Abstract:
Effective child protection framework requires a holistic approach where all actors are involved. This study was conceived to assess the level of collaboration between community–based informal approaches and government formal child protection structures in Mwingi central sub county. The study adopted mixed methods research design where data collection and analysis was done through both qualitative and quantitative methods. Both probability and non-sampling procedures were used to select a total of 433 respondents who included 399 adult members of the households, 24 children aged between 12-17 years and 10 key informants who participated in this study. The study was guided by the systems theory and the collected data was analyzed through thematic content analysis and descriptive statistics which involved the use of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20. The study results showed that there was poor close working relationship between structured child protection systems and community-based informal structures and the working relationship between the two approaches was greatly hampered by factors like: low visibility of government officials within the study region, community mistrust of government officials, and corruption by some government officials. The study recommends that there should more collaborative effort in child protection for better results.
