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Published jointly with UNICEF, this new BCN Working Paper focuses on the role of gatekeeping in strengthening family-based care and reforming alternative care systems. Gatekeeping refers to systematic procedures aimed at ensuring that alternative care for children is used only when necessary, and that the type of care provided is suitable to the individual child. This Working Paper reviews different approaches to gatekeeping in five countries--Brazil, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Moldova, and Rwanda--to consider what has and has not worked, to analyze lessons learned from practice, and to…
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 paper by Eurochild and Hopes and Homes for Children aims to raise awareness on the perverse effects of institutionalisation on children and it calls for comprehensive system reforms, starting with a transition towards family and community-based care. The UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children clearly speak in favour of such evolution: “where large residential care facilities (institutions) remain, alternatives should be developed in the context of an overall de-institutionalisation strategy, with precise goals…
EveryChild is an international development charity working in over 15 countries around the world with a focus on children separated from their families and communities or in danger of being so. Their agency does this through three different intervention types: Prevention, Protection and Re-integration.
EveryChild believes the separation of children from their families or usual carers in developing countries is seriously undermining attempts to build healthy communities and meet development goals. Articles 7, 8 and 9 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child…
The original terms of reference envisaged the preparation of Standards for the operation of Children’s Homes and the provision of foster care regulations. However the Initial Assessment carried out in April 2006 found that Guyana in common with many other Commonwealth countries was struggling to meet the present care and protection problems facing children because of outdated legislation and social work practice that was relying on residential care and had no history of community placements. The Initial Assessment recommended that improvements were needed to the social work systems and…