Introduction to the OVC toolkit
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Support Toolkit?
The orphans and vulnerable children support toolkit is an electronic library of resources about support to orphans and vulnerable children that have been collated by the Alliance and FHI from a wide range of organisations, based on the understanding that there are many good approaches to supporting orphans and vulnerable children.
What is the International HIV/AIDS Alliance?
The International HIV/AIDS Alliance (Alliance) is an international non-governmental organisation that supports communities in developing countries to make a significant contribution to HIV prevention, AIDS care and to the provision of support to children affected by the epidemic. Since its establishment in 1993, the Alliance has provided financial and technical support to NGOs and CBOs from more than 40 countries.
What is FHI (Family Health International)?
Formed in 1971, Family Health International (FHI) is among the largest and most established nonprofit organizations active in international public health with a mission to improve lives worldwide through research, education, and services in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health.
FHI manages research and field activities in more than 70 countries to meet the public health needs of some of the world's most vulnerable people. FHI works with a wide variety of partners, including governmental and nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, community groups, and the private sector.
Who is this toolkit for?
This toolkit is for use by organisations and individuals working with orphans and other vulnerable children or planning to do so. They may be non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governmental organisations, community-based organisations (CBOs).
The toolkit systematically addresses a wide range of themes related to support for orphans and vulnerable children– for example: situation assessments, access to education, psychosocial support, children’s participation, and monitoring and evaluation. In addition to some 500 resources that can be downloaded using the toolkit, each theme and its sub-themes have an introduction which highlights key issues to consider for orphans and vulnerable children support programming.
The Orphans and Vulnerable Children Support Toolkit is currently only available in English although it contains some resources in French, Spanish Portuguese and Russian.
How do I use the toolkit?
The Orphans and Vulnerable Children Support Toolkit is divided into eight themes: an introduction to supporting orphans and other vulnerable children and seven other themes. Each of the seven themes covers one major area of orphans and vulnerable children support work: running a programme, health and nutrition, education, psychosocial support, economic strengthening, living environments and children’s rights. Each theme is then divided into more detailed sub-themes. We recommend that you read through the introduction to work supporting orphans and other vulnerable children, before moving on to other areas of the toolkit.
Each of the eight major themes is broken down into sub-themes. Each includes a brief introduction with some key issues to consider, accompanied by a list of resources that can be accessed by clicking on the titles. Unless you have used this toolkit before, we recommend you read through the introductions before accessing the linked resources.
What do the icons used in the toolkit mean?
The resources provided fall into four categories identified by their icons:
Information: reports and articles such as documents outlining the issues faced by children
Template: documents such as forms that can be adapted and used to gather information
Tools: whole training manuals or individual activities
Websites: websites identified as useful and relevant resources in themselves
How do I find information in the toolkit?
There are three ways to find information and resources in this toolkit:
- by reading through relevant themed sections, e.g. education. Several themes within the toolkit are linked together where they overlap or are explored in more detail in another area of the toolkit. You will find these are hyperlinked, with the word or phrase shown in blue and underlined. If you click on a hyperlink, you will be taken to that part of the toolkit. To return to where you were, click the Back button. The resources can be viewed on screen, printed or saved to your computer.
- by using the lists of sections and sub-sections
- by using the search function (for a specific theme or document).
What other information is provided about each resource?
The following details are provided for each resource: the title, organisation of origin, date of publication, brief content description, number of pages, document size and type of document – for example, .pdf, MSWord, Powerpoint, etc.
What copyright restrictions exist?
Please note that copyright restrictions apply to all resources in the toolkit unless otherwise stated on the documents. If you use Alliance or FHI resources for your work, please acknowledge the Alliance or FHI as the source.
Alliance resources can be recognised by the following icon:
FHI resources can be recognized by the following icon:
They can be ordered by visiting the FHI website: www.fhi.org
How can I contribute or comment on the toolkit?
The Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children Toolkit will be updated on a regular basis. If you have any feedback or suggestions for resources that we could add to help improve the toolkit, please click on the contribute and comment button.
What software do I need for reading the resources on the toolkit?
Many of the documents are “.pdf” (Portable Document Format) files, which means you will need Adobe Acrobat to read them. This can be downloaded for free from here. Other documents are in Microsoft Word or Powerpoint.
Acknowledgement
The Alliance would like to thank the many organisations that kindly provided resources for inclusion on this website. The Alliance has received support to develop this toolkit from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
And from FHI
This resource was made possible through the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of Award Number HRN-G-00-98-00010-00, and under FHI's cooperative agreement with USAID number HRN-A-00-97-00017-00. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the donors mentioned above.
