Children Affected by Poverty and Social Exclusion

Around the world, poverty and social exclusion are driving factors behind the placement of children into alternative care. Families give up their children because they are too poor to care for them, or they feel that it is the best way to help them to access basic services such as education and health care. Discrimination and cultural taboos mean that girls, children with disabilities, ethnic minorities, children with HIV/AIDS and children born out of wedlock, make up a disproportionate number of children abandoned into alternative care.

Poor-quality alternative care leads to a vicious cycle of poverty and inequality. With limited family-based alternative care options in many countries, children often end up in institutional care. Already marginalized by poverty or stigmatization, they risk becoming further excluded from society, as they grow up separated from their families and communities. In the worst cases, inadequate or unsafe care standards expose them to neglect, violence and abuse. When they eventually leave institutional care, young adults may then struggle to reintegrate into their communities and face high rates of homelessness, unemployment, chronic poverty, depression and even suicide.

Greater political and financial commitment is needed to tackle the poverty and social exclusion that drives families to give up their children. This includes wide-ranging measures to combat poverty, discrimination and stigmatization, to change attitudes towards single parenthood and disability, and to adopt social policies promoting family empowerment and parenting skills. Greater priority must also be given to developing good-quality family-based care options, such as foster care and adoption, for the girls and boys who need alternative families.

The documents in this section examine the relationship between poverty, social exclusion and placement of children in alternative care.

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Barriers and solutions: Australian Indigenous practitioners on addressing disproportionate representation of Indigenous Australian children known to statutory child protection

Fiona Oates - AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 08 Aug 2020

This article outlines the views of Indigenous practitioners collected as part of a doctoral study exploring the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners who undertake child protection work in Australia.

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Parental drug use and racial and ethnic disproportionality in the U.S. foster care system

Angélica Meinhofer, Erica Onuoha, Yohanis Angleró-Díaz, Katherine M. Keyes - Children and Youth Services Review, 08 Aug 2020

This study explored the prevalence of racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparity in parental drug use (PDU) foster care entries and described children characteristics across racial/ethnic populations.

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Has the US Child Welfare System Become an Informal Income Maintenance Programme? A Literature Review

Aislinn Conrad, Casey Gamboni, Victoria Johnson, Armeda Stevenson Wojciak, Megan Ronnenberg - Child Abuse Review, 03 Aug 2020

This literature review examined the extent to which the US child welfare system acts as an informal income maintenance programme.

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National Agreement on Closing the Gap

Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations & Australian Governments, 27 Jul 2020

The objective of this Agreement is to overcome the entrenched inequality faced by too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so that their life outcomes are equal to all Australians. Target 12 of this Agreement is to "by 2031, reduce the rate of over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care by 45 per cent."

Socio-economic status and hunger among orphans and vulnerable children households in Lagos State, Nigeria

Elijah Bamgboye, Tayo Odusote, Iyabode Olusanmi, Joshua Akinyemi, Yussuf Bidemi, Ayo Adebowale, Ashaolu Gbenga, Oladapo Ladipo - African Health Sciences, 22 Jul 2020

The purpose of this study from the journal of African Health Sciences was to assess the level of household hunger and associated factors among orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) households in Lagos State, Nigeria.

Family homelessness, subsequent CWS involvement, and implications for targeting housing interventions to CWS-involved families

Jason M. Rodriguez, Marybeth Shinn, Bridgette Lery, Jennifer Haight, Mary Cunningham, Mike Pergamit - Child Abuse & Neglect, 16 Jul 2020

The authors of this article sought to better understand the relationship between homelessness and child welfare services (CWS) involvement and examine whether homeless shelter data could combine with CWS data to enhance intervention targeting.

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Family homelessness, subsequent CWS involvement, and implications for targeting housing interventions to CWS-involved families

Jason M. Rodriguez, Marybeth Shinn, Bridgette Lery, Jennifer Haight, Mary Cunningham, Mike Pergamit - Child Abuse & Neglect, 16 Jul 2020

This study sought to better understand the relationship between homelessness and child welfare services (CWS) involvement and examine whether homeless shelter data could combine with CWS data to enhance intervention targeting.

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Different Contexts, Different Outcomes: Early Childhood Parenting Context for Latina Mothers Vulnerable to Child Welfare Involvement

Jessica Rodriguez-Jenkins & Deborah M. Ortega - Child & Youth Services, 15 Jul 2020

This paper explores within group differences for Mexican and Puerto Rican mothers vulnerable to child welfare involvement.

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A longitudinal jurisdictional study of Black children reported to child protection services in Quebec, Canada

Alicia Boatswain-Kyte, Tonino Esposito, Nico Trocmé - Children and Youth Services Review, 02 Jul 2020

This article examines rates of disparity using secondary longitudinal clinical-administrative data provided by a child protection agency in Quebec for a subsample of Black, White, and other visible minority children over a ten-year span.

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Yemen 5 years on: Children, conflict and COVID-19

UNICEF, 26 Jun 2020

This report from UNICEF explores the situation of children during the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It outlines UNICEF's response to the crisis and presents a global call to action.