Exploring the international transportation / transfer of child protection interventions

Over the last two decades there has become an increasing trend of child protection services and interventions developed in one country being ‘transported’ and used in another country or setting. In particular this occurs in humanitarian aid and development assistance contexts (Finkelhor and Lannen, 2015; Kruger et al, 2015, WHO, 2016). Despite this, there is seemingly little evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach (Combaz, 2013; Williamson et al., 2017). The thesis considers the relevance, appropriateness and sustainability of transporting international approaches to child protection in humanitarian and development settings. A Systematic Review was conducted to identify pertinent evidence and semi-structured interviews carried out with senior staff working across the international child protection sector. Results from the Systematic Review and the interviews have been used to examine the evidence regarding the use of transported interventions and services and to identify themes from three identified services and interventions; case management, parenting programmes and community-based child protection mechanisms. The research contributes to the knowledgebase by distilling the existing learning and identifying the processes and influences involved. It also considers the role of evidence in making decisions about whether to transport services and interventions and if so, how to ensure they are contextually congruent. A simple model has been suggested to support the process of transportation and contextualisation of services and interventions