About CCSI - The Caribbean Child Support Initiative
About CCSI - The Caribbean Child Support Initiative
Welcome to the official website of the Caribbean Child Support Initiative, usually called CCSI for short. The CCSI is an early childhood development and family support programme aimed at strengthening the care environment for young children. The CCSI is an intermediary resource programme with a sub-regional thrust to effectively introduce relevant interactive support models for parents and their young children in the Eastern Caribbean, expand the knowledge base on child upbringing practices and create an advocacy movement that would mainstream effective practices. The CCSI is supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF) located in the Netherlands and managed by the Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD) based in Barbados.
CCSI also benefits from regular contributions by our Strategy Group and various Advisory Groups. These comprise practitioners and academics from various fields that help inform aspects of our programme.
CCSI was strategically designed against the background of the Caribbean Plan of Action (CPOA) and the BvLF Strategic Plan 2002 - 2006 due to the strong correlation between the two.
Launched in 2002 we completed Phase 1 of our programme in December 2006. We are currently in the second phase of programming 2007-2011.
We often have to remind people that CCSI is NOT a funding agency, but rather we act as an intermediary, a facilitator, a catalyst, and negotiator. We will establish partnerships with local stakeholders, government departments, NGOs, Universities to engage them in advocacy and other activities. We provide Technical Assistance/Support on matters of programme incubation, programme development, feasibility studies and reviews. We will engage consultants, trainers, facilitators – to implement initiatives and activities, and negotiate with others (private and public sector, as well as international funding agencies) to further support our interventions in communities.
CCSI can be considered a regional change agent that facilitates processes at varying levels, engaging multiple partners on multiple pathways. Over the last eight years, CCSI has been about entrepreneurship, risk-taking and partnership.
Programme Implementation is guided by three (3) Core Strands:
(1) Family and Community Interventions - This will mean continued replication of the Roving Caregivers Programme (RCP), with the addition of elements of family learning and delivery through existing services such as health agents. To date, CCSI has been instrumental in introducing and helping to anchor the programme as it has proven to fill a major void in areas where there are no other similar services available. Furthermore, given that it provides for early stimulation of children in their critical years of development the RCP provides opportunities that are often missed or erased among these “at-risk” groups.
Over the next two years (2010 to 2011), CCSI proposes to use the RCP approach and its major working principles to develop a sustainable service delivery mode for the marginalised young child and their family that would have cross-sector relevance, lends itself for expansion and would be affordable.
The Bernard van Leer Foundation supports early childhood development programmes in the form of grants to local partner organisations, who are a range of public, private and community-based agencies. They aim to fund projects that will have a lasting and tangible effect on the lives of children around the world.
To better understand our programme, it is important to look at the overall early childhood environment in the Caribbean. The following information can help put that into perspective.
Implementers and Contributors:
- Caribbean Child Support Initiative Staff
- CARICAD
- BvLF
- Communities
- Partner agencies
- Governments and NGO’s
- Donor Agencies
Beneficiaries:
- Children and parents in communities
- Partner agencies
- Governments and NGO’s
CCSI will build the capacity and mobilise its partners to be advocates for strengthening the young child’s care environment and the requisite policies to foster such.
- We recognise that there is enormous potential to build on the strengths and interest of various partners in positioning them to be (self) advocates at the grassroots/community, national and regional levels.
- CCSI will work at both the micro (community/grassroots) and macro (national/regional) levels to affect and contribute to policy changes.
Our primary focus in Phase 2 is 4 islands in the eastern Caribbean, however, we share our information throughout the region, and continue to collaborate with others in the region on specific interventions.
The Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD) is a regional organization founded two decades ago, CARICAD’s mandate is to assist member governments to improve efficiency and to contribute to strengthening the public sector’s capacity to cope with an ever changing global environment. CARICAD manages the CCSI programme from their Barbados-based office.
