Preventing Separation

Children are highly vulnerable to separation from their parents in conflict, displacement or disasters. Families may flee for their safety and lose loved ones in the chaos, parents may leave their children or send them away for their own safety or in the belief they will be better cared for by others. Children may lose their parents to disease, injury or death, while others may be abducted by armed forces, or trafficked.

Relevant authorities and organizations should provide coordinated action to reduce separation and endeavour to keep children as close to their parents, relatives and community as possible. When the possibility of separation can be anticipated, such as when an attack is possible or a movement of a population is anticipated or planned, community education should be undertaken. Families should be alerted to the risks of separation and encouraged to take precautions. Such precautions may include ensuring their child has undergone birth registration, teaching children their full names and addresses, encouraging children to wear name tags at all times, agreeing on a meeting place in case of separation, and making sure children are accompanied by a known adult whenever possible. This is particularly important when there are high risks of sexual violence, abduction and trafficking. In circumstances where the evacuation of a population is necessary, family groups should be moved together. Children should not be evacuated on their own.

Agencies should endeavour to avoid unnecessary separation by ensuring that households have adequate basic provisions. All services such as food aid, health services, and emergency care should be reviewed to ensure they do not encourage the separation or abandonment of children.

This section includes information on the causes of separation, how to assess a situation, and guidance on community messages and practices to reduce the incidence of children becoming separated.

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Child Rights in the Global Compacts: Recommendations for protecting, promoting and implementing the human rights of children on the move in the proposed Global Compacts

Jacqueline Bhabha and Mike Dottridge - Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts, 24 Jun 2017

This working document by the Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts, a multilateral initiative supported by 26 organizations, provides goals, targets and indicators with respect to six priority issues involving refugee and migrant children.

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Sarah Uppard and Lili Birnbaum - Inter-agency Working Group on Unaccompanied and Separated Children, 22 Mar 2017

This handbook offers comprehensive practical guidance on working with unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) in emergency settings.

Toolkit on Unaccompanied and Separated Children

Sarah Uppard and Lili Birnbaum - Inter-agency Working Group on Unaccompanied and Separated Children, 22 Mar 2017

The Toolkit on Unaccompanied and Separated Children compiles 56 tools for the use of practitioners working with unaccompanied and separated children (UASC).

Specialised Foster Care for Unaccompanied and Separated Children in Serbia

Save the Children, 2017

This Save the Children case study aims to briefly describe the process of developing specialised training package for foster care of Unaccompanied and Separated Children in Serbia, its key components and main lessons learned from the process.

Safe Spaces: The Urgent Need for Early Childhood Development in Emergencies and Disasters

Kolleen Bouchane, Molly Curtiss, and Bethany Ellis - Best Start, Theirworld, 01 Sep 2016

This paper from Best Start (a global campaign for Early Childhood Development led by children’s charity Theirworld) emphasizes the need for holistic early childhood development (ECD) programs - Safe Spaces - for young children in emergency situations.

Home on a Care Order: Who the Children are and What the Care Order is for

Montserrat Fargas-Malet, Dominic McSherry, John Pinkerton, and Greg Kelly -- Child & Family Social Work, 07 Jun 2016

Compared to children in other placements, there is much less known about the characteristics and needs of children in the UK who are returned to their birth parents with a care order still in place.

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Gatekeeping - Making Decisions for the Better Care of Children: The role of gatekeeping in strengthening family-based care and reforming alternative care systems

Better Care Network and UNICEF, 17 Dec 2015

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. 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 reflect on the implications for improving policy and programs in this area.

Household Economic Strengthening in Support of Prevention of Family-Child Separation and Children’s Reintegration in Family Care

Lisa Laumann, FHI 360, 01 Jul 2015

This paper presents an overview of learning related to the prevention of family-child separation, the reintegration of children into family care, and economic interventions that support both.

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Information Packet: Deportation and Child Welfare in Mixed Status Families with Unauthorized Parents and Citizen Children

Norah Covarrubias & Alisa Hartman - National Center for Child Welfare Excellence, 01 May 2015

This information packet provides an overview of deportation of family members in families of mixed immigration status in the United States, as it relates to child welfare.