Family Care First

Speeches Shim

Family Care First

FAMILY CARE FIRST AND DEVELOPMENTAL EVALUATION

The Developmental Evaluation Pilot Activity (DEPA-MERL) has been engaged with Family Care First (FCF) in Cambodia from November 2016 to March 2018, conducting a developmental evaluation in service of FCF in Cambodia’s ambitious, innovative, and collaborative goals of increasing the number of children living in safe, nurturing family-based care.

First launched by USAID in 2014, Family Care First (FCF) “a global initiative that seeks to uncover and advance transformational solutions that considerably reduce the number of children growing up outside of safe, nurturing, family-based care”. The initiative uses open innovation and collective impact approach to 1) prevent child-family separation 2) encourage reintegration of separated children back into family care 3) provide better lives for children living outside family care and is comprised of a consortium of implementing partners to test and deliver coordinated interventions that collectively reduce the numbers of children living outside of family care in Cambodia, while providing logistical, financial, strategic and evidenced-based guidance to the multitude of family care first Cambodia stakeholders to support long-term scaling and learning.

In November 2016, a developmental evaluation of FCF in Cambodia was launched with the DEPA-MERL consortium. The objective of the evaluation was to provide evidence regarding the initiative’s system of complex partnerships and processes, so that an enhancement of partnership engagements and implementation of program activities would result.

During this developmental evaluation, the developmental evaluator carried out extensive research including: documents review, stakeholder interviews, conducting ToR sessions and literature review to collect and analyze data in order to provide evidence based findings and recommendations for the initiative. Due to the depth and breadth of the developmental evaluation research, the FCF initiative extended the developmental evaluation from 12 to 18 months, completing at the end of March 2018.

Knowledge Products from Family Care First Pilot in Cambodia