Better Care Network highlights recent news pieces related to the issue of children's care around the world. These pieces include newspaper articles, interviews, audio or video clips, campaign launches, and more.
This article highlights the dangers of orphanage volunteering and explains why NGOs and other child protection agencies urge against volunteering in orphanages in Cambodia.
This article highlights a new family tracing program for children in foster care initiated by New York’s Administration for Children’s Services that borrows from Family Tracing and Reunification techniques used by the International Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies for reconnecting separated children with their relatives.
Information from the Mental Health & Psychosocial Network on the Response to the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in the Philippines.
This documentary produced for Channel 4 Television goes undercover to explore the reality behind 'Voluntourism' in Nepal.
This article shares the story of Hana, a 13 year-old girl who had been adopted from Ethiopia three years previously, died in the care of her adoptive family in Washington state, USA.
This article in the Guardian reports on a new bill passed by parliamentarians in Iran that includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years. According to the article, activists and experts inside and outside of Iran have expressed their alarm at the proposal.
While adoptions to the United States are in steep decline, more U.S. children are being adopted abroad in countries such as the Netherlands. Most of the U.S. children being adopted abroad are African American babies, and some experts believe birth mothers are choosing non-U.S.
This Washington Post article discusses the findings from a major report by the National Academy of Science on child abuse and neglect that found that advances in brain research showed that child abuse and neglect damages not only the way a developing child’s brain functions, but changes the actual structure of the brain itself.
This series of articles by Reuters investigates the disturbing practice of 'private re-homing' of adopted children in the USA, particularly affecting children adopted from overseas. 'Re-homing' also called 'adoption disruption' refers to adoptive parents abandoning their children and handing them out to other adults, often found through internet and social media fora, without any type of formal vetting or procedures.
It is estimated that about 2 million children around the world are living in institutions, though the true figure may be higher. However, according to this article, the number of institutions globally is in decline.