How a collapsing state impacts child safeguarding: Reflecting on the challenges of implementing a hospital‐based child safeguarding program in Lebanon
In Lebanon, a country facing multilayered crises and an increase in reported cases of child maltreatment, the availability of a unified and comprehensive child safeguarding protocol in healthcare facilities remains limited. Healthcare providers are frontline in recognizing and detecting child abuse...
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| Published in: | Child abuse review (Chichester, England : 1992) Vol. 33; no. 5 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Hoboken
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
01-09-2024
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | In Lebanon, a country facing multilayered crises and an increase in reported cases of child maltreatment, the availability of a unified and comprehensive child safeguarding protocol in healthcare facilities remains limited. Healthcare providers are frontline in recognizing and detecting child abuse and neglect (CAN) cases in hospital settings. Therefore, the adoption of a child protection system in healthcare settings is much needed. We attempted to establish a program for child safeguarding identification, intervention and monitoring mechanisms in Lebanese teaching hospitals. Despite high levels of need, the establishment of this program faced major challenges in the context of multiple national emergencies. The latter included fragmentation of the child protection system and the collapse of the health sector. This paper aims to share these challenges and extract lessons learned for future implementation of a unified child safeguarding protocol in Lebanese hospitals.
Key Practitioner message
In countries where child protection services are already fragmented, multilayered crises further weaken the system while CAN risks increase. We recommend:
An implementation model based on a thorough needs' assessment and feasibility study.
A close collaboration with stakeholders to prevent pitfalls.
Setting a clear, simple and comprehensive referral system between the social and healthcare systems where frontliner staff in both sectors are trained.
Adopt a paediatric disaster preparedness framework.
Harmonizing national policies and procedures with NGOs and community |
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| Bibliography: | Department of Psychiatry‐ Faculty of Medicine. The study has been granted the approval of the Institutional Review Board of the American University of Beirut. It has been funded by the Medical Practice Plan of the Faculty of Medicine‐American University of Beirut. The manuscript is of 4160 words in length. All authors acknowledge the policy and procedures of the Journal of Child Abuse Review. They declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. They also state that the data is available on request from the authors, mainly the corresponding author, Leyla Akoury Dirani, Ph.D email la55@aub.edu.lb E‐mail: jjn17@mail.aub.edu. Ms. Judith Naddour, first author. . |
| ISSN: | 0952-9136 1099-0852 |
| DOI: | 10.1002/car.2901 |