This Wall Street Journal article recounts the unraveling of Sovann Komar (“Golden Children”), a Cambodian orphanage founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Ross Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, and her local collaborator Sothea Arun.

The article presents an in‑depth interview with the organisation This Life Cambodia, which works at the grassroots level in Cambodia to empower local communities around issues of social justice. It explores how community‑driven family‑strengthening approaches are applied in contexts of complex vulnerability, emphasising the importance of locally led support networks, culturally appropriate practices, and the agency of caregivers in sustaining positive family and community outcomes.

This study analyzes Indonesia’s legal framework for adoption, detailing its procedures, requirements, and implications under national child protection laws. It finds that while adoption ensures children’s welfare and grants them equal rights in care and education, inheritance and lineage distinctions remain under existing legal provisions.

This study examines adoption practices in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, highlighting legal challenges such as jurisdictional ambiguities, inconsistent procedures, and document falsification. It emphasizes the crucial role of social workers in navigating these obstacles, advocating for children’s rights, and supporting families throughout the adoption process.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of trends and progress in reducing the number of residential care facilities in Cambodia and the children placed in them between 2015–2024.

This study examines the transition experiences of 25 care leavers in Vietnam through semi-structured qualitative interviews. While many showed resilience and made progress, they also faced significant challenges related to housing, work, education, social relationships, and stigma, highlighting the crucial role of external support in sustaining their agency.

This article traces the evolution of Cambodia’s system for caring for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), shaped by political stabilization, emerging child protection concerns, international advocacy, and gradual state engagement. While Cambodia now has a solid policy framework, weak government prioritization, poor interagency coordination, and limited local capacity hinder implementation, leaving proponents to push for broader political commitment, balanced international support, and stronger responses to root causes such as poverty and migration.

This special issue of the Children and Youth Services Review concerns the governance of children's care systems in low and middle-income countries, with a focus on Cambodia, Uganda and Zambia. The special issue focuses on the political and bureaucratic factors that shape priority for and the effectiveness of national children's care systems in low and middle-income countries.

This study examined factors influencing depression among adolescents living in orphanages in Central Aceh Regency, Indonesia. The findings highlight the need to prioritize interventions that strengthen social support networks, while also exploring additional psychosocial factors such as caregiver relationships, trauma experiences, and coping strategies.

This study examines the impact of clientelism on reintegration and family-strengthening efforts for children in Cambodian and Myanmar residential care institutions where clientelism is present. It finds that patron–client relationships between directors and families often undermine reintegration by limiting parental agency and co-opting reintegration to serve the interests of directors rather than children.