New York Working Group on Children without Parental Care

As co-convenor of the NY Working Group on Children without Parental Care, Better Care Network collaborated with key international and national organizations and networks working on children's care and protection to call on member States of the United Nations General Assembly (UN GA) to focus the 2014 Resolution on the Rights of the Child on strengthening family care and providing appropriate alternative care for children. Since 2005, the UN General Assembly has highlighted one thematic area of children's rights in its annual resolution, but it has so far not addressed children without appropriate family care. The UN GA session in 2014 was particularly key as it was the 5th Anniversary of the adoption of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. 

More than 40 international and national NGOs and networks issued a joint statement calling on member States to seize this opportunity, reminding them that 

as five years have passed since the adoption of the Guidelines, it is time to take stock of the progress made and how we have moved forward and look at the impact that the Guidelines have had on the lives of children."  

2014 was also the 20th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family and a year of intense preparations and negotiations for the establishment of a new post 2015 development framework. The joint statement underlines that a thematic focus on children's care should also be linked with the current debate on the successor of the MDGs and how to include child protection and care in the post-2015 framework.