In the attached document, Lumos reports that 8 million children worldwide are in institutions globally.  

This policy brief by Save the Children introduces the background, goals, and guiding principles of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children endorsed by the UN General Assembly on the 20th of November 2009 while also explaining why family-based care is a preferred care arrangement over institutions. Furthermore, it suggests policy and practice recommendations to further protect children without appropriate care and strengthen families and communities.

On the 22nd October 2013, a new regional campaign in the Latin American and Caribbean region was launched to end the placement of children under three years of age in institutions.

The first of two important presentations by Dr. Stela Grigorash, the Director of Partnerships for EveryChild Moldova, on the important work and lessons learnt in reforming the care system in that country.

In this article for Prism Magazine, a publication of Evangelicals for Social Action, the authors ask challenging questions about the role of 'orphanage tourism', where Westerners visit or volunteer to work at a residential care center (orphanage) in the developing world, whether the trip is arranged by a tour or travel company, a nonprofit, or by a church.

This Report from the international ministerial conference, held in Sofia, 21–22 November 2012, entitled 'Ending the placement of children under three in institutions: support nurturing families for all young children', brings together the presentations, political commitments and priority actions identified by the participants, including 20 governments from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

This report documents the work conducted by Save the Children in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs over a period of 7 years to strengthen the national child protection system and change the underlying paradigm for that system away from over-reliance on residential care and towards child and family centered responses.

Responsibletravel.com, a travel company operating from the UK since 2001 has issued Guidelines for partner operators for volunteering directly with vulnerable children, including in the context of orphanage volunteering.

This audit was conducted to determine whether the Department of Social Welfare in Ghana was sufficiently regulating the operations of Residential Homes for Children (orphanages) to ensure the care and protection of children living in institutions.

The objective of this study was to determine whether children's characteristics and/or institutional characteristics were predictors of severe punishments (including beatings) and/or frequency of punishments that children received from staff in Romanian institutions.