Positive Parenting – JOFA

Both children and their parents are experiencing increased psychological and emotional distress, and children are facing higher levels of emotional and psychological abuse from parents and caregivers. 

As part of the JOFA Project’s efforts to ensure parents and caregivers have increased capacity, skills and support to mitigate the child protection risks associated with COVID-19 and its secondary impacts, a transnational campaign is in place to advocate for positive parenting.

All five JOFA countries are putting in place innovative practices and strategies to support positive parenting, implementing different models and methodologies according to the specificities of each context.

All these initiatives share a common goal: to put children at the center through active participation and to support parents and caregivers build strong relationships with their own children or those under their care, by enabling them to resolve problems together.

You can find this data and more highlights on the most prevalent child protection risks in Mali, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia during the COVID-19 pandemic in JOFA’s report “Protecting children during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond”. 

We’re increasing our
efforts to implement positive parenting
programmes and group-based activities
for child wellbeing – especially mental
health and psychosocial support. Positive
parenting practices are key for child protection.

As a part of this strategy, communication
and social behaviour change activities,
community engagement, and training children’s
groups have shown an increased impact in children’s wellbeing, school enrolment, self-confidence, and better communication between parents and children.

Violence against children in homes is deep rooted, widely spread, and rampant. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ is an often-quoted justification for the continued physical violence against children.

According to the 2018 National Violence Against Children Survey, Parents or adult relatives were the most common perpetrators of this form of violence in childhood.

In Uganda, 7 in10 boys and 6 in10 girls have experienced physical violence in their childhood. Over 90% of these children experienced multiple incidents of violence.

This means that more than half of all children in Uganda have experienced physical abuse. Reports show that physical and emotional violence against children rose during the pandemic.

A Joining Forces report revealed that 65.8% of children interviewed said they experienced physical or emotional violence from guardians in December 2020. Unfortunately, children most commonly do not seek help because they think it is their fault or do not think physical violence is a problem.

We want to change that and we believe the power is in your hands.

Our hands are tools for good or bad. They can nurture, support or guide. They can also be used for violence. Joining Forces, with support from the European Union, will run a nine-month campaign challenging parents/caregivers to use their #Hands4Good.

The campaign will directly work with families to end physical violence in their homes and have national

media coverage to share violence against children messages.

In this campaign, we will carry out activities to:

· Reduce the levels of physical violence experienced by children

· Increase reporting of violence against children

To achieve this, we will be:

Breaking myths that surround the use of violence in parenting. Many parents/caregivers believe that physical violence is the only way a child can be disciplined. We will enlist parents/caregivers, who are using non-violent parenting approaches, as our champions. We will also work with communities to end physical violence using a community driven approach. These communities will be our beacons for non-violence, showing that it is possible to end physical violence against children.

Providing tools to parents/caregivers. We will use the Parenting without Violence approach to equip parents/caregivers and children with the tools and knowledge they need to foster a harmonious relationship.

Starting conversations because change begins by acknowledging the problem. We want to get everyone talking about the use of physical violence in parenting. By talking about it, we will share Parenting Without Violence tools and show how parents/caregivers across Uganda are changing their parenting for the better.

Join us and use your #Hands4Good