The Child Protection Hub is a network for child protection professionals in Southeastern Europe. This regional hub promotes the sharing of knowledge and good practices and offers specific professional training. It also helps inform policy-makers and influence decisions about child protection.
The Child Protection Hub is a vibrant community of child protection actors, committed to transforming the lives of the most vulnerable children in Southeastern Europe. Initiated by Terre des hommes (Tdh) and its partners in 2015, ChildHub empowers and connects professionals to learn, advocate and collaborate -- and achieve more than they could accomplish alone. It unlocks the potential of thousands of child protection actors by delivering innovative services, content and tools to help them achieve positive change for children.
The goal of the ChildHub is to strengthen cooperation and innovation in the fight against child abuse, trafficking and exploitation in Southeastern Europe. It is an interactive and innovative regional network for professionals. This growing community of several thousand active members is organised into three areas: knowledge management, capacity-building and advocacy.
Sharing knowledge about child protection
The Child Protection Hub offers child protection professionals the opportunity to attend conferences and workshops, get in touch with each other and exchange experiences, receive training and access a wide range of resources. The community’s online platform is available in eight languages and is open to social workers, law enforcement officers, healthcare and justice professionals, teachers, as well as students and policymakers. There, they can access thousands of documents and publications, ask for qualified advice, or connect with colleagues. By using a deep-learning model, we aim to support the content development of the web portal.
Improving the practice of child protection professionals
The ChildHub Academy offers several free online courses on child protection, justice for children and migration. Our regular webinars bring together hundreds of people each year. We are also exploring innovative ways of learning, such as practising interviewing children through avatars. In cooperation with the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, ChildHub is developing a European network around the issue and has trained experienced trainers from ten countries, who will further promote the seven strategies to end violence against children.
Influencing policy-makers to bring about positive change for children
ChildHub mobilises professionals and key stakeholders to advocate and lobby for better policies and practices in the child protection sector. We contribute to the regional policy discourse through regional conferences and national papers, for example, on the impact of decentralisation on social services or the quality of social services. Our advocacy initiatives at country level led to the development of legislative proposals that gained support from experts and authorities.
During its first three years, the Child Protection Hub had a positive impact on the lives of over 500,000 children and their families. ChildHub continues to develop the personal and professional competencies of the child protection workforce and support regional cooperation and cross-learning.
The ChildHub project is a regional initiative funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation, the Oak Foundation and the Terre des hommes Foundation.
