This article reviews some of the language and conceptual issues that need to be addressed to be able to meaningfully compare differential usage of residential childcare services across national boundaries. 

The Infant Mental Health Journal has published an important Special Issue on Global Research, Practice, and Policy Issues in the Care of Infants and Young Children at Risk. This article documents how between 2005 and 2013, the Government in the Republic of Georgia closed 32 large, state-run institutions housing children without adequate family care.

This report is based on a synthesis of eight assessments of the implementation of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children (“the Guidelines”) in Benin, Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

This overview is intended to contribute to discussions on international volunteering in residential care centres as an anecdotal research piece on the situation in Ghana.

This report, from the African Child Policy Forum, is aimed at informing and accelerating pan-African, regional and national efforts to prevent and respond to violence against children.

This leaflet was developed by the Working Group ‘Quality of Care’ of Better Care Network. It is  published by Better Care Network Netherlands. The leaflet provides useful information on child development and children’s care for those planning to volunteer at orphanages in developing countries.

This report, authored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, calls for a global strategy to prevent the detention of asylum-seekers and refugees in countries around the world, with an initial focus 10+ "focus countries." Among the Strategy's three main goals is the call to end detention of children, which requires a new legal and policy framework, the implementation of the "best interests" principle, alternative and appropriate reception and care arrangements for children (including foster care), and the provision of age-appropriate information to the child.

The authors of this article applied a human rights framework using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understand what extent children’s basic human rights were being upheld in institutional vs. community- or family-based care settings in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya.

The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) of India outlines, and contributes to the implementation of, the Government’s responsibility to establish an effective and efficient child protection system. 

This report from SOS Children’s Villages presents a critical analysis of the Zimbabwe’s compliance with the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children which found “yawning gaps” between the laws and policies in place and the actual experiences of children on the ground.