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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Supporting young people from care to adulthood: International practice

Mike Stein - Child & Family Social Work, 30 Jul 2019

This paper explores practice examples relating to young people's transitions from care to adulthood.

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Collaborative Alliance of Parent and Child Welfare Caseworker

Tyrone C. Cheng, Celia C. Lo - Child Maltreatment, 30 Jul 2019

This secondary analysis of data describing 3,035 parents, drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II, identified factors fostering the collaborative alliance of parents and caseworkers within the child welfare system.

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A comparison of state support for young people leaving care in Norway and Sweden: Differences within comparable welfare systems

Jan Storø, Yvonne Sjöblom, Ingrid Höjer - Child & Family Social Work, 30 Jul 2019

The aim of this article [from the Child & Family Social Work special issue on teenagers in foster care] is to account for and discuss support to young care leavers within the comparable welfare regimes of Norway and Sweden and to explore key differences between these 2 countries.

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Non-Governmental Orphan Relief in China: Law, Policy, and Practice

Anna High, 29 Jul 2019

Based on field studies and in-depth interviews across rural and urban China, this book presents a socio-legal analysis of non-state organised care for some of China's most vulnerable children.

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Reimagining child welfare outcomes: Learning from Family Group Conferencing

Mary Mitchell - Child & Family Social Work, 26 Jul 2019

This open access article reports on a qualitative study, which sought to retrospectively understand the contribution family group conferencing (FGC) makes to longer‐term outcomes for children at risk of entering State care and their families.

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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.

Reimagining child welfare outcomes: Learning from Family Group Conferencing

Mary Mitchell - Child & Family Social Work, 26 Jul 2019

This article reports on a qualitative study, which sought to retrospectively understand the contribution family group conferencing (FGC) makes to longer‐term outcomes for children at risk of entering State care and their families.

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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.