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by Aaron Jell

Exploring effective therapeutic pedagogy for traumatised street children through education:

A case study of Street Child Sierra Leone

October 2014

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Acknowledgements This paper builds on the inputs of the many practitioners and evaluators who have sought to ensure that the voices of those in whose name we work inform our evaluations and decision making. Thank you to friends and colleagues who contributed through their comments and discussions and to those from Street Child (UK), Street Child of Sierra Leone and implementing partners who were interviewed and welcomed me so readily. Particular thanks to Freida M’Cormack and Rebecca Schendel for essential guidance, support and detailed comments on the draft report.

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Abstract

Street children are becoming an increasing phenomenon in post-conflict Sierra

Leone, with an estimated 25,000 in the capital Freetown alone. The impact of being

on the street is characterised by a high level of trauma and risk, rooted in limited

options, survival and coping strategies, and self-destructive behaviour. Although the

situation is increasingly being recognised as a significant source of trauma, and

therapeutic education provision for traumatised children is an increasing priority in

current global educational policy, both in developed and developing contexts,

international commitments to ensure educational access for all children often

overlook street children because of weak implementation, poor monitoring and

evaluation of school practices, and competing development priorities. This report

identifies education, in the form of a child-centred therapeutic pedagogy, as an

approach best positioned to respond to and support the complex needs of street

children and evaluates the extent to which this has been applied in Sierra Leone

through programmes run by Street Child, an international non-governmental

organisation. It finds that despite a host of robust national policies developed in the

years since the end of Sierra Leone’s conflict supporting therapeutic-education

pedagogy, and the internalisation of child-centred approaches by local actors,

coordinated national-level strategic initiatives remain virtually non-existent.

Pragmatic responses are limited to non-government organisations, such as Street

Child and its implementing partners, that are severely resource-constrained and

remain limited beyond Primary school ages. This report points to the need to

overcome constraints common to the wider education sector, and the importance of

local adaptation of therapeutic pedagogy, supported by appropriate, long-sighted

international collaboration.

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Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 3

List of figures ..................................................................................................................... 5

List of acronyms ................................................................................................................. 6

1. Introduction................................................................................................................ 7

1.1 Trauma among street children in Sierra Leone ................................................... 8

1.2 Therapeutic education provision ........................................................................ 8

1.3 Child-centred therapeutic pedagogy in post-conflict settings ............................ 9

1.4 Child-centred therapeutic pedagogy for street children .................................. 11

1.5 Case study methodology ................................................................................... 12

2. Case study: Street Child ........................................................................................... 14

2.1 Street Child’s Theory of Change ........................................................................ 17

2.1.1 Street Child’s operations ............................................................................... 19

2.1.2 Urban programme: Street Workers .............................................................. 20

2.1.3 Observations from the field: local interpretation of Street Child’s child-centred

therapeutic-educational approaches ....................................................................... 21

2.1.4 Children’s perspectives ................................................................................. 24

2.2 A child-centred theory of change? .................................................................... 25

2.2.1 Differential outcomes in education provision .............................................. 25

2.2.2 Therapeutic support ...................................................................................... 28

2.3 Implementation at the local level ..................................................................... 29

3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 30

References ....................................................................................................................... 33

Appendices ...................................................................................................................... 40

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List of figures

Figure 1: A map of Sierra Leone showing the districts currently supported by Street Child UK Figure 2: SCoSL’s ToC for out of school (OOS) children

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List of acronyms

AGI African Governance Initiative ARC Action for the Rights of Children CBO Community-Based Organisation CfSC Consortium for Street Children CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child CWIG Child Welfare Information Gateway DDR Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration DFE Department for Education DfID Department for International Development ECM Every Child Matters ECT Early Childhood Trauma GoSL Government of Sierra Leone IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee IIEP International Institute for Educational Planning IFRCfPS International Foundation Resource Centre for Psychosocial Support INEE Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies INGO International Non-Governmental Organisation IRC International Rescue Committee LGED-JP Local Governance and Economic Development Joint Programme MHF Mental Health Foundation MoE Ministry of Education NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NPSE National Primary School Examinations OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OECD Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development PTSD Post-traumatic Stress Disorder PTSR Post-traumatic Stress Reaction SCF Save the Children Foundation SCoSL Street Child of Sierra Leone SCUK Save the Children UK SD Secondary Disorder SEN Special Educational Needs ToC Theory of Change UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNDESA United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund UNOCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs USA United States of America WASSCE West African Senior School Certificate Examination WB World Bank WHO World Health Organisation

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1. Introduction

Therapeutic education provision for traumatised children is an increasing priority in current global educational policies. In development contexts, therapeutic education, more commonly referred to as psychosocial education, is often evident in emergency crisis response programmes. For instance, over the past 15 years or so, psychosocial education has catered for refugees and/or victims of conflict and natural disaster (UNHCR 2011; Plan UK 2009; IRC 2004; UNESCO 1998). Beyond crisis programming, however, there is a growing recognition of the need to address the various challenges vulnerable young people face, both in developed and developing contexts. In addition to conflict situations, these vulnerabilities arise from situations of poverty, abuse, conflict, abandonment, health and mental health issues, alcohol and drug addiction, and criminal or gang activity (WB 2011; UNICEF 2011).

The international non-government organisation (INGO) Street Child focuses on a particular phenomenon in developing countries, which is increasingly being recognised as a significant source of trauma – street children (Street Child 2014; de Benitez 2011). This report relates to Street Child’s projects in Sierra Leone, a post-conflict country where psychosocial concerns were of paramount importance in the early 2000s, at the end of a decade-long conflict, particularly because of the widespread use of children as child soldiers and their victimisation during the conflict. During the years after the end of the conflict, other challenges have arisen. Specifically, this report focuses on the psychosocial educational needs of the rising number of street children (CfSC 2011; WHO 2002). This is in the context of limited access to education, even for the mainstream population, amidst persistent primary and secondary traumas.

While therapeutic approaches can comprise a number of frameworks, international mainstream and specialist educational pedagogy promotes child-centred teaching, which considers foremost the needs of children and the relevance of their educational experience, emphasising the important contribution educators make to the lives of pupils (UNICEF 2014b; ECM 2010) and the responsibility of the education system to the wider needs of pupils, families and communities. It also encompasses educational rights, child-protection and social inclusion (UNESCO 2013).

This approach is particularly relevant in dealing with victims of complex trauma. This report accordingly employs a child-centred framework to assess Street Child’s therapeutic-educational programmes for street children in Sierra Leone. It considers the available policies to address the need for child-centred therapeutically oriented teaching and learning for traumatised and disaffected children; the effectiveness of relevant organisations in their implementation of therapeutic pedagogy; and the extent to which national policies and local interventions in Sierra Leone reflect a child-centred approach, and their appropriateness for addressing the needs of street children.

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1.1 Trauma among street children in Sierra Leone An international understanding of street children recognises them as young people who ‘experience a combination of multiple deprivations and street-connectedness’ (de Benitez 2011: viii) including those who live and those who work on the streets. Educational policies, whose commitments to ensure educational access for all children by 2015 (UNESCO 2012), often overlook street children because of weak implementation, poor monitoring and evaluation of school practices, competing development priorities and lack of reliable data on street children (Cross and Seager 2010; UNESCO 2010, de Benitez 2011).

In 2012, Street Child responded to the lack of statistical data regarding Sierra Leone’s street child population by coordinating a headcount of street children aged 18 and under (ScoSL 2012), which was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID). Applying the definition of street children above as those who work and live on the streets, the report estimated the population of street children to be 49,698, just over 2% of the countries child population1 which, in a country where just over 41% of the population are aged 0-14 years, represents a potentially significant problem. Nearly half (24,615) of all children counted were in the capital city, Freetown. 1,356 children were sleeping rough on the capital’s streets, 39 of whom were under 6 years old (WB 2014: 1; ScoSL 2012: 10-11).

The psychological effects of trauma on street children can include nervous disorders such as anxiety and depression; personality and behavioural disorders, including PTSR and SD; and neurological disorders such as ECT (van der Kolk 2014; Werner 2012; Cepeda 2005). Because of the length of time that has passed since the conflict in Sierra Leone, most street children would not be described as suffering from PTSR directly. However, children who have been raised or influenced by adults affected by the condition are indirectly impacted, a contributing factor of SD (Chandra et al 2010).

1.2 Therapeutic education provision Globally, therapeutic education for victims of trauma has existed, and still exists within, parallel to, and independently of mainstream school, according to the needs of the student and the Special Educational Needs (SEN) policies and constraints of the local authority or national framework, including funding options2 (Evans 2003; Meijer 1999). The current global definition of SEN is based on research conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 1995) which recommended that countries re-allocate their national categories into three groups: pupils whose disability arises from physical impairment, those with learning or behavioural difficulties acquired through unsatisfactory experiences (e.g. trauma), and pupils who have difficulties because of social disadvantage. Traumatised street children would fit into some or all of these categories depending on individual circumstances.

1 Aged 0-14 (WB 2014).

2 For example, in England, France and Luxembourg, where children with greater needs have greater funding, have more

strategic behaviour by parents and teachers to secure resources and tend to spend more funds on litigation procedures (Meijer 1999).

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Education can play a crucial role in the psychosocial protection of traumatised children and the preservation of normal growth and development (van der Kolk 2014). Formal and non-formal education can be a vital nurturing and stimulating environment as children grow, offering opportunities to learn and master new skills. For traumatised children in a developing context this can represent one of the only places in their community where they can ‘hope to access this crucial developmental and psychosocial support’ (IRC 2004: 3). Education is often the focal-point for supporting children and communities in post-conflict and recovering contexts, making the implementation of a therapeutic pedagogy essential to restoring nurturing developmental opportunities where educators can communicate critical life-saving messages, model positive caring adult behaviour and re-establish children’s trust in a climate created to promote healing (WB 2011; CWIG 2009).

Psychological health is often defined along a continuum from normal and healthy to abnormal and mentally ill: between these two extremes rests the expansive middle category of psychosocial problems. In response, therapeutic-educational programmes aim to ‘provide educational, psychological and social opportunities which support the well-being of children affected by the trauma of conflict or natural disaster’ (IIEP 2006: 107). In practice, this means ‘facilitating the reconstruction of local social structures: family, community groups, schools which may have been destroyed or weakened by an emergency, so that they can give appropriate and effective support to those suffering severe stress related to their experiences’ (Nicolai 2003: 117).

Key international policy influences that have affected the provision of therapeutic education in developing contexts include the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),3 which significantly influences international educational policy, highlighting not only the legal rights of children but also every child’s right to development. It has paved the way for international responses to trauma and SEN (UNICEF 2014a; ARC 2009).

1.3 Child-centred therapeutic pedagogy in post-conflict settings In light of the foregoing review of the different influences on, and approaches to, therapeutic education provision in a developing context this report is concerned with a child-centred therapeutic pedagogy, which is most applicable to Sierra Leone.

In conflict contexts the need for this approach is readily apparent:

3 Relevant CRC articles include:2, 5, 12 – 27, 29.1.a, 31 and 39 which describe psychosocial issues and approaches in

developing contexts, particularly in supporting the physical and psychological rehabilitation and social reintegration of children and families impacted by conflict and other humanitarian emergencies (UNICEF 2014a).

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‘Armed conflict affects all aspects of child development – physical, mental and emotional – and to be effective, assistance must take each into account … ensuring, from the outset of all assistance programmes, that the psychosocial concerns intrinsic to child growth and development are addressed’ (Machel 1996: 49).

Machel’s observation highlights the need for a community-based child-centred therapeutic pedagogy in regions affected by conflict – and has spurred on the flood of psychosocial educational programmes ‘from the outset’ of emergency responses and subsequent analysis (IRC 2014; IASC 2007; SCUK 2003).4

It has been observed that as crises pass psychosocial needs become less of a priority, as victims of trauma are perceived to recover and their situations seem to stabilise or return to normal (Chandra et al 2010; Nicolai 2003). As discussed earlier, while this is the case for many people, there remain substantive sections of the community who do not, and cannot, follow this recovery pattern of development (Werner 2012; SCF 1994). This loss can affect subsequent generations. For the victims of complex trauma, as those with Sierra Leone’s street children, recovery may be a difficult, long, even a life-long process. Progress is consequently slow and difficult to achieve (MHF 1999).

Unfortunately, sustained therapeutic intervention is often lacking in post-conflict situations (ARC 2009) and those that do exist are inadequate for the task: short-term projects limited in scope and coverage, and longer-term programmes facing extreme challenges in capacity, delivery and coordination (UN 2012; IFRCfPS 2009). Responses tend to pathologise victims of conflict and trauma – making assumptions about types of need and treatment. In contrast a child-centred therapeutic-educational framework, such as the one used by Street Child, seeks to understand, relate and respond to groups like street children and their contexts by working with them and those who know them. This approach recognises that the child is at the centre of educational and therapeutic planning, delivery and development, and that central to the child are their own social context, support network, influences and circumstances (UNICEF 2014b; ECM 2010).5 In other words, the child is the central focus for all stakeholders, who put the child first, and prioritise their interests. Furthermore, a child-centred approach serves to tackle the negative stigma surrounding street children (ScoSL 2012). Thus, a child-centred therapeutic-educational framework will provide the benchmark throughout the

4 The Graça Machel Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children (1996) is a major influence on international policy

making in this arena (SCUK 2003). Its recommendations include: maintaining education systems during conflict; using alternative delivery mechanisms; looking at possibilities of education provision outside formal school buildings such as through distance education, etc.; lobbying donors to extend the boundaries of emergency funding and ensure that education is a priority component of humanitarian assistance; starting education in refugee camps, as well as camps for internally displaced people, as soon as possible; and not overlooking education provision for adolescents (Machel 1996: 47-48). 5 While not being explicitly community-based, a social focus is implicit to a child-centred framework (ECM 2010).

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empirical component of this study, which focuses on therapeutic provision through education.6

1.4 Child-centred therapeutic pedagogy for street children For street children, a child-centred therapeutic-educational approach emphasises the importance of enabling the child to make choices about their own future; the child is central to the decision making process. In the words of Street Child, they are recognised as ‘resourceful, resilient and resolute, with meaningful contributions to make’ (ScoSL 2012: 28) rather than as passive victims, trouble-makers or law-breakers in need of rescue or correction. Learning activities, whether formal, informal, in situ or ad hoc, engage the child as an active participant in the learning process, through collaborative group work to encourage peer interaction, problem-solving and leadership skills. In this context the curricula, although perhaps academically rudimentary, seeks to be holistic, incorporating lessons on values, life-skills and knowledge, embedded within the relationship-building and mentoring process. The educational context must be local as well as accessible, interesting and flexible – with relevant resources and materials. In the case of street children, at least initially, this involves detached teaching that takes the classroom to where they are. Although their education begins on the streets, as mainstream integration becomes possible the school must be situated near to the supporting community of the child, whether this is where they live at point of contact or where they move to, should they choose to.

The learning environment needs to be as comfortable and safe as possible utilising the available resources – including safe water and sanitation facilities, a feeding programme, provision of school materials, such as uniforms, back-packs, equipment, age-appropriate furniture and first-aid equipment, and adequate, accessible learning resources (INEE 2004; IRC 2004).

A child-centred therapeutic-educational approach also encompasses those connected to the child. It promotes respect, training, development and support for teachers as professionals. It actively involves the community in programme management and each child’s education and development. And crucially it enables reconciliation and reintegration with family members (where possible) and provides assistance to the child’s support network with a view to empowering independent living and livelihood. This approach recognises that learning takes place both in and out of school, and the need to maintain a child-friendly, child-centred environment in its broadest sense (UNICEF 2014b; IASC 2007; Sphere 2004). This community-based approach is essential in a development context that is understood to have a more integrated family/social structure than the ‘isolationist’ European/Western one which separates the child from the adult world (Fleer 2003).

6 The phrase ‘child-centred therapeutic-education’ is used here to differentiate from the broader child-centred pedagogy.

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In summary, while recognising the inter-relationship between various aspects of therapeutic, SEN and psychosocial frameworks, an approach presents itself as most relevant in considering a programmatic response to the needs of street children: the child-centred therapeutic-educational model. Adopting this approach has the advantage of maintaining focus on the welfare and needs of the child while firmly situating them in their wider social context. Being community-based it remains first and foremost child-centred, a key concern when working with street children who may be social outcasts or have severe relational issues.

A child-centred therapeutic-educational framework is therefore used to inform and guide the investigation.

1.5 Case study methodology Street Child was chosen as the case study because it is at the forefront of activities related to street children in Sierra Leone. Its operational style also meant that it was logistically straightforward to study, as the researcher was able to join the programme for a short period as a volunteer. The overall objective of the case study was to investigate therapeutic pedagogical work with street children in Sierra Leone and explore Street Child’s programmatic approaches in order to reflect on its successes, and suggest ways in which they can be built upon, and identify potential weaknesses and discuss ways in which they can be overcome. The study also explored how those who work and live alongside traumatised street children interpret the international, national and local frameworks governing therapeutic pedagogy, and their effectiveness.

The case study itself involved an initial review of Street Child’s literature, which examined the extent to which the organisation’s policy and programming were in line with international best practice and local government approaches, and particularly a child-centred therapeutic-educational approach, as identified in the previous section. Street Child was also evaluated against its own Theory of Change (ToC), to establish whether their outcomes match their stated objectives, and the extent to which the programme as a whole – including the outworking of a therapeutic pedagogy – is considered from a child-centred conceptual framework, which represents international best practice in this domain, is explicitly stated as being used by Street Child among other agencies, and is currently a mainstream requirement of key international funding partners, such as DfID (Stein & Valters 2012; Cathy 2011).

This initial review also supported a comparison with the implementation of programmes on the ground, and an assessment of the extent to which programme implementation conformed to Street Child’s policies/stated approach.

The field-based component of the research comprised key informant interviews and in situ observation, which were utilised to enable the portrayal of the attitudes and

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experiences of stakeholders, who are crucial to the implementation of a child-centred therapeutic-educational strategy.

Key informant interviews Study participants were purposively sampled for inclusion in the study. Street Child project coordinators were targeted in the UK in order to obtain an understanding of the [intended] philosophy behind Street Child’s approach. In Sierra Leone, potential participants needed to be Sierra Leoneans engaged as managers, co-ordinators, qualified teachers or social workers with Street Child’s Street Worker programmes and partner organisations in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Street Child programme coordinators assisted in selecting English-speaking participants based on their experience and qualifications, and also assisted with liaison and communication. The total number of participants was to be determined by a theoretical sampling approach, whereby participants were recruited until saturation was achieved (i.e. until no new information was forthcoming); consequently, the group size was not specified beforehand and changed during implementation.7 In the study seven participants were interviewed, two British workers in the UK and five Sierra Leonean workers in Sierra Leone.

Information was primarily collected verbally from participants during semi-structured open-questioning led by an interview guide (see Appendix One) prepared beforehand. The aim of these interviews was to establish knowledge and experience of relevant therapeutic-educational practices and ascertain the interviewees’ views of the successes and challenges of the field/programme, which was illustrated with examples from their personal experience, providing a ‘picture of the situation as it naturally happens’ (Burns and Grove 2003: 201). Questions were asked inductively, proceeding from general to specific, according to the interview guide, being careful not to direct or coerce.

A relational approach allowed scope for providing in-depth information regarding the subject and an intimate understanding of those working with traumatised street children and the environment they live in – which are essential child-centred therapeutic-educational concerns. It should be noted that although the interview guide was used to structure the sessions and offer probes and prompts, conversation was dictated by the participant, according to areas that they deemed most interesting or relevant.

The researcher aimed to establish rapport with interviewees through a brief verbal introduction and explanation about the purpose of the study, reinforced textually by means of a small flyer (see Appendix Two), which also served to gain written informed consent before commencing interviews and address ethical issues such as confidentiality and data protection. Audio recordings were made and notes were taken at the scene and all recorded data was subsequently transcribed and coded for use during analysis.

7 It is common for the sampling size, meaning the number of people involved in the research, to not be established before

conducting qualitative research (Sumner 2012)

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In situ observation The third aspect of the field study was supposed to be participant-observation of Street Child’s programmes. This proved unfeasible, however, due to a governmental declaration of a national health crisis,8 which resulted in heavy restrictions on travel and public gatherings and led to the activity of many INGOs (WHO 2014), including Street Child, to be suspended, and the evacuation of non-essential international personnel (including the researcher).

Participant-observation was therefore replaced by in situ observation, which comprised gathering anecdotal evidence during interviews and noting observations made on site before and after interviews. All participants were verbally informed of this process by way of a formal introduction to the group by project managers. Written consent was gained from them and project managers, who were the relevant gate-keepers in this case.

The use of three different methodological approaches – the document review, key informant interviews and anecdotal evidence in lieu of participant observation – was intended to allow the triangulation of data in order to check for consistency and make connections across the board.

2. Case study: Street Child

The majority of Sierra Leone’s therapeutic education provision, and large areas of the national educational system, rely heavily (and in places solely) on private institutions (GoSL 1995). As such, responsibility for the failings of Sierra Leonean SEN, therapeutic, trauma and psychosocial education provision lies as much with international development partners as it does with the government. In the absence of robust national provision, NGOs like Street Child are the primary (if not sole) implementers of SEN and therapeutic-educational policies in Sierra Leone. A UK-based INGO established in 2008, Street Child is considered to be the foremost organisation working with street children in Sierra Leone mostly in the capital, Freetown, and nearby Lungi, as well as other vulnerable young populations in rural areas (Street Child 2012). In 2014, Street Child was a recipient of the UK’s Department for International Development’s (DfID) ‘donation match’ scheme for Sierra Leone.9 This serves as an important indicator of the British government’s endorsement of Street Child’s approach (DfID 2014).

This section considers Street Child’s prevailing programmatic policy, and uses both the organisation’s own theory of change and the child-centred therapeutic-education framework to evaluate the interpretation and implementation of the programmes on

8 The president of Sierra Leone declared a public health emergency as the Ebola crisis deepened across West Africa,

initiating house-to-house searches for those who may have been exposed, the quarantining of sick patients, restrictions on public gatherings and travel including official barricades and check-points and a curfew for all citizens from 7pm to 7am. (Epoch 2014). This resulted in several international airlines suspending their flights. 9 Whereby all money raised for sanctioned projects between 18 March and 17 June, 2014, were doubled by the British

government (www.street-child.org).

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the ground. Street Child’s stated vision is of ‘creating an enabling environment for the proper up-bringing of orphans, abandoned and neglected children by empowering them and their families to live together in the love and security of a family.’ The word family is used here in a wider sense than the western notion of the immediate family, reflecting instead the local Krio word fambul meaning a relative or relation as part of the extended family (Wang 2007), which in Sierra Leone can comprise hundreds of people.

As a result of this vision, Street Child believes that ‘empowering children to defend themselves against all forms of abuse is the best form of child protection’ (as referred to in article 19 of the UN charter for the rights of children (CRC 2014; UNICEF 2014a).10 An integral part of this is to ‘create educational opportunity for some of the most vulnerable children in West Africa’ (Street Child 2014: 1). At the time of its founding (2008), Sierra Leone was highlighted for attention by the INGO because of its dire need. It was ranked the poorest country in the world, being at the very bottom of both the World Poverty and Human Development Indexes (UNCTAD 2008) with a life expectancy of just 41 years (AGI 2014). From the outset Street Child’s founder and director, Tom Dannatt (who started the organisation with his own money), expressed concern for the future of street children and, by extension, the nation, if their situation was not improved: ‘These children will grow up uneducated and unable to make a useful contribution to society. They grow up brutalised, radicalised and in active opposition to society. That is when it becomes dangerous. Sierra Leone's recent history is a shocking reminder of that’ (The Independent 2011: 65).

Street Child works with many NGOs and CBOs, but works most closely with Street Child of Sierra Leone (SCoSL). SCoSL is not simply the local office of Street Child but a critical implementing partner in its own right, albeit funded by Street Child. It provides local leadership and autonomy over projects, which Street Child emphasises, rather than providing a “great cohort of ex-pats” (Street Child Manager interview, 25 June 2014, London). Another Street Child Manager noted that the two organisations, although operating in separate areas, are entirely interconnected in that “if Street Child makes a suggestion which SCoSL does not deem feasible, then it does not implement it, and likewise if SCoSL makes a suggestion which Street Child does not deem feasible then it does not fund it.; in this way both have equal control over programming” (25 June 2014, London).

10 Article 19 of the UN CRC states: ‘to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or

negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse.’ (UNICEF 2014a: 1).

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In partnership with local and international actors, the charity has grown into one of the most broad-reaching charities currently working in the region, with 30 projects in multiple countries supporting over 20,000 urban and rural children to access quality education (Street Child 2014). Partnering organisations include INGOs such as StreetInvest, WarChild, Handicap International (HI), Save the Children (SCUK) and Elisabeth’s Legacy of Hope (ELOH); government ministries and agencies, including Ministries of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, Education, Youth and Sports, Health and Sanitation, and Justice (MoJ), and the National Committee for Gender-Based Violence (NACGBV); and local NGOs/community-based organisations, including the Children’s Forum Network, Action for the Rights of Children, Help a Needy Child, Future for Children, and the Concern for the Deprived Welfare Association.

Over the years the INGO has expanded its operations from an urban-based child-protection mandate focussed on street children, to now encompass educational development for poor and vulnerable children (including street children), and family reunification and support, including family/small business initiatives for families and communities connected with street children. Although its approach has always been child-centred, in expanding to meet wider needs their services more comprehensively reflect this child-centred ethos. Increasingly, efforts to support Sierra Leone’s street children, which began on the streets through street-workers, detached teachers and social-workers, now seeks to address educational access and capacity building.

Figure 1: A map of Sierra Leone showing the

districts currently supported by Street Child UK

Source: http://www.street-child.co.uk/what-we-do

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Quality education was identified as representing the best option for improving the quality of life and enabling social reintegration and support for street children. But in order for this to be an effective strategy other related factors require significant action. These include: teacher training, curriculum support and investment in school infrastructure (from providing materials to repairing and constructing schools), sexual health advice and support for commercial sex workers, specialised support for amputee-children, and psychosocial support and basic provisions offered by detached outreach teachers, street-workers and social workers. Even though their work is no longer solely focussed on children who live on and/or make a living from the streets, they have retained the name Street Child because this group still represents a significant proportion of their efforts, and it is an important and distinctive global brand.

2.1 Street Child’s Theory of Change Street Child structures its work around a Theory of Change (ToC, 11 Figure 2), which is based on a child-centred ethos12 that assumes that communities play an active and essential role in the reintegration and development of street children (Street Child 2014; SCoSL 2012). Funding agencies, such as DfID, increasingly expect development organisations to underpin their approach with a theoretical

11 Theory of Change (ToC) is a planning framework that emerged in the 1990s and has been adopted by numerous

development organisations as a means of offering clarification to their goals.

12 Street Child’s ToC is described by the organisation as ‘child safe’ and ‘child friendly’ (Street Child 2014: 6).

Figure 2: SCoSL’s ToC

for out of school (OOS)

children

Source:

SCoSL 2013: 9

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framework which articulates their rationale for programmatic activity. In the case of ToC this entails using literature/evidence to explain how given activities are expected to lead to the changes they wish to affect within their target population.

Theories of Change contain three fundamental elements: the context of change, contribution to change and application of change (ToC 2014). All three of these elements are apparent in SCoSL’s own ToC diagram (on next page):

In regard to the context for change (how change happens) Street Child’s ToC assumes that establishing ‘effective and sustainable schools’ helps children who have no access to schools, and that by eliminating barriers to education its ToC helps children who have access, but still do not attend. Street Child’s ToC anticipates providing opportunities for teenagers who have received little or no formal education, helping them gain basic literacy and numeracy skills.

Its organisational contribution to change refers to the specific activities it funds and implements in each context. For children in communities without schools it invests in the strengthening of infrastructure, systemic and organisational capacities, such as training and support, the provision of educational resources and materials, and the construction of school buildings. It promotes social awareness and community engagement/ownership. For children unable or unwilling to attend school it promotes informal education and therapeutic support through outreach workers. For older children with little or no schooling it provides basic literacy and numeracy education and limited vocational skills training.

Its application of change13 refers to the methods by which the contribution is made, how these are monitored and evaluated and how the effectiveness of the organisation’s application of its ToC is documented. This includes on-going general assessment and training, as well as specific teacher training schemes, and regular monitoring of vulnerable children nationally and regionally, which establishes a clearer picture of the problem they face - most remarkable of which was their conducting Sierra Leone’s very first census of street children (SCoSL 2012).

The holistic approach of this ToC to the educational and related needs of street children is consistent with a child-centred therapeutic-educational framework as is its concern for relevancy and inclusion expressed in the desire to enable accessible education. This heavily community-oriented approach to reintegration could be influenced by the psychosocial developmental approach and therapeutic social pedagogy frameworks, which also offer a rationale for its emphasis on using only local operatives in the field. The focussed nature of its therapeutic engagement, while targeting family reintegration issues and their reluctance to encourage education, implies a therapeutic strategy that is influenced by both short-term cognitive behavioural and longer-term client-centred approaches.

13 i.e. how the contribution to change is planned and implemented/interpreted in the context of change and how this can be

‘developed’ and ‘proven’.

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2.1.1 Street Child’s operations According to Street Child’s own research, there are nearly 50,000 children ‘relying on the streets for their survival, a portion of them living full-time on the streets’ (SCoSL 2012: 10). Street Child describes the lives of these children as being a ‘brutal… sad and harrowing existence’ (Street Child 2014: 3), relying on child labour (including fixed business, moveable business and casual work), petty crime, begging, or commercial sex work to survive.

Throughout the 2012 survey a distinction was made between Freetown and the remaining mostly rural areas which, it may be recalled from earlier, is due to the differences in urban and rural needs as well as the fact that the capital is home to just under half of the country’s street child population (SCoSL 2012).14 These factors make the urban/rural a natural division, which is reflected in various statistics: after Freetown, the largest numbers of street children were identified in Sierra Leone’s second largest city, Bo (6,632 children representing 13.34% of the total head count) and, aside from Freetown and Bo, no other town exceeds 5,000 street children; rural Makeni displays the lowest proportion of street children to overall population (1.73%) and urban Lungi, home of Sierra Leone’s only international Airport and linked directly to Freetown via water transport, has the highest (16.68%).

Street Child's principal focus is on empowering the poorest children by giving them the chance to go to and remain in school. It assists their social integration and enables their families to support them, representing a comprehensive child-centred approach. It works in two distinct environments with distinct needs: rural and urban. While the latter being the key focus of this study, it is worth briefly discussing Street Child’s rural programmes, so as to provide a larger picture of the organisation’s ethos.

Through teacher training and the establishment of educational facilities in remote rural areas, Street Child seeks to bring ‘access to education to some of the poorest rural locations in the world’ (Street Child 2014: 3). The issues of access for poor, vulnerable and street children in rural areas are identified as being related to a physical lack of school buildings (and related infrastructure, organisation and systems) and qualified teachers – compared to urban areas which have schools and systems in place. In response, Street Child’s rural work, while featuring ‘urban’ programmatic elements, such as outreach, informal and therapeutic education, counselling and family reunification, is fundamentally different because it is centre-based with a directive to construct school buildings and train teachers. Both programmes, however, share the same basic target: to enrol children in formal education.

14 Freetown is home to 49.53% of Sierra Leone’s street child population (24,615 of 48,771) which comprises 13,320 boys and

11,295 girls (SCoSL 2012: 43).

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2.1.2 Urban programme: Street Workers Of the nearly 50,000 children that rely on the streets of Sierra Leone for their survival, around 3,000 of those are living and sleeping on the streets, nearly half of whom do so in

Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city. It is Street Child’s intention to ‘help them all’ (Street Child 2014: 1) by ‘creating maximum impact on the numbers of children whose lives are controlled by the streets’ (2014: 3).

The main elements of the Street Workers programme include: having surveyed and established where street children assemble Street Workers personnel (who are all qualified teachers and/or social workers) use introductory games and activities to draw their attention and interest and begin relationship-building. The children are then invited to participate in informal education and counselling/discussion groups in which their concerns and interests are discussed. After this process, and in response to the issues raised, children are interviewed individually and assessments are made of their educational, health and family status. The children are allocated provisions and programmes accordingly. Family tracing services are offered, mediation and reunification is implemented and enrolment in formal schools local to the children is initiated. The child, family and school are all supported by a dedicated social worker.

It may be recalled from that a child-centred therapeutic-educational framework emphasises the importance of: enabling the child to make choices about their own future; an educational context that is accessible, comfortable, safe and flexible; and involving community and enhancing support structures. An examination of the Street Workers programme literature shows that it is fully in keeping with this ethos, as well as with Street Child’s TOC.

In the first instance, the literature explicitly references a child-centred approach: ‘As part of a child-centred approach it becomes the job of Street Workers to facilitate a child’s realisation of his/her qualities – recognising the child as the principle stakeholder in his/her future, and not to prescribe superficial solutions informed by the notion that children are incapable and in need of protection’ (SCoSL 2012: 27). As is consistent with a child-centred therapeutic-educational approach and Street Child’s ToC, the Street Workers programme works directly with street children in their own environment towards reunification with their families and the creation of a sustainable home-life, and reintroduction to formal education. As mentioned before Freetown does not suffer from a lack of schools, which makes this a feasible strategy.

Further evidence of a holistic child-centred therapeutic-educational ethos is in their counselling services and, where required, provision for basic needs – such as food, clothing, medical care and a safe haven ‘away from the streets’ – as well as financial support for ‘all school materials and educational costs for each child and arranging remedial school courses to ensure that they are fully prepared for their first year back at school’ (Street Child 2014: 4).

The wider community-based concerns implicit in a child-centred approach are reflected in Street Child’s ‘ultimate aim [to] locate and reunite street children with

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their families’, where project workers seek to ‘work closely with their families and the community to create the best possible environment into which the child can be reintroduced’ (2014: 4). Between 2008 and 2012 they successfully reunified almost 2,000 children with their families. Although this is applied differently according to ages: 6-10 years olds are gradually reintroduced to schools, whereas over 10s attend second chance programs aimed at raising their basic education. It is estimated that 85% of children wish to return to home and to school, but current funding restrictions mean that a majority cannot be supported in Secondary school or higher after completing Second Chance.

The desired outcomes for the Street Worker programme are that street children are relocated from the streets and reunified with their immediate or extended family so that they may be supported as they are reintegrated with local schools. Important aims attached to these goals are that children progress psychosocially (monitored during counselling and therapeutic support), attend school/work (monitored through attendance records); achieve passes at relevant educational levels (measured through national standardised testing), and remain in a home context that nurtures them (monitored by social worker) and physically support them – the most needy families are enrolled in the Family Business Scheme (financial records are monitored).

2.1.3 Observations from the field: local interpretation of Street Child’s child-centred therapeutic-educational approaches

It may be recalled that fieldwork consisted of interviews and in situ observation of Street Child’s urban programmes in Freetown, specifically the Street workers programme. This section considers the Street Worker programme from the perspective of local implementers – the social workers and teachers – that are responsible for actualising the programme. It focuses particularly on the extent to which they have internalised the programme’s overtly child-centred therapeutic-educational framework, which, as has been demonstrated above, is also reflected in Street Child’s own TOC.

It is clear that a child-centred methodology is considered central to the local context, described by local workers as “an enabling approach… building the capacity within the child and family to pursue their rights,” 15 which in practical terms is expressed very simply: “the child should always be the focus of the engagement.” According to respondents from its outset the Street Workers programmatic responses to Freetown’s street children have been child-centred in nature, swiftly moving from centre-based to detached outreach style. In response to the “highly mobile style of street life” local workers “walked the streets to reach street children where they were and find out from them what they needed – as well as letting them know about their options.” The background of the Street Workers themselves is essential to reaching and relating to benefactors as their own beginnings were described as

15 Quotes from interviews conducted in Freetown from July to August 2014. All such sources are framed in double

parenthesis.

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“very humble” – whose educations were supported by philanthropists and religious organisations, the teachers earning scholarships by working as pupil-teachers for one to two years, and the social workers by working full-time while studying.

A child-centred therapeutic-educational approach appears to come naturally to the Street Workers who describe it as being “relevant for children on the streets” because of its non-formal ideology and use of non-formal engagement with children by educating them “on the street corners.” This is manifested from the initial contact, which is made socially through engaging in group/team activities, games, parties, celebrations and discussions. During this time Street Workers “see who wants help to learn,” making special note to identify “those with problems who are more vulnerable” and who may need one-to-one counselling and specialist support.

A child-centred ethos is also apparent in the importance local workers attach to being informal and relaxed when approaching street children, who are often “scared of strangers… because they have been abused.” Common experience on the ground is that trust can be established in a short period of time through being “non-judgmental and open,” which allows a “positive attachment to be formed.” Also, being armed with information helps to bridge this gap. Initially, street children are often unaware of Street Child and the options open to them and are apprehensive about workers when approached. The child-centred therapeutic-educational approach of Street Work is considered to be the “essential first step in engagement,” along with the wider child-centred holistic concern of “offering emergency assistance such as food, blankets and short-term shelter where appropriate and available.” One Street Worker explained that in extreme cases the relationship-building process is “very slow but when they have trust the very vulnerable ones will be desperate for any help.”

Within these initial therapeutic considerations, the outcome of street corner education is understood as being to “prepare the children’s minds for schooling,” to introduce “the basics” of literacy and numeracy gradually over time. Embedded in this approach are initial and on-going assessments to establish academic needs and progress. Also, “a condition to entering education is that they return to their families,” – a commitment to working in the wider community context, which not all are able to sustain.

When asked about those children whom may not want to return to their families Street Workers understood the importance of counselling these children and young people, then assisting them in learning a skill or a trade and “continuing to mentor them even if they choose to remain connected to the streets.” This role is described as “child-centred” because the workers feel that they do not “lead the way” but instead “always gain information from the child [to] help them based on their needs.” Locally, a child-centred approach is considered particularly crucial to engaging older children who “refuse to return to their family as they want freedom” and so the role of a Street Worker is “not to impose… not to reject them” but to support them and “keep in contact to help them make informed decisions.” Evidence on the ground, though is that this vital example of a child-centred therapeutic pedagogy is currently

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being “phased out” due to funding restrictions prioritising (in many cases limiting) activity to formal education for Primary ages.

Street Work also involves assessment, tracing, mediation, reconciliation and reunification with families, supporting children in school by liaising with teachers and in homes by offering advice and help to start small business operations. Indeed, a key child-centred component identified in supporting street children is the provision of materials and resources to children and their families. These include school books, bags, stationary and uniforms as well as food, blankets and bursaries for to help cover the costs of transport and the hidden costs of Sierra Leone’s free schools, such as school trips, building repairs, lunches and exam fees. As mentioned earlier, the family business scheme (FBS) also operates a small business start-up loan and resources to enable families to support their child’s education and themselves through running a business and trading. Again, such programmes are currently prioritising Primary-aged children and their families.

While such provision is locally understood as child-centred, because it supports the wider social context of the child, some project managers make a subtle distinction: they refer to it as being part of a child-centred approach which, for funding purposes, they do not adopt because of its holistic implications – i.e. provision of broader needs such as food, shelter, clothing, medicine – which are too expensive and numerous to provide for. In such cases projects are described as employing a child-centred teaching approach which, by focussing on the educational needs of the child (listed in section 2.1.3), allows the organisation to “limit [its] provision to that which [it] can afford.”

Family and community are the key context of a child-centred therapeutic-educational approach. The communities within which Street Workers operate have mixed perceptions of them. Families directly involved are “very warm and positive and even help with skills-training in local businesses;” but the majority of people “look down on street children as thieves and no good”. One respondent went on to note that people mistakenly think that Street Child is “encouraging [children] to stay on the streets, when we are working in a child-friendly way to, hopefully, help them off the streets.” This clearly demonstrates the need for greater community and national sensitisation to the issues of street children and how to support them. But it is recognised that negative public perception is bolstered by the necessarily long-term and often drawn-out nature of the work because benefactors do not initially give accurate or correct information about themselves, either deliberately or because they do not know, “which makes establishing their identities and tracing their families very difficult.” The sustained nature of Street Work can be mistaken for ineffectiveness or, as stated, encouraging children to remain on the streets.

Other factors that can hinder a child’s removal from the streets are if they are involved with gangs. While most workers describe positive relationships with the bras (older boys) who have “been on the street 12 or 15 years” and “are so committed to this life that it is not easy to get them to give up those they are in charge of.” It can be difficult to convince the bras to release them from their care. But at the same time, because any work with children on the streets inevitably

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involves bras, all workers work towards positive relationships with them and in many cases rely on them for information about where children are and how they can be contacted. This relationship is ultimately reciprocal in nature because the bras will contact Street Child when their “little brothers” are in need of medical or other interventions. Such non-judgemental inclusive attitudes are entirely consistent with a child/person-centred ethos.

2.1.4 Children’s perspectives Because of their vulnerable and traumatised status the decision was made not to personally interview street children as part of this study (as outlined in section 2.3.2). However, it is important, from a child-centred perspective, to understand their views about their circumstances and needs. This was possible to some extent as Street Child has extensive literature on these. Some quotations from Street Child literature are presented below. These range from their situation at point of engagement to the gradual change as a result of Street Child’s interventions:

‘On the street you get nothing. I don’t know my age or how long I’ve been on the street. Such a long time!’ Boy, age unknown (Street Child 2013: 4).

‘Nights are bad on the streets. There is no protection and I have no food or safe place to sleep. It’s very dangerous. There’s no one to take care of you. People treat me so badly.’ Boy, aged 12 (2013: 5).

‘When the rebels attacked Sierra Leone, my step-father got shot and lost a leg… so I managed to find his house, just to see him, to ask about my mother I guess. He just told me that he owed me nothing, that my mother was dead and that I should stay away from the house. “I can’t help you,” he said. “I’m just a one-legged man and can’t pay for myself.’ Boy, aged 14 (2013: 15).

‘Now that I am reunified with my parents, I will set an example now. I will tell people that you should not just look at that child on the street as somebody who has nothing. They can transform their life from negative to positive. If I am President I will not let street children be neglected.’ Boy, aged 15 (2013: 19).

‘My mother could not afford to pay for my school fees but Street Child has paid for them and now I am back at school and waiting for my exam results… my life is better now and I want to say that they are doing a very good job for this country.’ Boy, 18 years old (2013: 27).

The majority of benefactor testimonials in Street Child’s literature describe their solitary existences on the streets having fled from domestic violence or abuse or having experienced or witnessed the death of their parents and families. For many teenagers this loss occurred during the conflict. All participants describe having engaged in work on the streets, legal and illegal, and all remember times when they were not paid for their work or their wares were stolen. Most recall being beaten, often at night, and having their possessions taken from them – including the clothes they were wearing. Most have been beaten by Police and held in cells overnight or

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longer, some with reason – such as theft, vandalism or assault – some without. Many describe the effects their experiences have had on them as making them wary of others, some talk openly about alcohol and substance abuse making them feel better or not feel anything at all.

Of the thirty benefactors interviewed by Street Child, all expressed appreciation for the organisation’s intervention and continuing support in their lives and the lives of their families, and believed they have gained a positive regard for life and their future prospects. As the testimonials show, street children feel that they may not be able to secure an education or livelihood without such support. It is worth noting the voices of its benefactors, most of which are post-Primary age, who are best positioned to judge its effectiveness on their personal situations. In the face of an increased polarisation of international development policies, efforts and funding it is more important than ever to be reminded of the importance of a long-term, life-long vision for approaching, supporting and enabling people in need because in the case of Sierra Leone’s street children, the rigors of life continue after Primary ages requiring sustained and increased support along successive educational cycles, employment opportunities and life circumstances While current educational and development policy in Sierra Leone does well to support those aged 10 years and under, even in these limited circumstances and institutional capacity (for instance by mandating free primary education), by not having successive support systems such programmes undermine all that they have already achieved as well as any hope of future success. Organisations such as Street Child also need to be aware of these concerns.

2.2 A child-centred theory of change? Following this consideration of Street Child’s programme on the ground, including the perspectives of local implementers, we turn once again to the theory of change, considering its effectiveness from education and trauma provision perspectives.

2.2.1 Differential outcomes in education provision Primary aged children and below Street Child is particularly successful in reaching children below the age of 11, as this group generally expresses the strongest desire to return to their homes and/or formal schooling, and are often desperate for help when they are made aware of its existence. International priorities in regard to securing attendance at primary school level (such as EfA goals) are considered crucial to the reintegration of this group as it enables financial and practical support through not only agencies like Street Child but also the national education system. One positive affect of international child-centred focus in this area has been a growing social awareness of the importance of Primary-schooling and community pressure for this age group to enrol and attend. Success among this group is reported by local workers to be high, estimated at nearly 100%. Their efforts to support and mentor primary school students, staff and teachers, and provide materials and resources, are well resourced.

There has been continued and improved programmatic success since starting in 2005, particularly in regard to mainstream Primary education which now represents its majority focus, resulting in: 91.2% retention rate, 68.1% pass rate for end of year

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exams, and an impressive 98.5% pass rate for NPSE (National Primary School Examinations) of Street Child’s benefactors (SCoSL 2013: 14-15).

Children above primary age A child-centred therapeutic pedagogy, rooted in internationally-led child-centred policies and training, is essential in relating to and reaching street children generally, and especially so to those above the age of 10 in Freetown. However, Street Child is perceived locally to be failing to support older children, in particular teenagers, due to a recent shift in priorities which has meant that resources are not available to adopt new referrals over age 11 or adequately support existing benefactors from this age group. This is particularly problematic because the group is considered to be harder to convince to return to home and/or school, due to the increased complexity of their broader psychosocial reintegration needs, and they require more time and resources to assist. Until recently (early 2014) resources have been available, reinforced by Street Child’s child-centred methodology which emphasises quality and “the long-term process… over numbers of outcomes.” But locally it has been observed that this approach is no longer a consideration among “those funding the operations.” Specific child-centred approaches affected include establishing non-formal educational settings and programmes and mentoring-style teacher-pupil and teacher-teacher relationships (in formal school contexts) which are described as “a struggle to maintain” in light of this recent shift of funding. Due to Street Child’s recent withdrawal of funding, one implementing partner that works exclusively with the over 10s is now desperate to secure financial support, as a result its employees currently work reduced hours or without pay.

Because of funding restrictions, on the ground Street Child distinguishes between street children aged 0-10 and 10 and over. This distinction is conspicuously absent from its international literature which uses categories of ages 0-5 and 6-18 years (a population distribution of approximately 10% and 90% respectively16). Consequently, there is a distinct lack of statistical analysis of the age categories which Street Workers use as a matter of course, as with Primary (6-10), Secondary (11-16) and Tertiary (17+). This is understood in the local context to be due, in part, to a perceived lack of success with over 11s when compared to under 11s. This is supported to some extent by Street Child’s official literature: the only documentary references to over 11s are not encouraging: only 25.7% of 16 year olds enrolled on Street Child’s programmes passed the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in 2012, which it attributes to failing state schools rather than any programmatic fault.17 And while 53 of the 60 children enrolled in TVET have completed their training (which is an encouraging 88% success rate) none have received a trades start-up kit to allow them to apply their training and earn a living - consequently many are back on the streets.

16 The total number of street children aged 0-5 are 4,388 (SCoSL 2012:51).

17 ‘WASSCE results are usually poor even at national level. The prime reason being that most schools do not complete their

syllabi, making it very difficult for the children to face the exams prepared. In most cases only those children who attend private schools (where syllabi are exhausted on time) or take private lessons stand a better chance at getting good grades. Most of the families we work with do not have sufficient resources to enrol children in private lessons, so the children are left with no other option but to rely on what their schools make available’ (SCoSL 2012: 14-15).

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The apparent challenges to success with this age group and the lack of information regarding it potentially represents a major concern given that it is identified in the third process of Street Child’s ToC model as needing specifically tailored intervention.18 Locally the reduced investment by Street Child in this age group is attributed it to restrictions imposed by its majority development partner, DfID, and the dominance of international policies. Frustration and anxiety over this issue is palpable: local workers are concerned for the future of their benefactors, both younger and older, who receive less and less support the older they get from both non-governmental groups and governmental ministries. This is immediately apparent in the lives of the over 11s - few of whom have been able to adequately progress beyond casual employment or, worse, illegal activity and gang involvement. It is also anticipated to negatively affect younger street children as they progress along successive educational cycles which lack sufficient investment, resources, staffing and capacity to adequately provide for, or support them.

Referring back to the contribution to change, because this effort is at risk of being undone by budget restrictions when a child turns 11 (and leaves Primary school) many workers maintain their support for older children voluntarily, or through securing private donations. Their passion and concern for this issue is strong: “my fight is to let them complete Secondary level, not just Primary, rather than just leaving them halfway to fall back onto the streets.” But this represents an over-burdening of already highly-burdened local workers with more referrals, time constraints and paperwork. Also, file maintenance and data-handling is done manually, which is inefficient, and the lack of computers severely impairs data-base management with negative repercussions for communication, collaboration, monitoring, evaluation and development both locally and nationally.

Accordingly, the most prevalent issues identified by Street Workers are of the deterioration of successive educational cycles nationally and the lack of apparent post-Primary investment across the board. Related to this is an emphasis on mainstream educational enrolment over broader therapeutic-educational and psychosocial issues including the on-going impact and presence of trauma. As one interviewee noted trauma, and by extension Street Child’s therapeutic pedagogy, is considered to be a fundamental concern:

“Trauma will never go away – even in our little communities children are being abused and raped, the children are in danger. If abuse is in progress then trauma is in progress… A man who loses his job, as a lone bread-winner this is traumatising… trauma is still in our midst and we find it very difficult to move it away, adults as well as children.”

While the importance of education, especially for the under 10s, is recognised by all, the repercussions of an increasingly polarised funding agenda (which excludes

18 The three process of change identified within Street Child’s ToC are: enabling access to effective and sustainable schools,

eliminating individual barriers to education and creating opportunities for teenagers to improve their literacy and numeracy skills (SCoSL 2013: 9).

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the over 10s) by international development partners is failing to adequately support the trauma needs of all street children - and will ultimately fail those it does cater for as they grow older. In this way international agendas will continue to cripple national frameworks until their focus shifts back towards Secondary education.

But, despite the apparent dire educational and employment situations of older street children anecdotal evidence suggests that their home lives and psychosocial wellbeing are much improved, and are generally reported to be stable, if not thriving, by the families and communities affected by, and involved with Street Child.

2.2.2 Therapeutic support As previously mentioned, Street Child’s 2012 census of street children (SCoSL 2012, the first of its kind in Sierra Leone) has taken the organisation a long way in pursuing its TOC’s application of change, allowing it to pinpoint specific trends, issues and priorities for working with Sierra Leone’s street children and design and justify funding for programmatic intervention. Efforts in this vein have earned Street Child a reputation for “working hard to attract funding… by getting people to understand some of the details of the work beyond the headlines.”

One of the most important of these “details” was identified locally as the lack of capacity in local schools to offer consistent education of a high quality, which, as mentioned in the sub-section above is also highlighted in Street Child’s own review. Presently, this requires an increased investment by Street Workers to support, train and mentor the teachers and managers of local schools, which is unsustainable in the face of caseloads of up to 100 street children for each mentor. Opinions on the ground suggest that the NGO’s rural efforts to strengthen schooling capacity would benefit urban areas like Freetown, where the existing school system lacks the capacity to adequately support children generally and street children specifically.

The reality on the ground is that street children enrolled in schools would not achieve academically without the supplementary efforts by Street Child. This activity has become an integral part of Street Work, sometimes to the detriment of therapeutic engagement and psychosocial support to children and families. These efforts to bolster the institutional capacity of schools now represents a disproportionately large percentage of Street Child’s work compared to therapeutic-educational engagement and outreach mentoring which are crucial in supporting street children. This is perceived locally as particularly disheartening given that therapeutic and formal pedagogies are known to be interdependent. In general street children need therapeutic intervention to access education, and the education system needs support to legitimise and embed therapeutic progress.

The practical outworking of Street Child’s ToC is child-centred in that it promotes child-led and child-friendly support and services which respond sympathetically to the issues and circumstances of street children. It is in the basic conceptualisation of its aims as reflected in its ToC, that the INGO fails to adequately address the broader holistic issues associated with a child-centred approach which is too narrow in scope and focus. By making reunification a condition of programmatic enrolment and presenting enrolment with the formal school system as the only viable option for

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psychosocial reintegration the INGO excludes children for whom these solutions are not possible, often those with more severe psychosocial trauma needs. Also by prioritising Primary ages it excludes older children and young people and eventually jeopardises successes gained with younger children as they progress through successive educational cycles.

2.3 Implementation at the local level The dissertation examined local-level implementation through a case study of the INGO Street Child, considered to be pacesetters in the work to address the situation of Sierra Leone’s street children. The success of Street Child’s programmes is attributed to its internationally-led child-centred policy and funding frameworks, training and approach. These have, historically, enabled workers to devote their attention to locating and working with street children where they naturally congregate, socialise and pursue their livelihoods, allowing them to gain the trust and confidence of their benefactors in order to better understand their circumstances, needs and perspectives, and to offer them increasingly responsive, dynamic and relevant services.

The child-centred parameters attached to international funding have historically been considered to be “freeing” and “empowering,” releasing workers to concentrate on relationship-building and therapeutically-oriented outreach-teaching approaches sensitive to the psychological and emotional issues of street children which form barriers to securing educational outcomes. Overall this has had a positive outcome in terms of the perspectives and approach of teachers and social workers working on Street Child’s programmes that broadly espouse and subscribe to a child-centred approach.

Child-centred therapeutic-education is increasingly collaborative, working with local communities in accordance with its emphasis on the social context of children. In theory, collaborative approaches enable communities to support themselves with the benefit of ensuring service delivery is relevant, appropriate and sustainable, being locally-led. It also has the potential to reduce operational costs for international agencies, meaning that there may also be a cost-saving rationale for this emphasis. In Street Child’s programmes, this policy is evident in the use of local families and foster placements to support reintegrated street children and initiatives such as the Family Business Scheme which assists local groups to earn their own living, not only enhancing local business but also ensuring vocational education placements.

Increasingly, however, child-centred therapeutic-educational policies require intensive, individually-tailored services delivered by trained personnel – factors which are not always viable in strained circumstances and can represent an unrealistic burden on local communities. For example, in the case of Street Workers the average child to worker ratio is over 100:1. As well as practical and time pressures created by such high caseloads, administrative duties require an increasing amount of time, particularly due to a lack of computerised data entry, which negatively impacts the quality and quantity of time which can be spent with beneficiaries. On a related note, storing data manually means that the whereabouts

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of information relies heavily on the personal knowledge of the worker attached to the case, making information difficult to locate when, using an example that arose during fieldwork, when a colleague is away on maternity leave. This also makes the successful development of a national/international database problematic in current circumstances which hinders the ability of staff to locate the families of estranged children and/or placement foster families (existing or potential) and represents a lack of comprehensive listings of agencies working in related fields to draw on for support or to ensure there are no gaps or overlaps in service coverage between organisations. Also, very few school databases are computerised or available online, which compounds tracking of pupil attendance, performance and reports, threatening the overall coherence and efficiency of national service delivery, monitoring and evaluation.

Sensitisation efforts are essential to collaborative working because they inform local benefactors, communities and staff of issues which are either targeted by or related to services. One such example is psychosocial education and therapeutic programmes designed to ease the integration of street children into local schools which have historically proven to be less accommodating of such children. In some cases international efforts have successfully ensured that educational environments are welcoming and nurturing for street children and have been highly effective in integrating street children among their peers and teachers as well as bolstering professional relationships between support services and schools, particularly the support and mentoring of teachers and heads. However, it is observed that local attitudes remain generally negative toward street children and as a result many are not protected from street violence and they are often the first to be blamed when a crime is committed – sometimes arbitrarily jailed without evidence. Other issues, such as the prevalence of spousal and/or parental violence, alcohol and substance misuse and sexual abuse including rape, undermine the secure nurturing environment of Sierra Leone’s children.

3. Conclusion

In Sierra Leone, for a variety of reasons, programmatic responses by the majority of organisations are severely lacking, most significant of which is a lack of resources – both material and human. This is a crucial factor because the child-centred framework is considered to be resource-heavy (Guthrie 2011) which can make it very difficult or even impractical to successfully implement and maintain in developing contexts. However, one way Street Child has been successful in overcoming this is by taking a developmental approach; emphasising community partnerships and local organisations, and strengthening capacity at local levels, while sensitising community groups on the potential roles they can play, and their responsibilities for maintaining therapeutic service delivery.

Street Child are working hard, they have dedicated and well-trained staff, they are in receipt of international funding, are working collaboratively with other agencies, national government and local services, groups and communities, and they have

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raised the profile of Sierra Leone’s street children and the issues they face nationally and internationally. This despite that, at present, the effectiveness of the implementation of a therapeutic pedagogy nationally is unevenly spread.

This report finds that local operatives display a highly nuanced understanding of underlying child-centred principles embedded in appropriately conscientious child-led relationship-based teaching/mentoring approaches. They demonstrate an acute awareness of psychosocial and complex trauma needs, safeguarding, child protection and comprehensive duty of care issues, relevant educational polices and therapeutic frameworks and consistent monitoring and development processes able to promote and enable access to children’s rights for street children. However, at the same time Street Child, with other relevant organisations, have become increasingly polarised in strategy and focus as efforts and resources are concentrated around the group deemed to offer the strongest growth in response to their efforts: Primary aged children. Consequently support is reduced for older of benefactors (who are the majority of the population), as well as uncertainty regarding the future support of new benefactors as they grow older. This is also resulting in an influx of new benefactors which is over-burdening the already highly-burdened local workers with more referrals, time constraints and paperwork – without adequate resources to enable efficient data-handling, cross-sectoral communication and collaboration or monitoring, evaluation and development. The lack of an overarching oversight mechanism and coordinating/standardising role of government further limits effectiveness, resulting in efforts occurring in a vacuum and in silos. Street Child’s approach and ToC are effective and are benefitting local NGOs and their staff, but it is difficult to see how their influence can be broadened out in the current context.

Therapeutic-education is relevant and important for Sierra Leone. While it receives attention, funding and dedicated and trained staff, a lack of coordination at national levels, an increasingly disinterested international engagement – at least with national government actors – and continued constraints endemic to the education sector in general lead to serious concerns for its feasibility. But there is hope for an effective therapeutic pedagogy for Sierra Leone’s street children as local communities continue to embrace a child-centred approach and make it their own. Currently, a therapeutic pedagogy has been adopted by Sierra Leonean Street Workers, and is being outworked successfully despite vastly limiting circumstances, but has yet to be sufficiently adapted by them. Given its ‘doubly Western’ ideology (being both therapeutic and child-centred, therapeutic frameworks are criticised for their Western pathologisation of trauma, while there are concerns about child-centred frameworks’ Western conceptualisation of the separation of child from adult life (Pupavac 2014, 2004; Fleer 2003; Sklair 2002)) it is perhaps surprising that a therapeutic pedagogy has even been considered by Sierra Leonean workers let alone adopted. Currently adaptation has been a one-way process; workers have had to adapt their own preconceptions regarding what constitutes an appropriate methodology for supporting and educating traumatised street children. Now that local professionals have absorbed, and own, a child-centred ethos it would seem to be timely for them to use their practical experience and expertise to formally adapt it

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to their own context. For Sierra Leonean therapeutic educators, mentors and social workers are best situated to adopt and adapt an effective therapeutic pedagogy. What they require is sufficient collaborative international support from people who share their ideology and ethos and, essentially, passion for children whose lives depend on the streets – which is truly child-centred: community-based, holistic and long-term.

Accordingly, sustained efforts to adapt a therapeutic pedagogy to Sierra Leone will require the support of international agencies, but such support needs to be locally-led, more finely nuanced and responsive than current international – or indeed national – policies allow. This includes: the strengthening of the extensive, but as yet poorly networked, groups involved in supporting street children in their capacity, resources, management, communication, and data and database management; and matching funding priorities to national and local priorities, including a less polarised investment in education and basic children’s and human rights. Given the considerable obstacles to Sierra Leone’s stability the nation’s dependency on international assistance is unlikely to end in the near future, but the nature of this dependency, this need, must be determined collaboratively and responded to in a likewise manner rather than externally. Likewise, the ability of Sierra Leone to address and respond to the therapeutic-educational and complex trauma needs of its own young must come from within, assisted rather than dictated externally.

Sierra Leone has made great progress in its efforts to re-establish political and economic stability in the aftermath of a debilitating internal conflict. With the advent of peace came social cohesion and the restoration of faith between communities, families and individuals. Public confidence in government remains scarred by years of political mismanagement, corruption and secrecy, which continues to disrupt communication and coordination between national educational systems and local educators as well as affecting relationships with crucial international funding partners. As a result Sierra Leone is unable to adequately support its citizenry without the support of organisations like Street Child, let alone provide for the therapeutic-educational needs of its traumatised street children. The Ebola outbreak of 2014 which has compromised the already strained ability of government and which has, until recently, resulted in the nationwide closure of schools is set to be another chapter in this concerning story.

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Appendices

2.4 Appendix 1: Prompt sheet for interviewing Street Child Workers Introduction:

I am conducting a study on therapeutic-educational services for street children as part of my Masters in Education and International Development for the Institute of Education, University of London. I would like to ask you some questions about the project you are working with, to hear your opinions, perceptions and concerns about the project, the children you work with and the context work in.

For the purpose of this study your identity will not be revealed but for my records could you please state your:

a) Name:

b) Job title/name of project currently involved with, length of involvement:

Questions:

1. Qualifications relevant to post and name of training provider/college/university

2. How useful/relevant is this training to your work?

3. What is your area of specialty or interest in the project/s you are involved with?

e.g. detached education/youth work, counselling/therapy, social work, family support, business initiative, teaching, school/education management.

4. How did you get into the field? Can you be specific please.

5. Teaching: What subjects are you qualified to teach, what subjects do you teach?

a. What teaching techniques/frameworks do you employ?

b. Which curriculum do you follow – do you differentiate it, set your own?

c. To what standards are you working? – national levels, internally moderated…

6. How relevant do you feel your training has been to your work?

a. What support do you receive/how well do you feel that you are supported?

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7. How are referrals made to you? …where do they come from?

a. Can you explain the referral process (i.e. initial outreach – assessment – intervention – monitoring – development)?

b. Can you give me an idea of the process a child goes through from initial contact on the street to reunification and access to education?

8. Are you aware of other agencies who work in this field?

a. Do you work with other agencies?

9. What kind of challenges do you think stop street children from getting an education?

a. What kind of education do you think they need/works best for them?

b. What are the challenges of working with them?

c. What works well?

d. What could be made better?

10. Can you relate any experiences you have relating to the social, physical or therapeutic needs of street children?

Please give specific examples of techniques that have proven successful, as well as any anecdotal accounts of any efforts made.

11. What are your most pressing concerns for your own work (i.e. inadequate training, transportation issues, lack of resources/management/structure…)?

Thank you very much for your time.

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2.5 Appendix 2: Informed consent flyer used prior to interviews