Every child deserves the best start in life within caring families and communities, with access to health care, education, play and leisure time. Children thrive with consistent, nurturing, loving, and protective care from parents and family caregivers, and families provide crucial cultural, social, and economic connections and support during tough times. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognises the family as the natural environment for the growth and well-being of children. However, families’ ability to provide safe, nurturing care is often threatened by adversities such as poverty, lack of access to services, conflict, violence, and discrimination. The first aim of the Care Reform Campaign is to ensure that states and service providers deliver interventions designed to strengthen families and prevent abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence. Yet around the world some children remain unprotected and, in certain cases, may need to be removed from their parents or caregivers and provided with alternative care. The second aim of the Care Reform Campaign is therefore to ensure that this alternative care is safe, nurturing, and family-based, in line with states’ obligations under the CRC.
This background brief for the Global Campaign on Children’s Care Reform explains why children should grow up in families and outlines the changes needed to strengthen systems of care worldwide.
