often unsure about where they can access help.

In response to this need, Childline Mpumalanga is visiting school through the prevention programme and conducting training to Learners (children) and  facilitators (teachers) re the services available for children, what children’s rights and responsibilities are and also about the different forms of child abuse and what both children and teachers can do when they become aware of abuse.

Prevention of child abuse and neglect through awareness rising in Schools

We identify the major areas of need to be addressed in our School Outreach project by monitoring the calls received on the Crisisline - major recurring themes that we feel can be most appropriately addressed on a face to face encounter with our volunteers. We also monitor the location of the calls to identify any geographic areas of need. Childline calls principals in schools to identify needs and ages of children we should target at each visit, before each school is visited. An evaluation form is handed to the principal and teachers after each visit.

 We are also careful to get input from parents and teachers from the region to ensure buy in and increase the programs relevance. Post-program feedback and evaluation of the projects are used to plan future awareness projects. This allows for continuous quality improvement and gives the beneficiary the opportunity to define the focus of services

Feedback reports from staff re number of schools, teachers, children and parents reached and the reaction on this outreach. Calls from the Crisisline will be monitored to see if the calls from the area targeted in the project increased and are more applicable to service delivered on the line.

Monthly session is conducted with staff and volunteers involved in this programme to ensure skills and level of knowledge on the topics addressed during this programme.