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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Preventing Parent-Child Separation: Myths and Facts from a KAP Survey in Central and Western Liberia

Mónica Ruiz-Casares, Russell Steele, Rashid Bangura and Geoffrey Oyat - Global Social Welfare, 16 Aug 2017

This paper presents the findings from a population-based, multi-stage random cluster knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) survey of child caregivers in Liberia, revealing the primary reasons for parent-child separation and common misconceptions about alternative care.

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Changing the Way We Care | A Family Torn

Catholic Relief Services, 10 Aug 2017

All over the world, children are placed in orphanages because their families do not have the resources to care for them. In this short film, a mother makes the difficult decision to leave her daughter to the care of an orphanage.

Street children, integrated education and violence in northern Nigeria

Chidi Ezegwu, Adewole O. Adedokun, Chioma Ezegwu - Education and Extremisms: Rethinking Liberal Pedagogies in the Contemporary World, 09 Aug 2017

This chapter explores how the failing system of traditional almajiri education, challenges associated with government efforts to integrate almajiri education into the formal school system, social exclusion and hostility contribute to increase the boys’ vulnerability to radicalisation and recruitment by Boko Haram.

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Radical practice in a risk-averse environment: Learning from ATD Fourth World UK

Hannah Blumhardt, ATD Fourth World UK, and Anna Gupta - Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 31 Jul 2017

This report examines and shares learnings from ATD Fourth World UK's social work practice framework with families experiencing poverty, discussing its strengths-based collaborative approach to build relationships and reduce power imbalances between practitioners and families. Implications for the feasibility of implementing this framework in child protection social work practice and policy in Aotearoa New Zealand is also addressed.

The Life Chances of Young People in Scotland, A Report to the First Minister

Naomi Eisenstadt - Independent Advisor on Poverty and Inequality, 03 Jul 2017

This report offers 18 recommendations across the key themes of employment, housing and mental health, aimed at improving outcomes for young people from less advantaged backgrounds in Scotland.

Too Hard? Highly Vulnerable Teens in Tasmania

Catherine Robinson - Anglicare Tasmania, 02 Jul 2017

This report presents the findings of an investigation on a cohort of highly vulnerable teens (aged 10-17 years) whose needs for care have fallen outside families, between government agencies and between non-government services. The report identifies the gaps in care received by this cohort and offers key recommendations for how these gaps might be filled.

2017 Home Visiting Yearbook

James Bell Associates with the Urban Institute - National Home Visiting Resource Center, 01 Jul 2017

The 2017 Home Visiting Yearbook presents, for the first time, the most comprehensive picture available of home visiting on the national and state levels, revealing the breadth of home visiting in the United States and identifying the gaps in practice.

The construction of child neglect in English-speaking countries: Children, risk and poor families

Jan Mason - Children and Youth Services Review, 28 Jun 2017

This article is an historical analysis of the association between interventions for neglect and attitudes to poverty in English speaking countries, with reference to specific countries by way of illustration.

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The impact of poverty on children in out-of-home care services in a Chinese context and the application of multiple family group therapy to enrich their family lives

Mooly M.C. Wong, Joyce L.C. Ma and Londy C.L. Chan - Children and Youth Services Review, 17 Jun 2017

This article examines the impact of poverty on looked-after children and their families, describes and evaluates the use of multiple family group therapy and other family-based interventions, and reports children's experiences and feedback from the groups.

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Children returning from care: The challenging circumstances of parents in poverty

Elizabeth Fernandez, Paul Delfabbro, Ioana Ramia, Szilvia Kovacs - Children in Youth Services Review, 14 Jun 2017

This paper reports the findings of an Australian study that examined longitudinal data on reasons for entry to care, trajectories in care and patterns of reunification and associated factors.

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