This report was prepared by Dr Andy Bilson, Professor of Social Work at the University of Central Lancashire, at the request of the UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS. This report looks at children who enter institutional care because of being without parental care, children with disabilities, child victims of abuse and children in conflict with the law. The aim is to identify key routes through the systems in order to understand the nature of the difficulties that lead children to be placed in institutions and thereby to be able to identify alternative strategies that will better support families and children. Despite considerable agreement on the need for gatekeeping there remains relatively little organized information on these pathways through the child protection systems and this report aims to pull together what information is available and to identify where more knowledge is required. The focus of this report is on three key areas necessary to understand the operation of gatekeeping: pathways through the care systems; case management systems; and the policy environment.
©University of Central Lancashire and UNICEF
