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.

This comprehensive report by the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children analyses data regarding progress toward eliminating corporal punishment amongst all states party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

This assessment conducted by FHI 360, with support from Ethiopia's Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs (MoWYCA) and the OAK Foundation aimed to generate evidence about formal community and family- based alternative child care services and service providing agencies in Ethiopia, with a particular focus on magnitude, quality and quality-assurance mechanisms.

This video by Save the Children highlights the major reforms ongoing in Georgia to end harmful child institutionalisation and the work of its project to support the Government in this reform process.

On 14th December, Save the Children, Plan, World Vision, working with UNICEF, organized consultations with 124 children and young people in Capiz, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and East and West Samar to listen to their views about the humanitarian situation six weeks after the Typhoon, find out what their priorities are and ask for suggestions to improve the response.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted on the 18th December 2013 a resolution on Preparations for and observance of the twentieth anniversary of the International Year of the Family.

A short case study by the Open Society Foundations on preventing the separation of children with disabilities from their families.

The Open Society produced a short film discussing the importance and benefits of early childhood intervention in enhancing development opportunities for children.

This book by Dr. Xiaoyuan Shang and Karen Fisher provides a comprehensive and clear picture of the situation of children who are orphaned or abandoned in China. It introduces the context and framework for the alternative care system and China’s welfare system as it applies to children, and provides a profile of orphans and of care arrangements, describing both the formal child welfare system and the informal care system, particularly kinship care.

The Government of the Republic of Moldova launched its childcare reforms in 2006 aiming to establish a network of community social assistants, develop family support services and alternative family placement services, and reorganise residential childcare institutions. This evaluation reviews the implementation of the National Strategy and Action Plan for the Reform of the Residential Childcare System 2007–2012 approved by the Government of the Republic of Moldova in July 2007.