Business Foundations For Formative Evaluation: A Report By Save The Children Social Group

Primary Objectives of the Action Plan

Discuss about the Business Foundations for Formative Evaluation.

In this modern day and age, an approximation of about 200 million children works for their living. A vast majority of them do not go to school or even have time to play. The basics requirements in their early lives such as nutrition and care also remain unfulfilled. In the worst case scenarios, a considerable number of them are forced to work in hazardous environments or other forms or illicit activities which may even include involvement in things such as drug trafficking, prostitution etc. (Vandenberg, Nippierd and Gros-Louis, 2007). These children are basically denied the rights to lead their lives as children. The society as a whole gets negatively affected by this sort of a scenario and this issue needs to be addressed seriously. The mere presence of child labor in this modern society not only indicates alarming signs for the health and welfare of the children, but it also involves alarming signs for the national economies of the most affected countries. 

Save The Children is one such organization that addresses this issue with utmost urgency and seriousness. It is a UK based social group which addresses the issue of child labor and fights for their rights as well. In this report, an action plan proposed by this organization in order to resolve the issue of child labor is discussed by the researcher. This social group works on coordinating their efforts in the fields of children education and development both physically and emotionally in order to eradicate the curse of child labor from this society (Logins, 2016).

Every social groups or organization which aspire to be successful in terms of achieving their goal should have proper and focused objectives of their action plan. The action plan in order to address the issue of child labor created by Save the Children social group in the UK has set some clarified objectives that are to be achieved at any condition. Those fundamental objectives are discussed in this section of the report.

Firstly, Save the Children group has set their sights upon creating a robust policy framework in relating to the issue of child rights and child development which involves conventions on the development of a child as well as international standard effective practices (Jogram, Deore and Shankarrao, 2012).

Secondly, this organization’s objective is to promote education among the deprived children, by making them realize the importance of education in their lives as well as providing utmost support in terms of receiving a quality education (Edgington, 2002).

Proposed Actions

Thirdly, their aim is to directly fight child labor by preventing, rehabilitating, withdrawing, re-integrating working children and their entire families, so as to give them a new hope of succeeding in life (‘Working with Children’ Project, 2002).

Another essential objective acknowledged by the Save the Children social group is to generate maximum possible awareness on child labor in order to let the members of the society realize the negative impact it bears on the society as well as the deprived children (Hoffman, 2004).

Lastly, Save The Children organization aims to engage the various business sectors in the cause of child protection in order to comprehensively fight against child labor and minimize or eradicate it from this society if potentially possible (Save the children, 2014).

In this section of the report, the proposed actions will be discussed to achieve the objectives listed in the previous sections. Each objective set by Save the Children social group will be supported by a set of proposed actions in order to achieve those objectives.

Firstly, for the creation of a robust policy framework, some points of action have to be acknowledged. Introducing new and clarified legislative framework considering effective actions and preventive measures in the cases of child labor is an important point of action. Promotion of employment-oriented development in both the rural and the urban areas should be considered as another essential point of action in this regard (Save the children, 2014).

Secondly, for achieving the objective of promoting education among the deprived children, Save The Children organization has proposed some action points to be worked upon. Improvement in the collection of data and its analysis of the number of children who are out of school and does not receive any sort of education, and in turn profiling this information and listing all the candidates and providing them basic education is an important point of action. For achieving the mentioned objective, another action point which is acknowledged by Save the Children organization is the identification of the bottlenecks in terms of school participation of the children, and resolving the related issues (Kavanagh, 2013).

Thirdly, for achieving the objective of rehabilitating, reintegrating, and preventing the children and their families, Save The Children social group has acknowledged the fact that they have to come up with certain action points. One of those proposed actions is to convince the children along with their families to rehabilitate if necessary. Another action point which is to be considered is to arrange the facilities that are required for their re-integration and rehabilitation (Harper, 2007).

Expected Outcomes

To fulfil the objective of generating maximum awareness, Save the Children social group has proposed an elaborate action plan which involves conduction of awareness campaigns relating to child labor, filming documentaries and conduction of various surveys relating to the child labor issues.

Finally, for the achievement of the objective of engaging business sectors in the cause of protection of children, Save The Children social group determined a set of action points. The social group aspires to explore various methods and techniques with the implementation of which a business can respect children’s rights and protect them in undesirable scenarios (Child Protection Australia 2001 -02: First National Results, 2002).

Upon completion of the first objective established by Save the Children social group, there are some anticipated outcomes. As discussed in the previous sections of the report, the first objective of this organization is to create a robust policy framework which would support the cause of children protection against forced or unforced labor. If a suitable framework is established, then child labor cases could be drastically minimized, as with the inclusion of strong rules and policies the child employers themselves would dread before indulging themselves in this practice of employing under-aged children for doing their work (Åslund and Grönqvist, 2010).

Upon the successful completion of the second objective, of promoting the pros of education among deprived children, some very positive outcomes can be anticipated. If the requirement of education can be ignited in the children, then they themselves would be able to try to shape their futures in a different direction. Once they understand the importance of education, they would try to escape from the stranglehold of child labor, with the help of their families as well as Save the Children social group.

 Moreover, if the third objective of rehabilitating and re-integrating of the children and their families can be achieved, some potentially positive outcomes can be expected as well. If Save The Children social group are able to rehabilitate the children and their families, they can find new hope and start afresh in a new environment. With the help of the organization, the children can get basic education and get a chance to shape their lives in their own ways (Kuziemko, 2007).

The fourth objective established by the Save The Children social group was to generate maximum potential awareness among the masses about the threat of child labor to the entire society. If the organization is successful in achieving this objective, then the masses will acknowledge the fatal issues related to child labor and more hands will join in order to fight against child labor and in turn this practice could be minimized to a considerable extent.

Finally, upon the successful completion of the final objective set by Save The Children social group, some potentially positive outcomes are anticipated. The objective that was established was to engage various business sectors in the cause of child protection and fighting against child labor issues (Goswami and Jain, 2006). If this objective is achieved by this social group, then the business sectors would take interest in the issues of child labor, which in turn would result in the introduction of a lot of finances which could be used for the benefits of the children and their families. The issues regarding child labor could get a thorough focus as well if the business sectors get involved in this scenario.

The key personnel involved in the action plan for Save the Children social group along with their responsibilities in the action plan is discussed in this section of the report.

Key Personnel	Primary responsibilities
Administrative Head	·         Dividing the workers of the group into teams for completion of the action plan. ·         High-risk decision making in emergency scenarios.
Data collection and analysis department employees	·         Collecting data from various industries which involve child labor (Wigle and Wilcox, 2003). ·         Conducting surveys about non-school going children and analyzing their data, whether they are involved in child labor practice or not.
Educators and councillors	·         Educating deprived children and their families about the values and importance of education. ·         Generating awareness against child labor among the masses, via conduction of presentations, awareness programs etc.
Account department employees	·         Taking care of the financial requirements and resources that are required to complete the fundamental action plan objectives
Field Workers	·         Interacting with the deprived children and fulfilling their basic needs in order to restrict them from working at young ages. ·         Providing utmost protection for them in emergency scenarios (Wigle and Wilcox, 2003).

The estimated completion dates of each objective along with the requirement of resources in order to successfully complete them are discussed in this portion of the report.

Established Objectives	Estimated completion timeline	Requirement of resources
Creation of a robust policy framework	6 to 12 months.	Aid from the concerned Government (DEPRIVED CHILDREN: A JUDICIAL RESPONSE, 2009).
Promoting education among deprived children	6 to 18 months.	Quality teachers, councillors and adequate infrastructure.
Rehabilitation of the deprived children along with their families	12 to 18 months.	Infrastructure, potentially adequate financial backbone and Government aid.
Creation of mass awareness against child labor	6 to 9 months.	Dedicated employees who are ready to conduct awareness programs.
Engaging various business sectors in the cause of protection of children	12 to 18 months.	Strong financial backbone, leadership skills from the administrative management and reputed background of the social group (DEPRIVED CHILDREN: A JUDICIAL RESPONSE, 2009).

There exist some potential risk factors in terms of completing the action points, which is a necessity in order to successfully complete the action plan. These risk factors are discussed in this section.

In the case of the first action points required to complete the first objective, i.e., to create a robust policy framework, a risk factor is involved, as the government might not agree with the policy stated and the local government groups may also disagree, which may often lead to undesirable circumstances (Rashed et al., 2013).

In case of the action points needed to complete the second objective, i.e., to promote education among the deprived children, a risk factor is involved, as the employers of the children may cause chaos while performing these attempts and their own families might be against education, which can prove to be a major risk factor.

In the case of the other three objectives, a primary risk factor can be identified. This risk factor can be deemed as finances required for achievement of the mentioned action points in the previous sections of this report. It is clearly visible that in order to achieve the rest of the three objectives, i.e., rehabilitating the children along with their families, creation of mass awareness against child labour, engaging various business sectors in the cause of child protection, requires a strong financial backbone, which could often prove to be a major risk factor (Rashed et al., 2013).

The best possible evaluation procedure identified by the researcher for this action plan is the conduction of the self-assessment surveys. Elaborately, it can be stated that after the completion of each action points, a self-assessment is required to be conducted, to calculate how much the actual completion timelines are violating the anticipated timelines and by how much proportions the actual outcomes are varying with the anticipated outcomes. Thus, self-assessment surveys can be regarded as an essential part of the action plan, as far as evaluation procedure is concerned.

References

‘Working with Children’ Project. (2002). Children Australia, 27(03), p.4.

Aslund, O. and Grönqvist, H. (2010). Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?.Labour Economics, 17(1), pp.130-139.

Child Protection Australia 2001 -02: First National Results. (2002). Children Australia, 27(04), p.23.

Deprived Children: A Judicial Responces. (2009). Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 37(4), pp.45-48.

Edgington, W. (2002). To Promote Character Education, Use Literature for Children and Adolescents.The Social Studies, 93(3), pp.113-116.

Goswami, S. and Jain, V. (2006). Determinants of Child Labour Participation: Review of Issues and Implications for Policy. Management and Labour Studies, 31(4), pp.388-398.

Harper, M. (2007). Boarding Out at Home and Abroad: Rescuing and Rehabilitating Scotland’s Destitute Children from the 1860s to the 1960s. Northern Scotland, 27 (First Serie(1), pp.99-115.

Hoffman, S. (2004). Save the children. Nature, 430(7002), pp.940-941.

Jogram, D., Deore, D. and Shankarrao, D. (2012). Formative Evaluation: Action Plan for Primary Education. IJSR, 2(5), pp.60-63.

Kavanagh, D. (2013). Children: Their Place in Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 34(10), pp.1487-1503.

Kuziemko, I. (2007). Essays on social factors related to United States income inequality.

Logins, A. (2016). Save the children!. Analysis, p.anw051.

Rashed, A., Tomlin, A., Jackman, J., Neubert, A., Wilton, L. and Wong, I. (2013). Epidemiology and potential associated risk factors of drug-related problems in hospitalised children in UK. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 98(6), pp.e1-e1.

Save the children. (2014). Nature, 512(7513), pp.113-113.

Save the children. (2014). Nature, 512(7513), pp.113-113.

Vandenberg, P., Nippierd, A. and Gros-Louis, S. (2007). Introduction to the issue of child labour. Geneva: Bureau for Employers’ Activities, International Labour Office, and the International Organization of Employers (IOE).

Wigle, S. and Wilcox, D. (2003). Changing Roles and Responsibilities of Special Educators; Implications for Teacher Education. Action in Teacher Education, 25(1), pp.27-37.