Democratic Republic of the Congo

An estimated 6.7 million children have suffered from COVID-19-associated orphanhood and caregiver death in the past two years (as of January 15, 2022). This number is rapidly growing: every 6 seconds another child loses a parent or caregiver. This report, issued by dozens of leading international NGOs, outlines the magnitude of loss globally due to COVID-19 and presents tangible steps that the U.S. government can take to support children and families.

BICON 2021 was an opportunity for government and intergovernmental representatives, civil society organisations, practitioners, academics and most importantly care experienced young people to come together and discuss the most pressing issues regarding children’s care in Asia. With a focus on implementation, practitioners shared examples of innovation, highlighted promising practices, and showcased local solutions to challenges faced by countries across Asia. The Report is filled with challenges, recommendations, session summaries, speaker bios and more.

The aim of this report is to fill a knowledge gap by examining the points of interaction between climate change impacts and the amount, distribution, and conditions of unpaid care work. We focus on care workers rather than those who are cared for, while stressing the relational nature of care and acknowledging
that carers too require care.

Increased support for care leavers and new legislation to reduce out of area placements must also be introduced as part of a major reform of the children's social care system, according to a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for looked-after children and care leavers. The report, which reveals the results of a spotlight inquiry on the care system, will feed into the upcoming Care Review.

In Australia, on any given day, about 43,000 children have a parent in prison. We have to use the word “about”, as there is no official process to identify this group of children. There is no specific oversight and no special supports. Despite the state removing their parent, there is no government department responsible for them. A new parliamentary inquiry has been set to try and fix this. It cannot come soon enough.

Carrying photographs of nearly 200 other families that have been separated from their loved ones, migrant farmworkers, child and elderly care workers spoke about the crisis of family separation created by Canada’s immigration laws.

An estimated 33% of children aged 5 to 17 in Sierra Leone’s Eastern Province have experienced child trafficking, and 36% have experienced child labor, according to new research from the African Programming & Research Initiative to End Slavery (APRIES) at the University of Georgia’s Center on Human Trafficking Research & Outreach (CenHTRO).

It is starting to be recognised that young people with mental health and/or intellectual disabilities making the transition to adulthood from out-of-home care require focused attention to understand their needs and service requirements. Within the UK jurisdiction of Northern Ireland (NI), young people with mental health and/or intellectual disabilities are over-represented in the population of care leavers and yet very little is known about their specific needs. The overall aim of the study reported here was to examine the profile of care leavers with mental health and/or intellectual disabilities in order to better inform how best to configure child and adult service systems to meet their transitional needs.

There are limited studies which investigate the perceived needs and wellbeing of parents caring for their children with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This qualitative study uniquely explored the experiences and cultural factors of Vietnamese parents caring for children with a disability in multicultural Australia.

This APPG report puts a spotlight on what ‘community’ means to care-experienced people and explores what might be done to help strengthen important community relationships and connections for current and future generations of children in care. The report contains 15 practical recommendations for changes that could be made in the near future to improve the ways in which the care system supports young people to connect with their communities and highlights 5 broader areas where the authors feel serious reform is required that the Department for Education (and others) should consider in greater detail.