UNESCO estimates 1.52 billion children, 87% of learners globally, are out of school or childcare due to COVID-19. Parents and caregivers must provide 24/7 care, alongside increased stress, anxiety, illness and financial insecurity. UNICEF reports worldwide increases in child abuse, as seen during school shutdowns of other health emergencies such as Ebola.
Parenting for Lifelong Health has been collaborating with the WHO, UNICEF, Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children (GPEV), USAID, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other partners to develop a set of open-source online COVID-19 parenting resources, condensing evidence from our multiple RCTs of child abuse prevention programmes in Africa, Asia and Europe.
In ten days, these have reached an estimated 4.5 million families in 150+ countries. The resources are available on WHO and UNICEF websites, and have been translated into over 50 languages. They have been adopted and scaled by several governments, including Paraguay, Malaysia, Germany, Romania, Brazil, Bangladesh, France, Columbia, Iceland, Thailand, Vanuatu, Montenegro and Brazil. Social media includes 800,000 ‘likes’ in 6 days on End Violence hashtag and WHO Facebook site alone.
This webinar will provide an overview of the Parenting for Lifelong Health initiative and current response to COVID-19 issue, including a presentation of current resources to promote child protection, and different behaviour change strategies that are being used to disseminate them worldwide.
