Displaying 1 - 10 of 15
Highlights
UNICEF’s Europe and Central Asia Region (ECAR) is diverse and dynamic, comprising 23 countries which range from low- to high-income, contain among the world’s largest and smallest populations, and are in various stages of the demographic transition. Children, adolescents, and youths in the region face unique challenges that have the potential to derail their opportunities, including exposure to man-made and natural disasters, risks of poverty and deprivation, discrimination and marginalisation, lack of opportunities to attain appropriate skills and…
Abstract
This study aims to elucidate child welfare workers’ resilience and coping styles. Data were collected via questionnaire, specifically the Resilience Scale (RS) and Coping Style Scales-Brief Form (CSS-BF). RS-based results indicated intermediate professional resilience (n = 108) wherein professionals protect their resilience with training and peer support or coaching. Emotion-focused coping methods were also found to be effective. Using different methods than those used in this study, future research on professional resilience in other social work areas is recommended.
Abstract
Deinstitutionalization reforms in the post-Soviet region—the region with the highest rate of institutional care worldwide—are aimed at reducing the number of children in institutions. To develop context-specific gatekeeping strategies and prevent new cohorts of children from entering institutions, it is crucial to understand the local factors that contribute to institutional placement. Using a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study explores the contexts of institutional placement of children in Azerbaijan from their caregivers' perspectives. We conducted semi-structured…
This infographic was shared by the Country Core Team from Armenia who presented at a workshop in London in September 2017, facilitated by MEASURE Evaluation, funded and supported by DCOF/USAID and focused on moving forward alternative care reform in Ghana, Uganda, Armenia and Moldova.
The infographic provides a historical timeline of the alternative care reform process in Armenia, marking key achievements in the establishment of policies, strategies, guidelines…
Executive Summary
We demonstrate that the overuse of institutional care is far more widespread than official statistics suggest; it remains a very serious problem, with damaging effects on children’s development. Many attempts at reform have been well meaning but misguided, and there is a serious danger that many view the overthrow of the communist system as sufficient evidence of reform in the region. These problems have far-reaching consequences: each generation of damaged children is likely to turn into a generation of damaged adults, perpetuating the problems far into the future.…
On 10 September 2014, UNICEF and the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria co-hosted a high level Lunchtime Discussion on The right of children below three years to live in a caring and supportive family environment: examples from Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.The discussion took place on the margins of the September meeting of the UNICEF Executive Board and brought together over 80 participants, including members of the UNICEF Executive Board, representatives of the Permanent Missions to the UN from the CEE/CIS region, international organizations, NGOs, high level UNICEF and…
Countries throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia struggle to change their childcare systems from one that is predominantly based on large-institution care to one that has a continuum of services and is family-focused. Georgia has shown, in large part, that the laudable goal of ending large-scale institutions for children is possible, including for children under the age of 6 years.
Between 2005 and 2013, the Government in the Republic of Georgia closed 32 large, state-run institutions housing children without adequate family care. Social work was strengthened…
EveryChild is an international development charity working in 17 countries with a strategic focus on children without parental care. This document outlines EveryChild’s approach to the growing problem of children without parental care by defining key concepts, analysing the nature and extent of the problem, exploring factors which place children at risk of losing parental care, and examining the impact of a loss of parental care on children’s rights. It also provides principles for good practice in trying to reduce the number of children without parental…
The present analysis has been developed by the UNICEF Regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States as a discussion paper for the 2nd Child Protection Forum on Building and Reforming Child Care Systems. It relied heavily on an independent evaluation commissioned by UNICEF in 2007 which was carried out by Oxford Policy Management and is also informed by the official submissions of Governments on recent changes in child care reform.
The countries of Central Asia and Azerbaijan reviewed in this analysis (…
How and why Roma children become separated from their families becomes a complicated intertwining of legal and social realities. Here, there is an intersection of three vulnerable points of oppression, namely ethnicity, gender, and age. As illustrative of the often complex manner in which children become forcibly removed, several themes emerge and re-emerge within the current systems of imprisonment, institutionalization, adoption, and solutions which fail to acknowledge how general policies and practices ultimately discriminate, exacerbate, and perpetuate the current plight of the Roma…