Africans Unite Against Child Abuse

AFRUCA's Work in the UK

Safeguarding African Children in London Policy Project

Project Location: London-wide
Project Contact: Justin Bahunga, Policy and Training Officer, AFRUCA
Project Funders: City Parochial Foundation/Trust for London

Project Information:

The Safeguarding African Children Policy Project was designed to help ensure the welfare of African children who are at risk of faith based abuse, which is often linked to a belief in witchcraft and spirit possession. The initiative has focussed on policy work and has targeted four major stakeholders namely the African community (community and faith groups), practitioners, policy makers and big agencies (both statutory and voluntary) through awareness raising, training and advocacy work. The project also served as port of call for advice, information and support for statutory and voluntary agencies.

The following courses were designed and delivered to practitioners:

“Working with black African children and families;
“Working with faith to safeguard African children”;
“Culture, religion and mental health of African children”;
“Harmful traditional practices and their impact on African children”

All the courses were designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of frontline staff on cultural and religious practices in the African communities and their significance in the lives of black African families and child upbringing. The courses also explore the best strategies to engage with African families. The overall aim is to give frontline staff enough confidence to intervene in families where there are concerns of faith based abuse.

Since January period 2008/ October 2009 we have run 20 training courses and trained more than 370 professionals. A large number of participants came from boroughs that have a high proportion of black Africans. They include Lambeth; Southwark; Greenwich; Haringey; Newham; Lewisham; Brent; Hammersmith and Fulham; Hackney; Barking and Dagenham and Islington; Croydon, Westminster, Enfield, Barnet, and Waltham Forest. We are very happy that participants are very pleased with the quality and content of the training courses.

“Yes this training was an opener… this training should be extended to statutory in-house training”. - A comment of one of the participants to one of our training

We also carried out two training courses for church leaders in Southwark on child protection and on designing a child protection policy for Churches. 42 church leaders received the training.

“Unbeatable. Wonderful and God will bless you; “I have learnt a lot and this will help me to know what to do more about children in my church and how children can be protected in a good environment”. - A Comment of one of the church leaders.

We also organised a very successful seminar at which parents and practitioners came together to discuss issues of common concern on safeguarding children at risk in June 2009. There were 35 participants including 18 practitioners and 17 parents.

In the area of awareness raising we participated in the Community Care exhibitions in May 2009 which enabled us to reach out to a wide range of practitioners and policymakers who attended the exhibition. More than two thousand people attend the exhibition each year, the vast majority of whom are social care professionals.

We have equally participated in a number conferences, seminars and workshops as delegates or as presenters where children safeguarding issues are discussed. Just to mention a few, the project officer made a presentation at BASPCAN Congress 2009 (British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) on the 14th of September 09 and attended a seminar organised by the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva on the 23rd September 09 on “witchcraft accusations against women in the 21st century”.

Because of its high profile as the premier charity promoting the rights and welfare of African children and its good track record in working within the African community of AFRUCA was commissioned by Southwark Council to conduct a review and produce recommendations on working with African families who have been referred for assessment and who have entered the care system. The work has been completed and handed to the Council. Discussions are now ongoing on to discuss the way forward in implementing some of the recommendations.

At a general level, AFRUCA has been providing regular advice to individuals, social services staff and other professionals working with African children on issues of culture and religion.

Based on new knowledge gained and lessons learnt in the course of our training and running other project activities we have refined our course content to meet the needs of our various target audiences. We are now working on having the courses accredited by a professional body. The calendar for our training 2009/2010 is available on our website.

For further information about this project, click here.