This article reviews some of the language and conceptual issues that need to be addressed to be able to meaningfully compare differential usage of residential childcare services across national boundaries. 

The Infant Mental Health Journal has published an important Special Issue on Global Research, Practice, and Policy Issues in the Care of Infants and Young Children at Risk. This article documents how between 2005 and 2013, the Government in the Republic of Georgia closed 32 large, state-run institutions housing children without adequate family care.

Infant Mental Health Journal has published an important Special Issue on Global Research, Practice, and Policy Issues in the Care of Infants and Young Children at Risk. This article documents an initiative to establish a replicable professional model that would direct the child welfare system in the Nizhny Novgorod Region away from institutional care and toward services for young children and their families that reduce the risk of institutionalization. 

This policy brief reviews the legal framework for foster care in India, including an analysis of the current provisions of foster care along with the rules and schemes on foster care framed by states in India, with a focus on Delhi and Goa.

The Guidelines for Kinship Care, Foster Care and Supported Independent Living in Liberia are intended to provide harmonized national guidance for child welfare practitioners in order to improve the quality of family-based alternative care services in Liberia, particularly for children without appropriate care (CWAC).

In this paper, SOS Children’s Villages demonstrates how children who lack or are at risk of losing parental care are highly vulnerable to various forms of poverty and inequality. The paper proposes operational strategies for action as well as targets and indicators designed to monitor progress among these children.

The Technical Team under the Project “EDU-CARE: Social Operators Active in the Protection of the Children and in the Promotion of the Children’s Rights in Nepal” reports on the child care practices, policies, and programs currently in effect in the country.

This article closes a special edition focused on the state of child protection in 16 countries chosen to represent very different cultural contexts, historical backgrounds, and social welfare systems with special attention to out-of-home care placements, principally family foster care and residential care, though several aspects related to adoption were included as well.

There has been a significant growth in the use of formal kinship care in the UK and Ireland in the last 20 years. The paper charts some of the reasons for the 'organic growth' of kinship care and the multiple dynamics that have shaped this.

This article reviews the history and development of out-of-home care services in Germany and the Netherlands comparing trends and numbers.