This presentation to the 2012 Sofia Conference by Jean-Claude Legrand, Senior Regional Advisor Child Protection, UNICEF CEE/CIS, highlights the situation of children in formal care, with particular concern for children with disabilities, and recommends reform and policy initiatives to improve the childcare systems in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

This presentation to the 2012 Sofia Conference by Darinka Yankova, Deputy Chairperson of the State Agency for Child Protection addresses the challenges and the new vision for the deinstitutionalization of children in the Republic of Bulgaria.

This presentation to the 2012 Sofia conference by Irakli Nadareishvili, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Labor Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, highlights the key initiatives of the deinstitutionalization and childcare system reform launched by Georgia in 2005, as well as the challenges faced in this process.

This inter-agency paper was written by Family for Every Child, Better Care Network, Consortium for Street Children, Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages, and World Vision, for submission to the United Nations consultation: ‘Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.’ It examines the links between child protection and health and argues for a continuing focus on health and child survival that encompasses particular goals and indicators on children’s protection.

Hope and Homes for Children, in partnership with the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF), has conducted a national survey of all institutions for children in Rwanda to obtain an accurate picture of the current institutional system and the children living within it which can be used to inform decision-making regarding the implementation of the reform strategy and provide a baseline against which progress can be measured in the future.

This briefing note, produced by an Interagency Working Group on children without parental care, is designed to highlight the vulnerability of children to violence in the family and alternative care settings, and to encourage members of the CAT Committee to consider the potential added value of reference to the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.

In this TED video, Georgette Mulheir, CEO of Lumos, an NGO dedicated to ending worldwide systematic institutionalization, describes how orphanages can cause irreparable damage to children both mentally and physically and urges to end reliance on them by finding alternate ways of supporting children in need.

In this TED Talk, poet and playwright Lemn Sissay tells his story of growing up in foster care in the UK. 

The purpose of this review was to identify evidence-based early response strategies and interventions for improving the outcomes of children outside of family care, including children of and on the street, institutionalized children, trafficked children, and children affected by conflict and disaster, and who are exploited for their labor. A conclusion was drawn that there is a strong need for strengthening the evidence base regarding the effectiveness or early assessments and responses to children living outside family care and for using evidence to guide operational policy and practice.

This briefing paper seeks to address key misunderstandings about de-institutionalisation. It explains what it is and what it is not and addresses key questions often asked about the need for such institutions, the role they play and the impact of this transformation and what it entails.