Recognising that most children worldwide are denied their right to social protection and acknowledging the requirement that government should have respect for the rights and dignity of recipients, this report considers the merits of directing cash benefits to children in the form of universal child benefits (UCBs) (aka universal child grants [UCGs]), conditional cash transfers (CCTs) and means-tested benefits. In doing so, it deliberately foregrounds considerations of dignity in order to devise ways of ‘shame-proofing’ social protection.