Date: April 28-30, 2026

Location: Kansas City, KS

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) affirms the importance of family, culture, and community in children’s lives and obligates governments to support families and protect children from discrimination, violence, and exploitation, yet many countries still lack policies that require a child-rights approach, prioritize best interests in decision-making, or prohibit corporal punishment. This article critically examines how effectively Australia, Canada, and the United States have implemented key CRC principles—particularly best interests and corporal punishment—by comparing their child protection policies, legislation, and practices to assess the Convention’s influence and its potential to drive broader system reform.

This article reports on the introduction of the Global Child Thrive Reauthorization Act of 2025, a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Congress designed to expand and deepen early childhood development efforts in some of the world’s poorest countries.

The Chapin Hall report evaluates the My First Place program, which provides intensive case management and fully subsidized housing to young people aging out of extended foster care in six California counties. Using data on 2,598 participants, the report finds that program completers were more likely to be employed, earned higher wages, and were more likely to enroll in and complete a semester of college compared with nonparticipants or those who did not complete the program.

Cambiar la Forma en que Cuidamos (CTWWC, por sus siglas en inglés) es una iniciativa global que promueve un cuidado familiar seguro y afectuoso para los niños.

The article describes how hundreds of children across the United States have been left behind — in foster care, with relatives, or neighbors — after their Venezuelan parents were deported, often under sweeping immigration enforcement measures.

This article highlights the experiences of Greenlandic families in Denmark whose children were taken into care following parental competency tests (FKUs), which critics say are culturally biased, conducted in Danish rather than Kalaallisut, and fa

The article reports that President Trump secured $25 million in federal funding to strengthen support for youth in foster care, particularly focusing on those aging out of the system who often face heightened risks of homelessness, unemployment, a

This article presents a comparative analysis of the Czech Republic and Colombia’s implementation of the United Nations Guidelines for Alternative Family Care. Based on secondary data, it identifies a shared adherence to the UN framework; a strong Czech system for alternative caregivers’ selection, training and support; a deep ethical commitment of Colombian foster families to ensure children’s well-being, despite limited resources; and the relevance of supporting parents at risk of having their children removed from their care and integrating the effects of unplanned migration into alternative care strategies.

Changing the Way We Care’s “Care System Strengthening Learning Synthesis: Evaluation Summary” distills lessons from care reform efforts in four countries, examining how change happened across laws, workforce, financing, monitoring, and services. It finds that evidence-based advocacy, strong government ownership, collaboration, and capacity-building were central to driving and sustaining reform across diverse contexts.