Summary of Priority Activities

7

1.4 Summary of Priority Activities

The technical sections included in this guidance Sections 4-11 include explanatory narrative on how and when to prioritize specific technical interventions. These prioritized interventions are summarized below, although the more detailed technical sections should be referenced, along with the guidance on strategic planning processes, for clarification and better understanding when planning programs. Education: PEPFAR OVC programs should support efforts to reduce educational disparities and barriers to access among school-age children through sustai a le s ste i interventions for example, school block grants and by: 1 Ensuring children have a safe school environment and complete their primary education 2 Promoting access to early childhood development ECD programs 3 Ensuring personnel create child-friendly and HIVAIDS- and gender-sensitive classrooms 4 Strengthening community- school relationships, including partnering with out-of-school programming 5 Consider supporting post-primary school programming and especially the transition for girls from primary to secondary school 6 Implementing market-driven vocational training only when previous lessons learned are integrated into intervention designs Psychosocial Care and Support: PEPFAR OVC programs should prioritize psychosocial interventions that build on existing resources and place and maintain children in stable and affectionate environments through: 1 Parents and family support programs 2 Peer and social group interventions 3 Mentorship programs 4 Community caregiver support Household Economic Strengthening HES: HES aims to reduce the economic vulnerability of families and empower them to provide for the essential needs of the children in their care through: 1 Money management interventions for savings, access to consumer credit, and fostering knowledge and behaviors for better family financial management 2 Integration of HES activities with complementary interventions, such as parenting skills 3 Income promotion using low-risk activities to diversify and stimulate growth in household income Social Protection: PEPFAR support for social protection aims to reduce vulnerability and risks, foster human capital development, and interrupt the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next through: 1 Supporting host-country governments to initiate, expand, or be innovative in their social protection initiatives at both the policy and operational levels Health and Nutrition: PEPFAR OVC programs ai to i p o e hild e s a d fa ilies a ess to health and nutritional services through: 1 A child-focused, family-centered approach to health and nutrition through ECD and school-based programs 2 Effective integration with existing or planned child-focused community- and home-based activities, including PMTCT, treatment, the P eside t s Mala ia I itiati e PMI, and child survival 8 3 Reducing access barriers to health services through HES and social protection schemes, such as health insurance opportunities 4 Establishing linkages and referral systems between community- and clinic-based programs Child Protection: PEPFAR OVC programs aim to develop appropriate strategies for preventing and responding to child abuse, exploitation, violence, and family separation through: 1 Implementing child safeguarding policies 2 Integrating child protection activities 3 Supporting communities to prevent and respond to child protection issues 4 Strengthening linkages between the formal and informal child protection systems 5 Building government capacity to carry out and improve child protection responses Legal Protection: PEPFAR OVC programs aim to develop strategies to ensure basic legal rights, birth registration, and inheritance rights to improve access to essential services and opportunities through: 1 Raising awareness about birth registration and succession planning 2 Linking birth registration and succession planning to other essential services 3 Improving government birth registration systems and legal mechanisms for enforcing fair and equitable inheritance laws and guardianship Capacity Building: PEPFAR programs should prioritize within their country context the following capacity-building and systems-strengthening interventions: 1 Investing in efforts to build strong leadership and governance 2 Pursuing strategies to strengthen the social service workforce 3 Supporting strategies to improve financing for social service systems 4 Strengthening information management and accountability mechanisms of the social service system 5 Supporting coordination and networking within the social service system

1.5 Background