Over the past decade, Ghana has ostensibly taken significant efforts to create better responses for children and families at risk – such as through the creation of a Justice for Children Policy (2015); Child and Family Welfare Policy (2015) and legislating to create measures to prevent domestic violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), human trafficking and to protect the rights of children with disabilities. Ghana has designated a special department, the Department of Children (‘DoC’) that has management responsibility for policy, coordination, monitoring and research for children’s issues within the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (‘MoGCSP’). Separately, the Department of Social Welfare is responsible for carrying out statutory functions, and protecting and promoting children’s rights. The Children’s Act 1998 (‘the Act’) was comprehensively amended in 2016 to support changes to the child protection system. In its 2015 report, the Committee on the Rights of the Child commended Ghana on the adoption of a wide variety of child related legislative measures, however voiced a concern about the evident gap between law and practice. The committee noted a lack of sufficient resources, overlapping or duplicate interventions and inadequate coordination as factors in previous poor implementation of the policies and laws This previous, ‘poor implementation’ refers to policies and legislation to improve outcomes for children. In 2007 Ghana adopted a Care Reform Initiative (‘CRI’) seeking to reform the care system and progress towards a deinstitutionalised system. The CRI sought to: prevent family separation; prioritise extended family placements; place children with a foster family when a family placement was unavailable; and to pursue adoption, preferably with a Ghanaian family as a last resort. Between 2010 and 2012 a National Plan of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children was adopted, building upon the CRI. The aim of this plan was to establish strategies and objectives for the prevention of family separation, the protection of children separated from their family and the development of the State’s capacity and resources in this field. Despite these efforts, in 2015 the Committee on the Rights of the Child remained concerned that: • There was an increasing number of children living outside their family environment in institutions as a result of socioeconomic pressures; • That conditions in alternative care centres were poor, and lacked proper monitoring, record keeping and licensing/registration; and • That informal kinship or other foster care solutions were under socioeconomic stress. The new legislative infrastructure and good will on behalf of the government seeks to radically change and improve responses for children deprived of their family environment. The Child and Family Welfare Policy, aims to: design programs to more effectively prevent, and protect children from, all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation; ensure effective coordination of the family welfare system at all levels; empower children and families to understand situations of risk; and to promote the effective use of existing laws and policies. Comprehensive change to the Act strive to further strengthen and coordinate responses. In addition, the GOG passed the adoption and foster care regulations in 2018. Since then, the GoG and more specifically the Department of Social Welfare developed Case management SOP for children in need of care and protection, Standards for Residential Homes for Children, develop a foster care program with the training and licensing of foster parents, the placement of children in foster care, increased the inspection and monitoring of children in residential care facilities and develop DI guidelines and roadmaps for the deinstitutionalisation of children in RHC.