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.
"US officials gave dozens of detained immigrant parents an ultimatum – allow your children to be released from detention without you or face indefinite detention together, according to legal representatives from the country’s three family detention centers," says this article from the Guardian.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently "began distributing a form in all three of its family detention centers that would allow parents to apply for their minor children to be released" to be placed with family members, sponsors the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to this article from NBC News.
This article from USA Today shares the story of a foster care group home in the US state of Michigan where nearly 40 youth living at the "residential facility that serves at-risk teen boys," along with nine staff members, all tested positive for Coronavirus, one boy dying of complications from COVID-19.
This article from the Guardian describes the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on international surrogacy arrangements, including the parents, surrogates, and the babies they are or were carrying.
Unaccompanied children and young people in the U.S. who would normally have been allowed to live with relatives while they awaited decisions on their immigration cases are now being expelled from the country "under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus pandemic, with 600 minors expelled in April alone," according to this article from the Guardian.
"Foster children have enormous challenges even in the best of times. The coronavirus pandemic threatens them with even greater turmoil, isolating them from adult supervisors and friends and making it harder to move on to new lives — either with biological or adoptive families, or as newly independent adults," says this article from the Associated Press.
"As tensions and challenges from the nationwide quarantine increase, the usual channels that might pick up on abuse are not working," says this article from the Bogotá Post in Colombia.
In this post from UNICEF Australia's blog, UNICEF Australia Program Manager for Early Childhood Development, Alice Hall describes some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, including the child protection implications.
"A new study predicts that demand for foster care is likely to rise during the coronavirus pandemic, as households struggle with the economic impacts of bans and restrictions," says this article from SBS News.
"The [UK] government could face legal action after ministers used the coronavirus crisis to remove protections for children in care," says this article from the Huffington Post.