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In Kenya, the number of street-involved children continues to grow each decade, with most recent estimates as high as 250 000 to 300 000. Despite efforts by local government, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based organizations to address this problem, most children who receive services end up returning to the streets. Since 2021, Agape Children's Ministry has provided time-limited, crisis-oriented services to families recently reintegrated through its Family Strengthening Programme (FSP).
The authors conducted an exploratory programme evaluation of Agape's FSP to ascertain…
Abstract
Background
The effect of different types of care environment on orphaned and separated children and adolescents’ (OSCA) experiences of abuse in sub-Saharan Africa is uncertain.
Objective
Our two primary objectives were 1) to compare recent child abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) between OSCA living in institutional environments and those in family-based care; and 2) to understand how recent child abuse among street-connected children and youth compared to these other vulnerable youth populations.
Participants and setting
This project followed a cohort of OSCA…
Abstract
Background: Street-connected children and youth (SCY) in Kenya disproportionately experience preventable morbidities and premature mortality. We theorize these health inequities are socially produced and result from systemic discrimination and a lack of human rights attainment. Therefore, we sought to identify and understand how SCY’s social and health inequities in Kenya are produced, maintained, and shaped by structural and social determinants of health using the WHO conceptual framework on social determinants of health (SDH) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)…
Executive Summary
Multiple factors such as poverty, violence and neglect continue to push children outside family care around the world. Although different interventions such as family reintegration or foster care aim to return children to safe family environments, they are not always feasible for older children. In such instances independent living may be considered as a form of alternative care which allows children to gradually gain autonomy making reintegration into their communities possible. This literature review explores current international and selected national policy on…
Abstract: In the last four decades, Kenyans have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of street children in the country’s urban centers. This has led to development of several interventional measures to curb the menace, although with little success. Academic evidence from various studies done on street children in Kenya has consistently implied a dialectic connection between the family system and street children phenomenon in Kenya. This paper is a culmination of various studies carried out by the authors and other researchers and seeks to specifically interrogate factors in the…
Introduction & Purpose
The Kisumu Street Children Rehabilitation Consortium (KSCRC) operates collaboratively to affect the problem of children living on the streets of Kisumu. KSCRC leads the nation in the deployment of innovative solutions that have effectively reduced the volume of children living on Kisumu’s streets. The purpose of this report is to share with local and national governmental leaders about Kisumu’s successes in significantly reducing the street population within the city and to inform others of the successful (and unsuccessful) interventions deployed in order to…
Abstract
This qualitative study explored life experiences of children living on the streets in Eldoret, Kenya. A total of 15 children (males = 60% and females = 40%; aged 6 to 18 years) took part in the study. The authors thematically analyzed data collected through individual interviews to explore life at their homes which resulted in them living on the streets and life on the streets itself. Implications are further discussed, and the authors propose that affirmative action is needed to strengthen families so that children could be rescued from the streets and be reintegrated into…
Abstract
Research with street-involved children and youth (SICY) in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past three decades has established a complex web of both micro and macro-level factors that simultaneously "push" and "pull" children and youth to the street. There is still little research with adult family and community members in communities from which SICY originate. Forty men and women from five semi-rural villages in Meru County, Kenya participated in a Rapid Rural Appraisal utilizing a fishbone diagram to explore main and underlying reasons for why children may be or may feel unwelcome in…
Abstract
Research with street-involved children and youth (SICY) in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past three decades has established a complex web of both micro and macro-level factors that simultaneously "push" and "pull" children and youth to the street. There is still little research with adult family and community members in communities from which SICY originate. Forty men and women from five semi-rural villages in Meru County, Kenya participated in a Rapid Rural Appraisal utilizing a fishbone diagram to explore main and underlying reasons for why children may be or may feel unwelcome in…
This chapter appears in Child Maltreatment in Residential Care: History, Research, and Current Practice, a volume of research examining the institutionalization of children, child abuse and neglect in residential care, and interventions preventing and responding to violence against children living in out-of-home care settings around the world.
Abstract
This…