The assessment reviews the situation of children outside parental care in ten countries in the Caribbean (as a sample of CARICOM member states). The central finding of this assessment is that efforts in the Caribbean to respond to children without parental care have been insufficient. This is attributed to a serious absence of strategies designed to support families to keep children at home, to prevent abuse and separation, to provide reintegration and long term rehabilitation services, and to ensure follow up and monitoring of children placed in temporary care.
This regional analysis has in turn helped to determine a number of factors that contribute to the perpetuation of child vulnerability in the region. These factors – classified here as institutional, cultural and external – can be explained through Government policymaking, service provision and existing alternative temporary care options that contribute to the type of care being given to children. Ultimately, the detailed recommendations put forward as the conclusions of this document point to critical changes in these domains.
Accompanying the analysis, this report also details examples of successful alternative care programmes found throughout the Caribbean region. More comprehensive regional references (in alternative care practices, legal and social frameworks, operational protocols in service provision, and social safety net programmes) have also been compiled on a reference CD. Please email contact@bettercarenetwork.org for further information.
©UNICEF
