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Sri Lanka's National Policy on the Alternative Care of Children outlines a comprehensive range of alternative care options and encourages the reforming of all formal structures that provide at-home and out-of-home services for children deprived of care and protection or at risk of being so. This policy also extends to children under care of the Juvenile Justice System. It provides policy solutions to programming for children at risk of family separation and facing deprivations such as child abuse, neglect, child labor, poverty, addiction, imprisonment, human trafficking, mental and physical…
This research on the institutionalization of children in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka was carried out by Save the Children with the support of the Department of Probation and Children Care Services and National Institute of Social Development. The study was aimed at examining the factors that cause families in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka to place their children in institutions. The study was also designed to develop recommendations for deinstitutionalization and family reintegration based on findings from the research, which are provided in this report.
Principal findings of study revealed that institutionalization is becoming an option for families in difficult circumstances in the absence of alternative forms of care (for a summary of the key findings, click here). While government policies explicitly state that poverty should not be an admission criterion, 50% of children in voluntary institutions were there for poverty. Moreover, 80% of children in non-state institutions (generally termed “orphanages”) had at least one living parent…