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 from the Chronicle of Social Change discusses how, in the United States, "states and counties that have come to rely on interdisciplinary legal representation – a model that includes social workers and peer advocates working alongside attorneys to fight for parents and children – have overcome the new barriers imposed by the pandemic to help families reunify."
This article from the Atlantic explores the impacts of school shutdowns, social distancing, and lockdowns on children during the COVID-19 pandemic and how supportive caregivers can mitigate the harms of social isolation.
"Foster care [in the UK] is in a “state of emergency” as the number of referrals rockets while the number of people looking to take children in has halved during the coronavirus pandemic," according to this article from the Independent.
This longform investigative article from CBC News explores the case of Serenity, a four-year-old girl who died in care, through an extensive review of court documents and interviews to seek to understand Serenity's life, and "what went so terribly wrong."
This article from Child Rights International Network (CRIN) outlines some of the risks faced by children in residential care institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic and how governments should be responding during – and after – this pandemic.
This article from ABC News explores the stories of some of "the more than 500,000 so-called Forgotten Australians who suffered abuse and neglect while living in out-of-home care over the past century" and how they have found healing through "a storytelling project that helps participants reimagine their past and invent new ways to see their stories."
In this piece for the Chronicle of Social Change, Vivek Sankaran writes about personal experience as a family defense lawyer and witnessing the racial disparity in the U.S. child welfare system, particularly in the racial bias in the discretion of child protective services (CPS) caseworkers.
This article from the Atlantic tells the story of Izidor, and others, who grew up in institutional care in Romania and the impact that has had on them as adults.
In this joint statement, Karin Hulshof, UNICEF Regional Director East Asia and Pacific and Maalla M'jid, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children express their support for the Joint Statement of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Social Welfare and Development – Mitigating impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable groups in ASEAN, which highlights the vulnerability of children, the need to reach them with both social protection and social welfare services and the essential role of social workers.
A recent study from Wales has found that "pregnant women who are at risk of their babies being removed from their care in the first year of life are far more likely to have had mental health problems compared with other expectant mothers," says this article from the Guardian.