Profile

Grace Mwangi

Child Protection and Family Based Care Specialist

Grace is a Child Protection and Family Based Care Specialist with over 20 years’ experience. She is a passionate advocate for children outside family care and those at risk of losing parental care. She has pioneered several intervention programs focusing on family and community strengthening.  She provides advisory, training and technical support to both state and non-state actors around transforming care and reintegration process of children back into their families and communities.

She has done assignments in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa and has been exposed to Care models in Moldova -Eastern Europe, UK and the US. She has worked with Tumaini Kwa Watoto – Children of Hope (UK Charity) and Give a Child a Family a South Africa Based Organization where she implemented family and community based interventions, and reintegration program around children in street situations, and saw over 300 reintegrated back into their families. Currently, Grace is a Senior Technical Advisor (External Consultant) at Lumos Foundation, an organization geared to end the institutionalization of children globally. Her work has enabled her to network with most of the players within the field of Child Care both nationally and internationally, giving her in-depth understanding of issues around child and family vulnerabilities.

She has made contribution to policy at national level in various areas such as; the Technical Working Group tasked with the development of the Guidelines for Alternative Family Care of Children in Kenya (2014) and as a Secretariat member to the Committee of Experts on management of Child Adoptions (2015). She is currently serving as a Board of Trustee in Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund (2019), which is a government agency mandated to rehabilitate street families. She is a member of the Care Reform Core team that is supporting development of Kenya National Care Reform Strategy, as well as a member of the Technical Working Group for development of the National Parenting Programme and also a core member of the Working Group on Children Without Parental Care in Africa.

Grace holds a Master’s Degree in Child Development (University of Haifa-Israel), Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy (Pan Africa Christian University-Kenya), Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work (University of Nairobi -Kenya) and Diploma in Social Work (Kenya Institute of Social Work Development).

Grace says, “Family and Community Based Care is a workable solution for children without parental care “Our children deserve caring and nurturing families”.