In a new effort to globalize, a School of Public Health program is working to expand the availability of information on child protection.
The Agency Learning Network on the Care and Protection of Children in Crisis-Affected Countries, or CPC Learning Network, grew out of a need for a shared network of information on child care and safety in crisis-affected locations. The program, established in January by clinical global health professor Neil Boothby, works through shared contributions of knowledge from academic supporters, charitable organizations, and local foundations. Boothby began the program with a $1.3-million grant. It is now funded mainly by the U. S. Agency for International Development.
“It [the creation of the network] was a natural progression of the research and a realizing that there was a lot of information that people weren’t sharing as much as they could be. We wanted to engender as much sharing as possible,” said Paul Kellner, the project coordinator.
“We do a lot of on-the-ground work in reference to research,” Kellner said. “We let the NGOs [non-governmental organizations] do what the NGOs do well, and we add an academic fold to it, which I think a lot of NGOs appreciate because they don’t always have the capacity to evaluate their own programming.”
One of CPC’s goals is to create a learning network that emphasizes distance education. “We’re working on having a global classroom of our own,” Kellner said. “We’re working on distance learning. We would like to be able to train practitioners on the ground that might not have the ability to come to Columbia for two years.”
Program manager Bree Akesson said that the learning network fits into Columbia’s larger global initiatives.
“In the past few years, Columbia has seen itself take a greater interest in the world outside of its walls,” Akesson said. “It has taken an interest in international programs.”
To date, CPC has worked in Uganda, Indonesia, and Palestine, and hopes to expand to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka.
The CPC will next host a summit on child protection in Stockholm, Sweden. Over 45 organizations—including UNICEF, Save the Children, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Swedish Ministry for International Development, Scholastic Inc., and the Christian Children’s Fund—will participate. The conference will be the first in which several agencies collaborate on ways to improve child care and protection in emergency situations.
