Orphans and Vulnerable Children - CRIN

Preparing for Home Visits: Elements of OVC Support

In this activity, you will:

 Assist participants to generate their own checklist of OVC support elements

to include in their home visitor’s handbooks

Facilitator’s notes:

Handout 3, The seven elements of OVC support, from Activity 4 is useful to the

participants as an introduction to the various needs of orphans and vulnerable

children. In this activity, participants will revisit this information, but will also

work on their own list of OVC support elements. For example, they may

know of different needs that are not reflected on the handout, and want

to include them. Participants will make up a checklist of questions to ask

when making home visits. These checklists will help them to assess or

determine the needs of vulnerable children in their own CCC.

They will be included in their home visitor’s handbooks.

For this activity you will need:

 Copies of Handout 3 - The seven elements of OVC support

 Extra sheets of blank paper

To facilitate this activity:

1 Have participants look again at Handout 3. Explain to them that they will be looking in greater

detail at four of the seven categories (child protection, education, health, psychosocial support)

from the handout in later modules; and that most of what they will need to learn will be covered

in those modules. Participants need to think about the kinds of information they will want to

collect when making home visits, based on the seven categories on the handout. This will help

them to determine any areas of support that may be lacking for any one particular category.

2 Give participants sheets of blank paper for them to make up their checklists of OVC support needs.

These will be included in their home visitor’s handbooks.

An example of a checklist of questions based on the category on Healthcould include questions

such as:

• Has the child received all his or her basic immunisations?


• What does the child get to eat?
  Questions in other categories could be:


• Who is the primary guardian or caregiver of the child?


• Is the child in school? (yes/no)


• Is the child required to work beyond normal simple household duties?

3 Work with the participants until they feel confident that they are ready to ask the right questions

when making home visits. These questions will help to identify the needs of the children they visit.

Activity 6

40 minutes

(^124) Unit 2, Module 1 Guide to Mobilising and Strengthening Community-Led Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children