The purpose of this commentary is to reflect on the utility and possible application of the suggestions and study designs in this special issue to real‐life intervention studies in dynamic context settings.

This video from BBC News tells the stories of mixed-race children in Africa who were separated from their mothers, taken from their countries of origin, and brought to live with "host families" in Belgium during the Belgian colonial period.

This video segment from The Lead exposes corruption and abuse within some of Kenya's children's homes.

The Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation and Research in Economic Strengthening (ASPIRES) Family Care Project focused on how economic strengthening (ES) interventions can help prevent unnecessary separation of children from families as well as support the reintegration into family care of children who were already separated. This mixed methods evaluation was implemented alongside programming that included longitudinal quantitative data collection with all participating FARE and ESFAM households at three time points to assess a range of indicators related to household economic and family well-being, as well as in-depth, longitudinal qualitative research to help understand how (well), from participants’ perspectives, the FARE and ESFAM interventions aligned with perceived drivers of separation and families’ experienced child-level effects of programming. 

The Economic Strengthening to Keep and Reintegrate Children in Family Care (ESFAM) project was developed to help build the evidence base on how to appropriately match economic strengthening (ES) activities with families at risk of family-child separation and with families in the process of reintegrating a previously separated child. In addition to supporting families, ESFAM offered an opportunity for learning about how to provide these services and how well they worked. This report focuses on the latter and summarizes changes in key indicators related to family-child separation over the course of the project.

The Family Resilience (FARE) project was developed to help build the evidence base on how to appropriately match economic strengthening (ES) activities with families at risk of family-child separation and with families in the process of reintegrating a previously separated child. The project offered an opportunity for learning about how to provide ES and other family strengthening services and how well they worked. This report focuses on the latter and summarizes changes in key indicators related to family-child separation over the course of the project.

In support of the Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation & Research in Economic Strengthening (ASPIRES) project's objective to assess the effects of different types of economic strengthening activities integrated with family support activities among targeted families, the Family Care project designed a mixed methods evaluation to be implemented alongside programming. The findings presented in this report are derived from the longitudinal descriptive data generated as part of the evaluation design.

This resource guide aims to assist program designers, funders, and implementers to select and incorporate appropriate and effective household economic strengthening (HES) measures into programs to preserve or reestablish family care for children.

This Practitioner Brief from the the Coordinating Comprehensive Care for Children (4Children) project presents key learning and recommendations from the Keeping Children in Healthy and Protective Families (KCHPF) project in Uganda, which supported the reintegration of children living in residential care back into family care through the provision of a household-based parenting program, individualized case management support and a reunification cash grant aimed at strengthening the reintegration process.

This study from Innovative Issues and Approaches in Social Sciences examined perceptions and practices of domestic adoption in Adama City in Oromia/Ethiopia. The study reveals that people’s perception towards adoption practice, adoptive parents and children is mixed; it could be positive and encouraging or negative and discouraging.