ASPIRES Family Care: Evidence and Guidance for Economic Strengthening to Help Families Stay Together

The Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation & Research in Economic Strengthening (ASPIRES) project, supported by PEPFAR and USAID and managed by FHI 360, supports gender-sensitive programming, research and learning to improve the economic security of highly vulnerable individuals, families, and children. ASPIRES provides technical assistance to US Government agencies and their implementing partners to advance and scale up high-quality interventions in the areas of consumption support, money management, and income promotion. It also designs and implements rigorous research to evaluate programs and inform a new understanding of best practices in economic strengthening (ES) for vulnerable populations.

With funding from USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF), ASPIRES’ Family Care project is tackling the topics of how ES interventions can help separated children—such as children in residential care facilities, children living on the street, or children migrating for work—return to and remain in their families. We are also exploring how ES can help highly vulnerable families stay together. Keeping families together reduces children’s risk of neglect, abuse, and exploitation and increases the likelihood that they will experience positive physical, social, and mental health outcomes.