Across Europe and Central Asia, governments have made significant progress toward transforming child care systems to ensure that all children can grow up in safe, nurturing, and supportive family environments. Yet many children—particularly those with disabilities and those from marginalized communities—remain at risk of unnecessary separation from their families or prolonged stays in out-of-home care. Statutory family support services play a pivotal role in preventing such outcomes. As a cornerstone of a comprehensive child protection system, statutory family support ensures that families receive the structured, rights-based assistance they need to care for their children safely and sustainably within their own homes and communities.
This White Paper, one in a series published by UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office, aims to sustain investment and momentum in reforming child care systems to make these transformations irreversible. It articulates the essential concepts, definitions, and components of statutory family support and child protection, emphasizing the needs of children at high risk of harm or family separation.
The paper sets out the constituent parts of statutory family support and child protection systems—policy and funding mechanisms, system architecture, services, workforce and practice standards, and approaches to child and family participation—needed to create effective, equitable, and sustainable national systems.
The purpose of this White Paper is to guide governments across the region on the minimum components that must be in place within statutory family support systems to prevent unnecessary child-family separation, facilitate safe reintegration, and ensure that children are protected from harm and maltreatment in the family.
Family support is inherently multi-dimensional, encompassing a continuum of services that address the diverse factors driving separation in different national contexts. At a minimum, effective statutory family support systems must include clear policies and sustainable funding, competent and authorized social workers, and a core package of family support services guaranteed in law. This ensures that every child at risk of separation—or in need of reintegration—and their family can access the assistance they require when it is needed.
There is no single model or blueprint for statutory family support and child protection systems. Each country’s system reflects its historical, political, cultural, and social context. However, the international rights framework—particularly the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)—provides a robust and universal foundation for building promotive and preventive systems that strengthen families and protect children.
Children with disabilities remain disproportionately represented in institutional care across Europe and Central Asia. This White Paper highlights the urgent need to ensure that all children with disabilities, their families, and parents with disabilities receive adequate and adapted support to realize their right to live within their families and communities. The same principle applies to children and families facing social exclusion, including those from minority ethnic communities.
The primary goal of statutory family support is to ensure that every possible effort is made to keep children safe within their families by addressing risks and strengthening caregiving capacity. This requires both direct practical assistance and therapeutic interventions that enhance family functioning and parenting.
Based on a comprehensive literature review and expert consultations, the White Paper identifies common features of effective statutory family support and child protection systems:
- Clear policy frameworks defining the state’s role, criteria for intervention, and access pathways for families;
- Adequate, sustainable funding aligned with policy priorities to prevent unnecessary separation;
- Robust system architecture at national and sub-national levels, including competent and empowered social workers, accountable service providers, gatekeeping mechanisms, and best-interests assessments;
- Comprehensive community-based services that support children within family and community contexts;
- Competent, adequately resourced social service workforce trained in relationship-based, strengths-based, trauma-informed, and disability-inclusive practice;
- Integrated, multisectoral collaboration underpinned by shared vision, clarity of roles, and mutual accountability; and
- Inclusive child and family participation embedded across all stages—from policy design to case decision-making and evaluation.
The evidence and expert consensus point to family support as a multi-level, multidimensional mechanism that should be grounded in universal support for all families and strengthened by targeted interventions for those facing the highest risks. Countries lacking comprehensive universal and preventive secondary-level services can still ensure minimum statutory family support and child protection interventions at the tertiary level. However they need to shift investment toward prevention to break the cycle of family separation and institutionalization.
At national level, policies must articulate the objectives and outcomes expected for all children—including those with disabilities and those at risk of exclusion—clarifying how the state supports families to provide adequate care and when it intervenes to provide additional help.
At local level, statutory systems should ensure that qualified, legally mandated social workers have manageable caseloads and access to professional supervision and multidisciplinary collaboration to provide individualized, effective, transformative support to families while keeping children safe from harm.
A coherent monitoring and evaluation framework is essential, supported by reliable data, research, and continuous learning, to inform evidence-based decision-making and track outcomes for children and families. Adequate investment, professional capacity, and intersectoral cooperation are key to ensuring that family support and child protection services achieve their intended impact.
Conclusion
Statutory family support services form the backbone of an effective continuum of child care and protection in Europe and Central Asia. They bridge universal and specialized services, ensuring that families receive timely and proportionate assistance before crises and risk of harm escalate. When adequately funded, professionally staffed, and grounded in rights-based, inclusive principles, these services not only prevent unnecessary separation but also contribute to stronger, more resilient families and communities. Sustained political will and investment in statutory family support are therefore essential to complete child care reforms and make irreversible progress toward the shared goal: that every child grows up in a safe, loving family, free from harm and institutionalization.
