Community Based Care Mechanisms

The Guidelines for the Alternative Care for Children highlight the importance of providing children with care within family-type settings in their own communities. This allows girls and boys to maintain ties with natural support networks such as relatives, friends and neighbours, and minimizes disruption to their education, cultural and social life. Keeping children within their communities (ideally as close as possible to their original homes), also allows girls and boys to stay in touch with their families, and facilitates potential reintegration.

Examples from around the world demonstrate that there are many ways children without adequate family care can be supported within their own communities. This includes both formal and informal arrangements such as foster care, kinship care, domestic adoption/Kafala, guardianship, supervised independent living, child-headed households and small group homes.

These practices can be supported through a range of formal measures including social protection schemes (e.g. child sensitive cash transfers), family strengthening services, community based rehabilitation services for children with disabilities, respite care, training for caregivers, and policies that support families in alternative care-taking roles. Increasing access to free education and health services, and establishing social assistance programmes to reduce poverty, can also help the poorest caregivers to support children within the community.

In the absence of well-developed care and child protection systems in many countries, community based mechanisms can also play a key role supporting children and caretakers in alternative care situations. Child protection Committees, faith based organizations, civil society groups, volunteer associations and other community based groups can provide financial or practical support through schemes that help to fund children’s education or health costs, link them to support services or social assistance schemes, and provide mentorship and family counseling. Home visits and caretaker support groups can also play a valuable role, while awareness raising efforts to promote children’s rights (particularly if supported by community and religious leaders), can help to reduce discrimination against girls and boys in alternative care arrangements – particularly those with disabilities or from minority groups.

As long as they are not over-burdened or given responsibilities beyond their competence, community-based groups can provide vital support to children in alternative care situations. Often however, they are hampered by weak organizational procedures, limited technical capacity and poor coordination. Continued efforts by governments, NGOs and international agencies are needed to promote their institutional development and to enhance their ability to support children.

The literature in this section describes a range of care arrangements that enable children to receive adequate care within their own communities, and community support initiatives that help to sustain them.

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Ending the Placement of Children Under Three in Institutions: Report from the International Ministerial Conference, Sofia, November 2012

UNICEF , 01 Oct 2013

This Report from the international ministerial conference, held in Sofia, 21–22 November 2012, entitled 'Ending the placement of children under three in institutions: support nurturing families for all young children', brings together the presentations, political commitments and priority actions identified by the participants, including 20 governments from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

A Better Way to Protect ALL Children: The Theory and Practice of Child Protection Systems, Conference Report

UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children and World Vision, 15 Sep 2013

This report of a major conference held in New Delhi in November 2012 entitled “A Better Way to Protect ALL Children: The Theory and Practice of Child Protection Systems”, encapsulates the substantive content of the presentations and related discussion; provides an analysis and documents the journey; and suggest an agenda, or at least direction, for future work on Child Protection systems.

Children's Views of Living with Informal Kinship Carers: Social Networks, Stigmas, and Attachment to Carers

Elaine Farmers, Julie Selwyn, and Sarah Meakings from the School of Policy Studies at University of Bristol, UK, 01 Sep 2013

This study funded by Big Lottery and undertaken in partnership between the University of Bristol and Buttle UK, a grant-giving charity for vulnerable children, aims to fill gaps in understanding about the experiences of children living with kins, and in particular how children in informal kinship care view their situation.

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Better Care Network, 22 Jul 2013

India submitted its third and fourth combined report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Baseline Survey on Community Child Protection Systems in Uganda

Eddy. J. Walakira, Ddumba-Nyanzi Ismail, Jimrex Byamugisha, 01 Jun 2013

This report describes the process, findings and recommendations of the baseline survey for the project titled, “Building and Strengthening Community-Based Child Protection Systems in Busoga and Acholi sub-regions” commissioned by ANPPCAN. The baseline survey was intended to establish the status of project indicators so that the information obtained can inform the implementation of project activities.

The State of the World's Children 2013: Children with Disabilities

UNICEF, 01 May 2013

In its 2013 State of the World’s Children Report, UNICEF has chosen to highlight the particular issues, needs, and circumstances of children with disabilities worldwide. The report includes a description of the common issues that children with disabilities face, models for inclusive policy and practice, and an agenda for action moving forward.

Building Adult Capabilities to Improve Child Outcomes: A Theory of Change

Jack Shonkoff, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University; Frontiers of Innovation (FOI), 30 Apr 2013

This 5-minute animated video depicts a theory of change for achieving breakthrough outcomes for vulnerable children and families. It describes the need to focus on building the capabilities of caregivers and strengthening the communities that together form the environment of relationships essential to children’s lifelong learning, health, and behavior.

Development Perspectives of Foster Care in Armenia: Research Results Analysis

Center for Educational Research and Consulting and Save the Children , 30 Apr 2013

This report produced by the Center for Educational Research and Save the Children summarises a broader research study which examined the foster care pilot programme introduced in Armenia in 2005. The study aimed to find out if the pilot program succeeded, what problems arose, how the program could be improved and how foster care in Armenia could develop and expand effectively.

Roadmap for Accelerating Reduction of Maternal, Newborn and Child Mortality, 2013-2016

Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health & Ministry of Health - Zambia, 01 Apr 2013

This Road Map is aimed at accelerating “the reduction of maternal, newborn and child mortality rates sufficiently in order to enable Zambia attain the set MDGs by 2015.”

Foster Care Services for Children in Moldova

Kelley McCreery Bunkers, 15 Mar 2013

This important assessment of foster care services in the Republic of Moldova explores the differences between the two main types of foster care services provided in that country, including in terms requirements and profiles of caregivers and of the children, the legal and policy framework underpinning them, including the legal status of the foster parent, as well as the allowances and benefits for each type of care