Community Based Care Mechanisms

The Guidelines for the Alternative Care for Children highlight the importance of providing children with care within family-type settings in their own communities. This allows girls and boys to maintain ties with natural support networks such as relatives, friends and neighbours, and minimizes disruption to their education, cultural and social life. Keeping children within their communities (ideally as close as possible to their original homes), also allows girls and boys to stay in touch with their families, and facilitates potential reintegration.

Examples from around the world demonstrate that there are many ways children without adequate family care can be supported within their own communities. This includes both formal and informal arrangements such as foster care, kinship care, domestic adoption/Kafala, guardianship, supervised independent living, child-headed households and small group homes.

These practices can be supported through a range of formal measures including social protection schemes (e.g. child sensitive cash transfers), family strengthening services, community based rehabilitation services for children with disabilities, respite care, training for caregivers, and policies that support families in alternative care-taking roles. Increasing access to free education and health services, and establishing social assistance programmes to reduce poverty, can also help the poorest caregivers to support children within the community.

In the absence of well-developed care and child protection systems in many countries, community based mechanisms can also play a key role supporting children and caretakers in alternative care situations. Child protection Committees, faith based organizations, civil society groups, volunteer associations and other community based groups can provide financial or practical support through schemes that help to fund children’s education or health costs, link them to support services or social assistance schemes, and provide mentorship and family counseling. Home visits and caretaker support groups can also play a valuable role, while awareness raising efforts to promote children’s rights (particularly if supported by community and religious leaders), can help to reduce discrimination against girls and boys in alternative care arrangements – particularly those with disabilities or from minority groups.

As long as they are not over-burdened or given responsibilities beyond their competence, community-based groups can provide vital support to children in alternative care situations. Often however, they are hampered by weak organizational procedures, limited technical capacity and poor coordination. Continued efforts by governments, NGOs and international agencies are needed to promote their institutional development and to enhance their ability to support children.

The literature in this section describes a range of care arrangements that enable children to receive adequate care within their own communities, and community support initiatives that help to sustain them.

Displaying 101 - 110 of 307

Browse Other Topics

Aboriginal Cultural Connections: A Child Protection Resource Guide

Prince Edward Island Community Services and Seniors, 2015

This resource guide offers a fairly comprehensive guide to engaging with the Aboriginal community on Prince Edward Island, Canada. It includes a history of the use of residential schools for Aboriginal children, as well as a description of the widespread removal of Aboriginal children from their families and communities for adoption placement in the 1960s through the 1980s.

Journeys of Faith Study Series

Faith to Action Initiative, 2015

This six-part study series from the Faith to Action Initiative, Caring for Orphans and Vulnerable Children: A Study Guide for Journeys of Faith, is designed to support small faith group study accompanying ‘Journeys of Faith: A Resource Guide for Orphan Care Ministries Helping Children in Africa & Beyond.’

View Resource

Ending Institutionalisation: An analysis of the financing of the deinstitutionalisation process in Bulgaria

Georgette Mulheir - Lumos, 2015

According to this report from Lumos, in 2010 there were more than 6,700 children living in institutions in Bulgaria.

The First Peoples Child and Family Review: Special Issue on Custom Adoptions

The First Peoples Child and Family Review Vol 10, No 1 (2015) , 2015

The First Peoples Child & Family Review proudly presents this Special Edition on Custom Adoptions in partnership with the Siem Smun’eem Indigenous Child Wellbeing Research Network at the University of Victoria. This edition contains research articles, agency experiences, cultural perspectives and personal stories that highlight custom adoption from a historical and contemporary perspective.

View Article

Lessons Learned From The YTSA Open Custom Adoption Program

Jeannine Marie Carriere - The First Peoples Child and Family Review Vol 10, No 1 (2015) , 2015

This article is a review of lessons learned from the Yellowhead Tribal Services Agency (YTSA) pilot program.

View Article

Key Learnings from the Ishema Mu Muryango Program

Global Communities and Hope and Homes for Children, 2015

This document highlights some of the key learnings from the Ishema Mu Muryango program, a program designed to safely and sustainably reintegrate children living in institutions in two districts of Rwanda into their families or communities and prevent further institutionalization.

A Discussion Paper On Indigenous Custom Adoption Part 1: Severed Connections - Historical Overview Of Indigenous Adoption In Canada

Lara di Tomasso, Sandrina de Finney - The First Peoples Child and Family Review Vol 10, No 1 , 2015

This paper forms Part 1 of a two-part discussion paper on Indigenous custom adoption.

View Article

A Sense of Belonging: Understanding and improving informal alternative care mechanisms to increase the care and protection of children

Save the Children , 2015

This report presents research conducted by Save the Children in East Africa. The aim of this research was to build knowledge on endogenous care practices within families and communities, especially informal kinship care, in order to increase the care and protection of children. The research on kinship care was implemented in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zanzibar.

Your Rights Under the Indian Child Welfare Act

Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid and Legal Services State Support, 2015

This fact sheet describes the rights of native children and families under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in the United States.

Meeting Report of the Rwanda Learning and Consultation Workshop

National Commission for Children, Save the Children, Better Care Network, 27 Nov 2014

As part of the work of the BCN Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Initiative, the National Commission for Children in partnership with BCN, and Save the Children convened a national consultative workshop in Kigali, Rwanda on 26 and 27 November 2014. This report presents a summary of the main priority outcomes which were identified by participants during the meeting, including: evidence building and sharing, strengthening advocacy, and strengthening capacity.