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.
During a teleconferenced hearing, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles said she wants unaccompanied and separated immigrant children to be moved out of government-contracted facilities and to ensure they are released to suitable sponsors in an orderly fashion and aren’t put in danger, according to this article from the Associated Press.
"The coronavirus crisis is compounding the challenges for vulnerable and at-risk young people in special care, their families and care staff dealing with them, the High Court has heard," says this article from the Irish Times.
"Families and children involved with the child welfare system have begun to experience disruptions," says this article from Vox. "Courts are closing, cases are delayed, and in-person contact with social workers is severely limited. As a result, vulnerable children who are already experiencing great instability are being further destabilized."
"Unaccompanied migrant children [in Marseille and Gap] are not being given shelter and other essential services by the Bouches-du-Rhône and Hautes-Alpes departments, which are responsible for their care, putting them at risk and weakening the authorities’ response to the pandemic," says this article from Human Rights Watch.
This article from the Guardian explores some of the ways in which children in care and other vulnerable children in the UK are at greater risk in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
"Venezuela’s mothers and fathers, determined to find work, food and medicine, are leaving hundreds of thousands of children in the care of grandparents, aunts, uncles and even siblings who have barely passed puberty themselves," says this article from the New York Times.
The state of Kerala in India has issued guidelines for children's care homes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, including calling on child welfare committees (CWCs) to take measures to send children home to their families, according to this article from the Times of India.
This article from the Marshall Project describes some of the detrimental impacts the COVID-19 crisis has had on children in foster care in the U.S.
In this opinion piece for The Hill, Susan N. Dreyfus, president and CEO of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, calls on the U.S. government to provide support to the nation's child welfare system, "which has the critical responsibility of keeping our families strong and intact so that parents can care for their children safely at home."
In this opinion piece for Bloomberg, Francis Wilkinson discusses findings from a recent U.S. government review of the separation of children from their families by Department of Homeland Security, including Customs and Border Patrol, the Office of Field Operations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the U.S. border with Mexico.