Applications for the 2023 G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program are closed. Please refer back to this website later in the summer for next year’s application. In the meantime feel free to see our brochure for the 2023 program to learn more.
BACKGROUND
The G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program (Landry CP Training) is for mid-career professionals who work to protect children from abuse, violence exploitation and neglect, whether at an international organization, a local NGO, or a government agency. While the conditions facing children may vary— from displacement to labor, from abuse and neglect to early marriage – all children, whatever their circumstances or legal status, have a right to health, education, justice and protection. Realizing these complex rights requires an integrated and multi-sectoral approach in which different state and civil-society partners act together to deliver a holistic system of support.
The Landry CP Training will help practitioners gain a deep understanding of child protection issues, together with effective leadership and negotiation skills, in order to develop and sustain necessary systems and interdisciplinary thinking for better results.
GOALS
The training is designed to create a stimulating learning opportunity for experienced professionals involved with child protection issues. Taught by Harvard faculty and child protection experts, the specific goals of the course are to:
• Ensure that participants understand the impact of violence, exploitation and abuse on children’s emotional, intellectual and social development, including the traumatic effect of war and natural disasters.
• Familiarize participants with multidisciplinary approaches and analytical frameworks available to prevent and address child-specific harms, including international human rights principles.
• Ensure participants understand the components of a well functioning child protection system.
• Familiarize participant with sources of data for child protection systems, including the challenges of setting up such systems, the skills required for evidence-based advocacy, and options for digital solutions for ethical case management within child protection.
• Teach participants coalition-building and leadership skills needed to achieve policy and legislative reforms for children through different entry points of the child protection system (education, health, social services, justice).
• Harness the new knowledge and skills gained by participation in the Landry CP Training, to generate a set of options that strengthen the child protection system in each participating team’s country and improve the quality of their national child protection plans of action.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
All mid-career professionals working in an area where child protection is critical, and who are serious about developing multi-sectoral leadership skills that will allow them to have greater impact, are welcome to apply. This training is intended to strengthen national capacity and sustainability and therefore, applications must be submitted as a cross-sectoral country team, with 3 members per team. The preferred composition of the country team is 1 government partner, 1 international organization partner and 1 local NGO partner. No applications from individuals will be considered for admission to the course.
Fluency in written and spoken English is required for participation. All applications will be considered and reviewed by the core FXB Center for Health & Human Rights Child Protection teaching and training team. Admitted teams will be notified well in advance of the start of the program.
CURRICULUM
The course is thematically divided across the week. Examples of past course sessions include:
• Leveraging Science to Protect the Developing Brain from Violence, Abuse and Neglect
• Engaging and Strengthening the Social Service Workforce
• Data Use and Data Privacy in Child Protection
• Negotiation for the Child Protection System
• Budget Advocacy for Funding the Child Protection System.
• Measurement and Evidence Generation in the Child Protection System
• Leadership in the Multipolar Child Protection System
One of the key benefits of the G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program is that country teams work to develop practical, tangible and immediately implementable solutions towards a real-life issue they are grappling with. Prior to attending the course, country teams work collaboratively on a case study presentation outlining a child protection problem they are confronting, gaps that exist for effectively addressing the problem, and their current strategic approach and challenges implementing this approach to date. The organizers will send participants materials to facilitate this preparatory work.
Past case studies have focused on specific priority child protection issues (e.g. child marriage, alternative care or violence) as well as persistent challenges in the capacity and responsiveness of national child protection systems as a whole, where weaknesses impact all protection issues children face (i.e. inadequate legal frameworks, insufficient social service workforces, or a lack of reliable administrative data on child protection).
Throughout this week-long course at Harvard, participants use the information and ideas they are exposed to in the course to refine their approach. At the end of the course, they present a revised set of options to a panel of Harvard faculty and sector leaders. Individualized feedback and suggestions to further strengthen the approach are provided.
TUITION
Since 2020, full tuition scholarships for all selected participants are being offered through the generous support of the G. Barrie Landry Fund for Child Protection Professional Training and UNICEF USA. Admission is limited to 30 participants (10 country teams of 3) in order to ensure time for student and faculty interaction and personalized feedback.
Please note that participants are responsible for their travel and accommodation costs, and for securing their required visa and other travel documentation.
TRAINING LOGISTICS AND APPLICATION
The week-long G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program is held in-house on the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health campus in Boston, Massachusetts and taught by Harvard faculty and expert child protection professionals. The 2023 program will take place the week of June 12th.
The application process for 2023 is now closed. The applications for next year’s program are expected to be available late summer of 2023. To learn more about the program please see the 2023 brochure. Please email Rebecca Shin, Director of the Child Protection Program and FXB Center Strategy Officer, at rebeccashin@hsph.harvard.edu to request an application for your organization/team.