Formerly called Mechanism000683_ :ChildFund Internationals' goal is to promote healthy child development for 50,000 children and assist 8,500 primary and secondary caregivers in Addis Ababa and Oromia regions through comprehensive, family centered, and child-focused care and support services. The project's three reinforcing objectives are to increase access to and utilization of comprehensive, coordinated and family centered care for 50,000 OVC; expand service access and coverage through enhanced collaboration, coordination and referrals among community, NGO, and government actors serving children; and improve service quality and coverage through enhanced community data collection and program monitoring systems.

The project service areas include high prevalence, underserved urban areas of Addis Ababa (Gulele, Kolfe Keranyo, Nefasilk Lafto, Arada and Akaki Kality sub-cities) and Oromia region (Fentale, Dugda, Debre Zeit and Shashemene woredas). The target population is OVC aged 0 - 11 years and their caregivers plus youth heading households aged 15-24 years of age.

The project activities for COP 2010 will be aimed at improving the lives of 10,000 new OVC, in addition to the 30,000 reached with comprehensive, family centered, and child-focused care and support services in COP 2009. Three thousand new caregivers will be assisted to care for OVC, adding to the 5,500 trained in COP 2009. The project will continue to strengthen family and community capacity to care and meet the needs of OVC focusing on early childhood and expansion of coordinated care. Working with three levels (community caregivers, youth mentors and paralegals) of over 540 trained community-based volunteer networks, the project will reach each individual enrolled OVC with prioritized needed services based on the enrolment assessments and defined family care plans. The community caregivers provide home-based parenting education; health promotion; food and nutrition counseling; proper hygiene, water and sanitation education; psychosocial support; HIV prevention counseling services and referrals for child survival, pediatric HIV and child protection services. Community caregivers will coordinate project support for shelter and care encompassing house maintenance and roof repairs, bedding, and basic cooking utensils to ensure a safe, warm and protective home environment for the most vulnerable OVC. Community caregivers will also coordinate short term food assistance in the form of a food basket consisting of locally available nutritious foods to food insecure households.

Youth mentors working with facilitators/teachers in early childhood development centers and child friendly schools will continue to serve as mentors for OVC and provide peer-to-peer basic life skills guidance.

Paralegals with referrals from community caregivers and other community leaders will provide legal counseling on child rights and protection to vulnerable families, including providing information on birth registration, wills and successions planning and make referrals for additional services. Fifty youth heading households in the age range 15-24 years will receive refresher training in business development, mentorship and OVC service linkages.

The project will continue to build capacity for a community driven approach in operationalizing the quality assurance improvement standards for OVC programs developed by the government of Ethiopia, by applying a collaborative model that promotes client/beneficiary focus, learning in teams, focus on the service delivery process and utilization of locally generated data to monitor and evaluate the quality OVC service delivery.

Through 39 early childhood development centers the project will provide holistic community-based early childhood development services to OVC aged 3-6 years setting the stage for primary school education. The project will work with the trained youth mentors, teachers, parent teacher associations and the kebele education authorities of the targeted 16 child friendly primary level schools to progressively build knowledge and skills needed to implement school based activities to prevent and/or mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS, including reducing stigma faced by OVC. The most vulnerable OVC will be provided with basic scholastic materials.

The vulnerable children's committee (VCC) members trained in COP 2009 in the 78 project site kebeles will continue to guide meaningful beneficiary participation in the project activities, updating service maps and promoting coordinated partnerships among service providers for supporting OVC and caregivers. The VCC builds on existing structures and its membership is comprised of a gender balanced mix of community representatives including OVC/children, caregivers and PLWHAA, local government partners and child service organizations. Building on those existing foundations, updating service maps and through VCC structures, the project will expand local partnerships for service referrals to provide continuum of care for OVC.

Monitoring and evaluation systems and tools developed at community and partner levels will be consolidated and an OVC MIS database developed in COP 2009 will facilitate rapid and efficient data management, program decision making and reporting.

The project aims to improve the lives of a cumulative total of 50,000 OVC aged 0-11 with comprehensive, family-centered, and child-focused services. 8,500 caregivers (parents and guardians) will be assisted to care for OVC in 78 kebeles in Addis Ababa and Oromia Regions. Three cadres of trained community-based volunteers (community caregivers, youth mentors and paralegals) will provide family-centered OVC need services and referrals, based on defined family care plans. Community caregivers will provide home-based case management, health education and counseling on psychosocial support, food and nutrition (including infant feeding and weaning practices), hygiene, water and sanitation and child protection. The community caregivers make referrals for child protection and health services (including immunization and other child survival services, pediatric care and treatment). They also coordinate the provision of basic shelter and care, and supplementary food support to most vulnerable and food insecure OVC families. Paralegals will provide legal counseling and information on child rights and protection including birth registration, wills and successions planning and make referrals for legal aid. Youth mentors will provide individual and peer group approaches to enhance life, survival and socialization skills. Early childhood development (ECD) and basic education is promoted through supporting 39 ECD centers and 20 child friendly schools (training of teachers and provision of educational materials) and scholastic support to the most vulnerable OVC. Working through exiting community structures to serve as the children's vulnerable committees (VCC) has successfully enhanced meaningful community participation in the project to ensure participatory identification and meeting the needs of the most vulnerable OVC, updated service maps for coordinated referrals and partnerships needed for continuum of care for OVC. Building community capacity and community conversations has facilitated community driven quality improvement in OVC service delivery and utilization of locally generated data to monitor and evaluate the quality of services. Addressing the enormous and diverse needs of OVC remains a challenge.