Child Protection Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Action Training Course

Course overview

Humanitarian teams must make child protection decisions quickly while managing incomplete information, competing sector priorities, safeguarding concerns and pressure to demonstrate results. The Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS) provide a common framework for designing, coordinating, monitoring and improving child protection action in emergencies. This course helps practitioners move beyond citing the standards to using them in programme choices, inter-agency discussions, assessments, referral systems and quality reviews.

Participants work through the structure and application of the CPMS, including the foundations, standards-setting process, child protection risk analysis, coordination, case management, alternative care, family tracing and reunification, psychosocial support, community-based mechanisms, monitoring and accountability. They learn to translate CPMS indicators and key actions into practical programme tools: an assessment question set, service mapping matrix, referral pathway, activity plan, monitoring framework and evidence-based improvement actions. Particular attention is given to applying standards proportionately across rapid-onset emergencies, displacement settings and protracted crises.

Instructor-led technical briefings are combined with a five-day humanitarian response simulation. Working in programme teams, participants analyse a fictional crisis scenario, identify priority child protection risks, select relevant CPMS standards, test proposed activities against indicators and present decisions to a mock coordination group. Each participant leaves with a completed CPMS application portfolio and a 90-day workplace action plan that can be adapted for an active response, proposal development, programme review or staff briefing.

The course is suited to child protection and humanitarian personnel who need a practical, shared basis for quality assurance and coordination. It is equally valuable for managers approving child protection investments, because it strengthens the ability of staff to justify programme design, identify gaps early and document whether services meet recognised humanitarian standards.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Interpret the CPMS framework, principles, standards, key actions and indicators for a defined humanitarian response context
• Conduct a child protection risk analysis using hazard, vulnerability, capacity and protection-risk evidence
• Prioritise relevant CPMS standards through a response-analysis matrix for a rapid-onset or protracted emergency
• Design a child protection assessment question set aligned with CPMS information requirements and ethical data collection
• Develop a service-mapping matrix and inter-agency referral pathway with defined roles, consent points and escalation routes
• Apply CPMS standards to review case management, psychosocial support, alternative care and family tracing activities
• Build a monitoring framework using CPMS indicators, disaggregated data requirements and feedback mechanisms
• Produce a CPMS application portfolio and 90-day action plan for programme design, quality improvement or coordination

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Child Protection Officers — who design, deliver or monitor protection services during emergencies
• Child Protection Programme Managers — who must assure programme quality, staffing and budget decisions against recognised standards
• Humanitarian Coordinators — who convene sector actors and need a common basis for prioritisation and gap analysis
• Case Management Supervisors — who need to align referral, consent, supervision and case-management processes with CPMS expectations
• MEAL Officers — who develop child protection indicators, feedback systems and evidence for programme adaptation
• Emergency Response Advisors — who support rapid assessments, response design and technical reviews across country programmes

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course. Participants should understand the basic purpose of humanitarian response and have some familiarity with child protection concerns such as separation, violence, exploitation, neglect or harmful practices. Experience in programme delivery, coordination, MEAL, case management or emergency response is helpful but not essential. Participants should be able to read short guidance documents, contribute to group case discussions and use a laptop for simple templates; basic spreadsheet confidence is sufficient. No prior CPMS training, clinical qualification, case-management accreditation, KoboToolbox experience or advanced data-analysis skill is required. Complete beginners should expect to learn the core vocabulary before applying it in exercises.

Training methodology

The course combines focused instructor-led CPMS briefings with facilitated application to a continuing humanitarian crisis scenario. Participants annotate CPMS standards, analyse assessment evidence, complete service-mapping and referral templates, and test programme decisions against key actions and indicators. Small groups take the roles of operational agencies, coordination leads and community representatives to negotiate priorities and accountability measures. Daily debriefs connect the scenario to participants’ operating contexts. On the final day, each participant consolidates their templates into a CPMS application portfolio and drafts a 90-day plan for applying the method at work.

Course outline

Day 1: CPMS foundations and humanitarian child protection analysis

• Purpose, scope and structure of the Child Protection Minimum Standards
• CPMS principles, child rights and humanitarian protection commitments
• Links between CPMS, the Sphere Handbook and the Core Humanitarian Standard
• Child protection risks, threats, vulnerabilities and protective capacities
• Child participation, non-discrimination and best-interests considerations
• Do-no-harm, safeguarding and safe information-management principles
• Rapid child protection situation analysis and evidence triangulation

Workshop: Participants analyse a sudden-displacement scenario and produce a child protection risk and capacity map with prioritised evidence gaps.

Day 2: Assessment, coordination and response prioritisation

• CPMS standards for assessment, analysis and monitoring
• Ethical assessment questions for children, caregivers and key informants
• Safe data collection, informed consent, assent and confidentiality boundaries
• Child protection service mapping and functional capacity analysis
• Child Protection Area of Responsibility coordination roles and information flows
• Response prioritisation using severity, scale, feasibility and risk criteria
• Translating CPMS key actions into response objectives and activity plans

Workshop: Teams build an assessment question set, service-mapping matrix and CPMS-based response priority table for the scenario.

Day 3: Case management, referrals and family-based care

• CPMS expectations for child protection case management
• Case identification, intake, risk assessment and case-planning decisions
• Referral pathway design, consent procedures and closed-loop referrals
• Case-management supervision, caseload review and workforce support
• Family tracing and reunification processes for separated and unaccompanied children
• Alternative care principles and prevention of unnecessary family separation
• Managing serious protection disclosures and escalation thresholds

Workshop: Participants create a localised referral pathway and review a sample case-management process against CPMS key actions.

Day 4: Prevention, community action and accountable services

• Community-based child protection mechanisms and their limitations
• Psychosocial support design and safe participation standards
• Prevention and response approaches for violence, exploitation and harmful practices
• Risk communication with children and caregivers
• Accountability to affected populations in child protection programming
• Child-friendly feedback and complaints mechanisms
• Inclusion of children with disabilities, adolescents and marginalised groups

Workshop: Groups redesign a community child protection activity and produce a participation, inclusion and feedback-mechanism checklist.

Day 5: Monitoring, quality assurance and workplace application

• Selecting CPMS indicators for outputs, outcomes and service quality
• Disaggregated data, data-protection controls and responsible reporting
• Monitoring plans, indicator reference sheets and data-collection schedules
• Using community feedback and case trends for adaptive management
• CPMS-based programme quality reviews and corrective-action logs
• Technical justification for proposals, budgets and donor reporting
• Ninety-day implementation planning and stakeholder engagement

Workshop: Participants complete and present a CPMS application portfolio containing a monitoring framework, quality-review findings and a 90-day workplace action plan.

Tools & standards covered

Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS), 2019 Edition, Sphere Handbook, Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability, KoboToolbox

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions