Better Care Network highlights recent news pieces related to the issue of children's care around the world. These pieces include newspaper articles, interviews, audio or video clips, campaign launches, and more.
This article from the Sydney Morning Herald highlights a new position that has been created - NSW deputy guardian for Aboriginal children and young people - as part of government reforms to reduce the stark over-representation of Indigenous children in state care, and the head of the national peak body for First Nations children, Richard Weston, who will fill that role.
"The Victorian Ombudsman is calling for "major reform" of the state's residential care system, after investigating allegations that five children, as young as 11, were physically and sexually assaulted while in the state's care," says this article from ABC News in Australia.
"An adoptee identity rights organisation has called on the Government to commit to a national apology for the 'decades-long practice of concealing and obstructing access to records pertaining to mother and baby homes,'" according to this article from the Irish Examiner.
This article from BBC News tells the stories of people who experienced abuse in childhood at the hands of the head teacher at Brookside School for Maladjusted Children, a boarding school in Shropshire, UK, in the 1960s and 70s.
"The U.S. government’s policy of separating migrant children from their families at the southern border is 'cruel, inhuman,' and 'rises to the level of torture,' according to a new academic article authored by a slate of doctors throughout the country," says this article from the San Francisco Chronicle.
"About 10,000 young people move out of the care system in the UK every year," says this article from BBC News. "For some there's a sudden cut-off with little support on the other side." In the article, Kim Emenike describes her experience of what has been described as a "care cliff".
According to Northern Ireland's health minister, there has been an increase in the number of children referred to social services since last year, as well as an increase in children on the child protection register and more children in care, says this article from BBC News.
In this article for the Guardian, Krish Kandiah argues that "any young person ready to make the step to leave home needs the safety net of a family they belong to" and calls for greater supports for young people aging out of care, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown restrictions put in place.
"New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services is launching a pilot program to expand the use of parent advocates who have experience dealing with the foster care system and can support mentor parents whose children are currently in foster care," according to this article from NYN Media.
In this article for Independent Australia, Gerry Georgatos, coordinator of the National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project, discusses the "scandalously" high rates of child removals, of First Nations and Australian children.