Child Care and Protection Policies

Child care and protection policies regulate the care of children, including the type of support and assistance to be offered, good practice guidelines for the implementation of services, standards for care, and adequate provisions for implementation. They relate to the care a child receives at and away from home.

States and all organisations with child care programmes should have child care policies which are in line with national legislation and international law, e.g. the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In line with the CRC, emphasis should be placed on the child’s best interests, with support to families prioritised in order to prevent family separation. Good gatekeeping mechanisms are essential in ensuring families receive the services they need and are entitled to, and to guard against inappropriate placement into poor care arrangements.

Home-based care, day care, and other family support services are mechanisms for assisting families in providing for the child’s development and, when used appropriately, can prevent child separation. When a child is unable to remain at home, alternative forms of community based care should be prioritised, such as formal kinship care or foster care. The use of institutions should be highlighted as a last and temporary measure. All support and care provisions should outline the referral and admission process, the use of care plans, regular reviews, rehabilitation, and aftercare procedures.

Child protection legislation which recognises that abuse can be physical, emotional, sexual, or neglect, and may be carried out by parents, caretakers, children and other adults is required. All agencies working with children should have written child protection policies which respect the rights of the child. Policies should outline behaviours and actions which are unacceptable, provide standards for the appropriate care of children, and clear guidelines on what procedures to follow and by whom, including reporting mechanisms for suspected abuse to an assigned authority for investigation.

Child care and protection policies require resources and monitoring of standards to ensure their appropriate implementation. Adequate provision and training of child care and social work staff is required to deliver family support services and alternatives forms of child care. All staff working with children should be trained and supervised in providing appropriate care for children, identifying abuse, and responding appropriately.

The literature in this section contains country reports and examples of national and organisational child care and protection policies.

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Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Report of the Secretary-General

UN Secretary-General, 26 Jul 2019

In its resolution 73/155, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to submit to it at its seventy-fourth session a comprehensive report on the rights of the child containing information on the status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with a focus on children without parental care.

Services Received vs Services Needed by Families in Child Welfare Systems

Mary I. Armstrong, Melissa Hope Johnson, John Robst, Areana Cruz, Monica Landers, Amy Vargo - International Journal on Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy and Practice, 24 Jul 2019

This article compares and contrasts the services needed by families in child welfare systems with the services that families receive.

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Child Protection With Muslim Communities: Considerations For Non-Muslim-Based Orthodoxies/Paradigms in Child Welfare and Social Work

Patrick O’Leary, Mohamad Abdalla, Aisha Hutchinson, Jason Squire, Amy Young - The British Journal of Social Work, 20 Jul 2019

The purpose of this article is to address at a broad level the issue of how overarching concepts of child protection and Islam influence social work practice with Muslim communities.

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Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and any other child sexual abuse material

UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and any other child sexual abuse material, 15 Jul 2019

In the present report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material, describes the activities undertaken in relation to the discharge of her mandate since her previous report to the United Nations General Assembly. The report presents a thematic study on safeguards for the protection of the rights of children born from surrogacy arrangements, highlighting the rights of the child to identity, access to origins and to a family environment.

Country Care Review: Côte d'Ivoire

Better Care Network, 12 Jul 2019

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The Ethical and Public Health Implications of Family Separation

Mia Stange, Brett Stark - The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 12 Jul 2019

This paper reviews and contributes to evolving analyses of the public health, legal, and ethical consequences of immigration policy.

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Unprotected: Crisis in humanitarian funding for child protection

Save the Children, Child Protection Area of Responsibility (CP AoR) and The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, 12 Jul 2019

This desk review provides a picture of funding for the child protection sector over the period 2010–2018.

Child protection cases, one size fits all? Cluster analyses of risk and protective factors

Brigit Rijbroek, Mathilde M. H. Strating, Helena W. Konijn, Robbert Huijsman - Child Abuse & Neglect, 10 Jul 2019

The objective of this study was to distinguish Child Protection Services (CPS) subgroups based on risk and protective factors to enable tailor made case management that fits the specific needs of these subgroups.

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Remaining in Foster Care After Age 18 and Youth Outcomes at the Transition to Adulthood: A Review

Loring Jones - Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 04 Jul 2019

This review examines the legislative history leading up to extended care, the research on youth leaving foster care, youth preferences for extended care, the competition of extended care with permanency options, and the effects of extended foster care on transition-age youth.

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Care of Abandoned Children in Sunni Islamic Law: Early Modern Egypt in Theory and Practice

Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim - Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children, 03 Jul 2019

In this chapter of Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children, the author shows the ways in which premodern Muslim jurists and judges (with focus on early modern Egypt) were able to circumvent the prohibition of adoption through discursive moves and practices, which helped create a family life for many parentless and non-biological children.

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