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Children who experience deprivation of liberty are distinguished by a high prevalence of complex, co-occurring health needs that necessitate coordinated, high-quality healthcare. Emerging evidence of very poor health outcomes after deprivation of liberty suggests that in addition to ongoing efforts to prevent detention, more should be done to improve the health of these children, both in detention and after they return to the community. Setting and implementing minimum standards for healthcare in detention can help to drive improvements in the quality of care, and thereby improve health…
The transition of individual residential care services for children is a critical part of child protection and care systems reform. It is one of several critical measures required of governments to implement commitments made at the international level to phase out the institutionalization of children and reorientate the system towards family-based care.1 To support the scaling up of transitioning residential care services, and to ensure it is done in a manner that is safe, effective and puts children’s best interests first, certain factors need to be in place at the system level to create…
This handbook explores children’s lived realities of armed conflict and its aftermath and features empirical, conceptual and policy analyses alongside first-hand accounts of the experiences of war-affected children and youth.
The handbook explores the theoretical, practical and policy issues related to children affected by war. Chapters investigate the harms experienced by such children and youth, whether in the heat of conflict, during flight or during resettlement to a new context, underscoring the urgency and high stakes of these situations for children and families affected by war.…
Este Conjunto de Herramientas está compuesto de las herramientas enumeradas a continuación, que pueden ser leídas de manera independiente o conjunta. Cuando es relevante, se hace referencia entre las herramientas para aportar una visión holística de la manera de proceder para facilitar la detección, prevención y la respuesta a las prácticas ilícitas.
Las herramientas fueron deliberadamente redactadas en términos generales para alentar a los Estados a adaptarlas a sus realidades específicas al establecer sus propios procedimientos, medidas y garantías, y difundirlas ampliamente. Este…
Orphanage volunteers may have the best of intentions - but they may unwittingly be doing more harm than good, as one ex-volunteer discovered.
At the age of 17, the idea of volunteering in an orphanage seemed like a rewarding, ethical and helpful thing to do. She found an organisation to travel with and booked on a trip to Kenya.
Looking back, she now questions the ease at which was able to sign up to volunteer in an orphanage, and the unsupervised access, without any child protection checks, to vulnerable children. Today, she feels that her trip was form of exploitation -…
One of our partner organisations and creator of the orphanage volunteering alternative Rok Kern programme, Children in Families was invited to speak about volunteering at an International School in Phnom Penh.
Following, this one student, Annie*, shared her thoughts in a blog about the 'buzz' you get from volunteering in an orphanage. She invites other volunteers to think beyond the 'buzz' to consider the emotional impact on the children and to channel their good intentions and excitement about volunteering into being catalysts for change.
"The important thing to remember is…
When Eliza was a teenager, her dream was to volunteer in orphanages all over the world. So when she turned 18, she packed her bags and headed to Guatemala to volunteer in an orphanage. Her first task was to sort through a container of goods that had been donated to the orphanage from the USA. Inside the container was a pair of snow skis. She remembers realising in that moment that she was a bit like the skis: very well intentioned, but not much use in the context of a Guatemalan orphanage. At the time, she spoke very little Spanish and had minimal experience working with children.
This was…
Ethical volunteering abroad and alternatives to orphanage volunteering
If you’re reading this it is probably because you’re aware that sometimes volunteering abroad can cause more harm than good. But with thousands of volunteering programs available in countries across Africa, Asia and South America, it can be very difficult, as a prospective volunteer, to know which one to choose.
The debate around the pros and cons of international volunteering has been raging for the past decade. With hundreds of articles, blog posts and exposés out there, both in favour and against…
ReThink Orphanages is a global cross-sector coalition working to prevent family separation and child institutionalization by shifting the way volunteers and donors support vulnerable children overseas.
Decades of research show that growing up, separated from family, in a residential care institution, such as an orphanage, is harmful to a child's development and well-being. This has led to a global effort to shift away from institutional care towards family-based care.
But well-meaning support for orphanages – through donations, volunteering, tourist trips…
Description:
Is residential care 'inherently harmful'? This book argues that this conventional wisdom is wrong and is, itself, harmful to a significant number of children and youth.
The presumptive view is based largely on overgeneralizations from research with infants and very young children raised in extremely deprived environments. A careful analysis of the available research supports the use of high-quality residential care as a treatment of choice with certain groups of needy children and youth, not a last resort intervention. The nature of high-quality care is explored…