This inter-agency paper was written by Family for Every Child, Better Care Network, Consortium for Street Children, Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages, and World Vision, for submission to the United Nations consultation: ‘Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.’ It examines the links between child protection and health and argues for a continuing focus on health and child survival that encompasses particular goals and indicators on children’s protection.

In this TED video, Georgette Mulheir, CEO of Lumos, an NGO dedicated to ending worldwide systematic institutionalization, describes how orphanages can cause irreparable damage to children both mentally and physically and urges to end reliance on them by finding alternate ways of supporting children in need.

This briefing paper seeks to address key misunderstandings about de-institutionalisation. It explains what it is and what it is not and addresses key questions often asked about the need for such institutions, the role they play and the impact of this transformation and what it entails.

This paper aims to raise awareness on the perverse effects of institutionalisation on children and it calls for comprehensive system reforms, starting with a transition towards family and community-based care. It highlights country level lessons learnt in the European context that demonstrate how deinstitutionalisation can be achieved in practice.

Through a comprehensive statistical analysis and literature review, this UNICEF report provides a child rights-based up-to-date review of the situation of children under the age of three in formal care in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEECIS).

This publication by SOS Children’s Villages International brings together research findings, learning and policy recommendations about sibling relations in alternative care gathered from five different SOS Children’s Villages associations (Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain).

Care related sections of the Government of the Russian Federation's fourth and fifth combined report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (dated 3rd June 2011).

Helping families and their kin develop care plans for orphaned and vulnerable children was the objective of the family group conferencing (FGC) training that took place in Guatemala City from July 10-12, 2012. This family preservation approach for developing strategies to prevent the institutionalization of children emphasizes the strengths of families and their capacity to solve their own problems and develop their own care plans.

Research was conducted in five Rift Valley towns in Kenya in 2011 to understand the link between emergencies and the perceived increase of children joining the streets. Findings show that emergencies such as Post Election Violence and drought have caused children to join the streets. By far the biggest reason for children joining the streets was food insecurity. The authors advocate for an urgent, large-scale response to place children currently connected to the streets in durable situations in tandem with a multi-sectorial development approach to tackle and address the root of the crisis.

This article describes the Blueprints database of evidence-based programmes (EBPs) and its potential application in children's services in European countries.