DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CHILD CARE BACK UP SYSTEM

By

Author

Presented To

Department of Computer Science

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUTION.

In every child who comes into this world, the hopes and dreams of our common future, that is in our hands as never before. For the world has the knowledge, the resources and the legal imperative to give every child the best possible start in life, in a family environment that offers the love, the care and the maturing that children need to grow, to learn and to develop. To the fullest.

But still those children are being exposed to all diverse kind of mistreatment ranging from child lab our, violence, abuse, neglected, commercial sexual exploitation of children. Children are more venerable than adult to being hurt, neglected, abused and exploited. Their survival is at risk and their full development is compromised. Violence against children occurs within families, in schools and communities.

However, the need to care for these children so as to meet the increasing and challenging demand arouse, thus, man resolves to help to mobilize a global movement for children, an unstoppable crusade to end it, at long last, the poverty, ill health violence and destroyed so many young lives. In this structure, there is need to know who a child is and what child abuse and neglect are.

In traditional and even contemporary Africa, various ethnic groups have different concepts who a child is while some see one as a child so far he cannot contribute to the development of the society, others see him in terms example, Olukoshi et al (1990) posited that; there is not one acceptable age, which is considered as a worthy definition of the upper limit of childhood begins in terms of the right to vote and to be voted for and the age considered by the federal ministry of youth and culture, and education as being upper limit of childhood differs…

Even internationally, there are divergent definitions as to who a child is. The OAU charter defines a child as every human being be low the ages of eighteen (18) years even though there are divergent opinions and of the author, that a child is anybody between the birth to the completion of physiological and physiological and between zero of his or her birth to eighteen (18) years is a child.

Child neglect is connoted act of mission, denial or even giving basic needs rights and deeds of the child by parents/guardians, of a child, neglect can also take the child both now and in future.

Child care on the other hand represents an area of programming targeted at children who are victims of or belong to, groups which are especially vulnerable to, various kinds of abuse, exploitation, violence and abandonment.

1.1 HISTORICAL BACK GROUND OF STUDY

The creation of the United Nations in 1945 represented the coming of age of an international co-operation. Its immediate spur was the destruction caused by World War II, but behind this laid a longer term desire to promote world peace. There were however no ideas of setting up within the constellation of new institutions, a special organization for children. The creation in 1946 of the United Nations international children’s emergency fund was an accident of early cold war politics.

The prospect in Europe were grim. The writer of 1946-1947 was particularly bitter. Millions of people were still without proper shelter, few clothing or food, children especially were suffering in some affected areas: half of all babies were dying before their first birthdays. The allies anticipating widespread devastation of the end of the war, had established the united nations relief and rehabilitation. Administration (UNRRA) in 1943 to provide general assistance. But the iron curtain descended, and the United States Government refused to go on using UNRRA as a belief and belief channel because it was aiding countries in both western and eastern Europe.

Just as UNRRA was about to be wound up, however, voices were raised at its final meeting in Geneva to protest the fate of Europe’s children. The delegate from Poland, Ludwig, Rabelman, was particularly vocal and the meeting accepted the proposal that UNRRA’s residual resources should put to work for children through a UN international children’s emergency fund on IECF. Subsequently, on 11 December 1946, a resolution of the UN general assembly No. 59(1) brought UNICEF into limelight.

UNICEF was established to help children damaged by war, but it stayed in existence to take on a much broader role. While UN member states had not intended to prolong UNICEF’s life beyond the postwar emergency, they did include in its funding resolution the phrase “for child health purposes generally” and this was to offer the children’s fund a permanent niche in the large scale control and prevention of diseases affecting children.

When the time came for the UN to close down ICEP in 1950, a successful body was mounted to save it. This time it was the new nations of the developing world that spoke up. Again, the plea did not go unheard. But in 1953, the general assembly confirmed the children’s organization as a fixture in the UN system.

UNICEF at this time dropped international emergency from its title – becoming the United National Children’s Fund (although retaining its acronym). However, its mission expanded as the post-colonial era presented it with a new challenge.

MISSIONS OF THE UNICEF

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate protection of children’s rights to help meet their basic needs and to expand opportunities to reach their full potential. It is guided by the convention on the rights of the children and strive to establish children’s rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards the children.

It is insisting that the survival, protection and development of children are universal imperatives that are integral to human countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a first call for children and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families:

It is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children-victims of war, diseases, extreme poverty, all forms of violence, exploitation and those with disabilities.

It responds to emergencies to protect the rights of children. In co-operation with United Nations partners and humanitarian agencies, UNICEF makes unique facilities for rapid response available to its partners to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The problem of using a manual system in the child care information department of the UNICEF results in the inability of the staff to process document at minutes times, and the difficulty in achieving an accurate results which may be deduced from improper postal delays, bad handwriting, loss of vital paper or document misplacement of vital information or cases as a result of the services that are available or rendered when it is needed, duplications of effort due to inconsistency in activities and general validation failure during processing etc.

Hence, the above mentioned problems prompted for the design and implementation of child care information system, to enable the organization to work more effectively.

1.3 PURPOSE OF STUDY

The purpose of this study is to design and implementation a system that will eliminate the above listed problems such as misplacement of important reported cases, documents and records, duplications of efforts and a lot of time that is required or taken when searching and processing of cases and files.

It is also created to expose the lapses of the existing system and to expose the intricacies associated with software design.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The significance of this project work or research design and implementation of a post natal child care information system is geared towards the following:

§ To improve the hospital facilities across member countries.

§ To decrease child mortality

§ To decrease the dangers of child abuse and molestation.

§ To reduce inhuman operation on children, such as child labour.

§ To reduce the risk or dangers of child bearing.

§ To ascertain the genetic and health condition of mothers.

§ Usage of computers to automate the whole levels of the organization.

1.5 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aims and objectives of the study is to ascertain on how the organization, UNICEF, operation aims and other activities are performed and also to detect problems that pose obstacles on how the organization, with a view of modifying the operations and developing a new computerized system that will be more effective and accurate such as in the area of misplacement of vital documents, a computer will be used to record, store and retrieve large volume of document, which will deduce the duplication of effort due to inconsistency in activities and time taken in search of file when it is required for processing.

1.6 SCOPE (DELIMITATION OF STUDY) OF STUDY

Beside the information on child care which is the major scope of the study, the research work would be limited to the area of health problems threatening the lives of children and affecting their development and proper growth.

1.7 CONSTRAINT AND LIMITATION OF STUDY

Many factors have hindered the smooth running of the research work. Some of which are:

TIME: Time allocated to this research work was greatly constrained due to intense academic activities involving the researcher.

FINANCE: The major constraints occurred in the form of inadequate funds involved in high cost of materials, access to computer for running of the computer program, transportation expenses and from the case study and also visiting the case study and visiting the case study website and printing of materials etc. militated against the smooth advancement of this work.

Also there were some problems of unwillingness of the respondents in the case study of certain information needed for this work.

1.8 ASSUMPTION OF THE STUDY

Generally, it is assumed that the dangers affecting child bearing in West Africa and, across the globe is a result of low post natal care giving to mothers and children after birth.

When this care is improved and facilitated then child mortality will be improved.

1.9 DEFINTION OF TERMS

CHILD: A child means every human being below the age of eighteen (18) years unless the law applicable to the child majority is attained.

CHILD CARE: this is defined as an act of protecting and caring for a child from circumstances of extreme hazard or high risk, i.e. all rights of a child pertaining to the caring aspect are carried out by the parents, guardian or association.

CHILD NEGLECT: this is any kind of inhumane act that jeopardizes the physical, psychological and the future of the child either intentionally or unintentionally.

COMPUTER: a programmable electro-mechanical device/machine capable of collection of data/input, process these data/inputs according to the instruction given to it, stores the data and provide information which is logical and useful according to the desire of the user.

Retrieval of information is of fantastic speed and accuracy.

DATA: data can be said to be collection of raw/unprocessed facts, figure, charts or symbols that represent an idea, objective or situation which needs to be processed to give a real meaning.

DOWNLOAD: this is simply the transfer of information from the internet or source to a computer or storage device, from one computer to another or from one computer to several computers.

FILE: file is simply a collection of records that are logically related which an individual or a user can attach a name and find information about of a person, attributes I they are logically related.

FLOWCHART: this is a graphical representation of the logical steps and sequence involved or taken in a procedure or a program.

INFORMATION: this is simply processed data which now has a meaning and can now be used to acquire knowledge and then needful in good and accurate decision making.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: this is simply ongoing trend of techniques in technology, which supports the activities / operation involved in creation, process, storage, retrieval, management and application of computer and information on their appropriate use.

PROGRAM: this can be defined as asset o logical related sequenced instructions which are written in code, that instructs the computer on how it should carryout its operations to provide desired output to suite the programmer choice and reason of embarking on such a program.