Mid-Term Evaluation report for the “Improved access to protection for children in schools and communities” project

Background

The project seeks to enhance local and national coordination of state and non-state actors in child protection. The project contributes to the realizing the National Child Protection System by supporting local participation and ownership in child protection at family, school and community level while strengthening response and coordination from local to national levels, in order to support a functioning child protection system where all cases of violence against children are reported and responded to resolutely.

Purpose/objective

The Mid-Term Review (MTR) assessed the degree to which planned outcomes around the four projects are on course to achieve the targeted results. The key objectives of the MTR was to assess the projects for the following: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, project management and sustainability. The MTR also assessed the project’s performance on cross cutting issues; gender equality, disability inclusion, unexpected results, added value and participation.

The overall goal of the project is to improve access to protective and quality school and community environments for children, particularly vulnerable girls and boys, in Kisumu, Homa Bay and Siaya Counties.

Methodology

The Evaluation adopted a mixed descriptive quantitative and qualitative evaluation design based on triangulation of data sources. The approach allowed for complementarity of data sources thus ensuring reliable and valid evaluation estimates based on results and conclusions drawn using the three different methodologies;

• Desk research: Key documents that were reviewed included the start-up documents, the baseline study report, narrative annual reports, partner reports and other readily available literature on education and child protection. 
• Quantitative: 449 respondents were reached. The beneficiary groups targeted using this approach included: parents and caregivers and school going children.
• Qualitative methodology: Unstructured Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to provide a more in-depth analysis ( Children officers, Director of education, Medical officers, Police, EARC, Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) County coordinator, CSO partners (Sub-grantees), Head teachers and ECCD teachers of sampled schools and Chiefs) In addition 30 Focus group discussions comprising of approximately 12 participants each were conducted amongst purposively selected participants; Board of Management (BoM), case managers, parenting groups, school children and Child Protection Committees

Key findings

1. Awareness of formal reporting mechanisms is still low.
2. Disability inclusion has been less successful in provision of disability friendly structures and linking children with disability to support systems including registration of children with disability with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities.
3. Corporal punishment is still perceived as an important discipline approach among surveyed parents/caregivers who justify use of corporal punishment on girls and boys by teachers as well as parents/caregivers in different situations.

Recommendations

1. Continue to stress the importance of using formal reporting mechanisms amongst children and parents/caregivers to ensure actionable reporting and accountability within the National Child Protection System.
2. Continue capacity building of members of BoM as well as ECCD and primary school teachers on disability inclusion and management of children with disability. Thus, continued advocacy for disability friendly infrastructure and mobility and learning materials to support children with disabilities is important.
3. Through sub-granted CBOs, it is important to intensify sensitization of parents/caregivers, teachers, youth and children on use of alternatives discipline and its benefits.

Comments from the organisation

The evaluation findings are useful and the recommendations will be followed up by Plan to the extent possible within the rest of the program period.