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There is a firm commitment by the European Union and its Member States to the deinstitutionalisation of children in alternative care and support for their transition to care that is family and community-based. Children growing up in alternative care have very often experienced significant trauma before being placed in care. Residential care, in particular, is known to expose them to additional risks if it is not equipped to provide them with the individualised care they need for their healthy development and social inclusion. Children need stable and safe relationships with caring adults to…
Eurochild and UNICEF carried out the DataCare project to map alternative care data systems across the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU-27) and the United Kingdom (UK). They found that despite differing national definitions and categorisations of alternative care across the region, enough data being published at national level can be used at an aggregate level to establish comparable indicators on the number of children in residential care and three other relevant and interlinked indicators.
As the European Union does not currently have comparable and Europe-wide data to gauge the…
This Annie E. Casey Foundation brief, which utilizes the most comprehensive data set ever collected across all 50 states, fills in key details about the lives of young people who have experienced foster care. In no uncertain terms, the data describe how youth in foster care are falling behind their general population peers and on track to face higher levels of joblessness and homelessness as adults. With these challenges clear, Casey urges leaders to take action — to collect better data, support better practices and develop better policies — so that youth in care can get the support they need…
Introduction
The following pages discuss how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can reach children without parental care. Although there is no precise statistical data on these children, there are estimates that approximately 220 million children are growing up without parental care – ten percent of the world’s child population. This figure includes children who have lost or are at risk of losing parental care and live in extremely vulnerable circumstances where they lack adequate care and protection.
Children without parental care are disproportionately…
Dreilinden produced this working paper to improve practice in the area of LGBTI* children in care. This paper has texts in a variety of formats from around the world and contains three sections that cover research and tools; interviews; and practice examples.
In the article, “LGBTI Rights are Children’s Rights”, Eva Maria Hilgarth discusses how LGBTI rights apply to children. She looks at the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Kristen Sandberg’s article therein and emphasizes Sandberg’s dialogue with the CRC and notes how it strengthens the position of LGBTI youth and…
This issue brief from the UNHCR highlights key messages from UNHCR in regards to alternative care, including the importance of making alternative care arrangements based on the best interests of the child and using residential or institutional care only as a very last resort. The brief defines the role of the UNHCR in alternative care as well as key concepts of alternative care. The brief reviews the types of alternative care and key actions that UNHCR and its partners can do to ensure the best interests of the child in alternative care. The brief concludes with some examples of the…
This policy brief by Save the Children introduces the background, goals, and guiding principles of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children while also explaining why family-based care is a preferred care arrangement over institutions. Furthermore, it suggests policy and practice recommendations to further protect children without appropriate care and strengthen families and communities. Save the Children has been involved at the international level in the development of the Guidelines and at the country level in efforts to ensure use of the Guidelines as a framework for reform.…
This policy brief by Save the Children sets out the organization’s position on intercountry adoption, highlighting research findings and referring to international legal standards and good practices. Research has shown that growing up in a supportive family environment is crucial to the successful development of a child, and where other family-based options are not possible, intercountry adoption has allowed for abandoned, orphaned or children with disabilities to be raised within a loving family from another country. However, effective regulation of intercountry adoption is essential to…
Child rights must be at the centre of all adoptions in Nepal, says this major study on adoption released in Kathmandu by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Terre des hommes (Tdh). The main conclusion of the 60-page report, ‘Adopting the rights of the child: a study on intercountry adoption and its influence on child protection in Nepal’, is that intercountry adoption should not be allowed to resume without appropriate safeguards being put in place at all levels. Only four out of every 100 children adopted in Nepal are adopted by a Nepali family and many children put…
Following the onset of economic and political change in Mongolia in 1990, a number of new risks and vulnerabilities for children developed. Responses to these problems were mainly undertaken by international and national non-government organisations and the problems and needs of child protection have been largely understood to focus on particular groups of children – street children, working children (in a variety of urban and rural circumstances) and children in conflict with the law. Services have been largely responsive and not proactive or preventative, and run by NGOs, who employ…