30,000+
Cases recorded in four years
270,000+
Follow-ups documented
52,000+
Services provided
696
Active users across 14 agencies
In Lebanon, crisis hasnever arrived one at a time. Long before the current war and mass internal displacement, families were already grappling with refugees’ influx, economic collapse and the far‑reaching impacts of COVID‑19. For children, these overlapping shocks translated into heightened risks: violence at home, child
labour, psychological distress, and disrupted access to essential services. Amid this succession of emergencies, one element of the child protection response has remained constant: CPIMS+.
More than a technical platform, CPIMS+ has repeatedly proven its value as a system that holds continuity keeping children visible, cases documented, and services coordinated even when face‑to‑face work becomes impossible.
From lockdowns to displacement: continuity in the face of crisis
During the COVID‑19 pandemic, mobility restrictions and lockdowns forced child protection actors across Lebanon to rapidly shift to remote case management. CPIMS+ played a critical role in enabling this transition. As a fully online, secure system, it allowed caseworkers to continue safely documenting assessments, follow‑ups, and
services remotely, ensuring that children were not abandoned simply because in‑person visits were no longer possible.
Crucially, the system also strengthened remote supervision. Supervisors and managers remained connected to their teams through real‑time access to cases, enabling oversight, quality assurance, and timely guidance despite physical distance. This digital connection between case workers, supervisors, and coordination staff ensured
that remote interventions were not only possible, but accountable and well‑documented, preserving core case management standards even under lockdown.
These lessons proved invaluable. When Lebanon later faced renewed conflict and internal displacement, the foundation laid during COVID‑19 allowed CPIMS+ to once again support continuity under extreme conditions.
A system that holds when systems are strained
Today, CPIMS+ supports 14 child protection case management agencies and 696 active users, with two
additional organizations scheduled to join in April 2026. Through economic collapse, a global pandemic, and now active war, the system has remained operational, ensuring that children’s cases are neither lost nor fragmented
across crises.
Strong governance and accountability structures underpin this resilience. The CPIMS+ Working Group and Steering Committee provide strategic oversight, while rigorous user account management limits case editing privileges to designated management and coordination roles. These measures safeguard confidentiality and data integrity at moments when risks of data breaches or misuse are highest.
On 24 April 2026 in Lebanon, children play in the courtyard between tents at a temporary collective shelter in Beirut. © UNICEF/UNI982732/Choufany
Keeping child protection mobile during war
As war erupted in March 2026, more than 1 million people are displaced, including an estimated 370,000 children, with many families taking refuge in public buildings including schools refurbished to serve as community shelters. CPIMS+ once again adapted to the realities on the ground. Refresher trainings on the Primero “Field Mode” feature enabled caseworkers to securely access and update cases from shelters and temporary locations, often with limited connectivity. At the same time, two newly onboarded NGOs were supported to rapidly build capacity, expanding child protection coverage during emergency response.
Despite the current active hostilities, case management did not stop. By end of March 2026, 4,478 cases remain open and actively managed through CPIMS+, reflecting sustained engagement and follow‑up even in the most fragile contexts. In four years, the system recorded over thirty thousand cases in total, over two hundred seventy thousand follow‑ups and over fifty-twothousand services provided, ensuring that children’s pathways through care were consistently documented.
Turning experience into improvement
Beyond sustaining operations, recent efforts focused on strengthening quality. A comprehensive initial data analysis in 2025 identified key consistency challenges, such as long‑open cases and incomplete consent fields, providing concrete evidence to guide system refinements and Working Group discussions. Moreover, recent
enhancements including Family Record functionality enabling linking cases of siblings and improved data visualization will further strengthen the system’s capacity to reflect complex child protection realities across crises. These improvements directly enhance accountability to children and families.
At the same time, CPIMS+ technical support contributed to the finalization of revised Child Protection Case Management Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Interrupted by war and will resume once conditions allow, the revised SOPs align national practice with CPIMS+ functionality, reinforcing ethical, standardized case
management across agencies.
Why it matters
Whether during a pandemic, economic collapse, or armed conflict, CPIMS+ continues to generate trusted, non‑identifiable data that informs coordination, reporting, and evidence‑based decision‑making.
Lock downs, bombardment, displacement, each crisis threatens to push children further into invisibility. Primero has shown that a secure, online system is not just a technical asset, but a lifeline: connecting caseworkers to supervisors, enabling remote yet accountable case management, ensuring data is recorded safely and securely despite challenging connectivity to the internet and ensuring that children remain protected when everything else is disrupted.
Because in Lebanon, where crises overlap and endure, protecting children means building systems that can endure too.
22 April 2026, Families left their homes with nothing and are staying in small tents with their children since the beginning of the escalation in Lebanon on March 2nd.© UNICEF/UNI982254/Choufany