This report synthesizes learning on community-led child protection in Sierra Leone, Kenya, and India. It shows the power of communities' own agency and action on behalf of children and underscores the importance of ownership.

This video shows highlights from The National Summit on “Reimagining the Care System for Children in India” held on the 30th of March, 2025, in New Delhi. The Summit aimed to foster collaboration, learning and collective action among key stakeholders from government, civil society, academia, and individuals with lived experience.

The National Summit on “Reimagining the Care System for Children in India” was held on the 30th of March, 2025, in New Delhi.

India’s 23.6 million orphaned and abandoned children often rely on overburdened caregivers in child care institutions, where staff shortages and high demand affect quality of care. This study evaluates a capability-building program by Udayan Care and Duke University, showing how strengthening caregivers’ skills, knowledge, and wellbeing can improve outcomes for vulnerable children.

This paper critically reviews India’s child welfare policies, highlighting how gaps in implementation, funding, and monitoring continue to leave millions of orphaned and abandoned children vulnerable despite existing legal frameworks. Drawing on international best practices, it proposes a shift toward family-based care, strengthened mental health and social work systems, technology-enabled monitoring, and greater child participation to build a more inclusive, child-centred welfare system.

The SNEH: Supporting Nurturing Enabling Happy Families compendium was developed by Miracle Foundation India as part of the first National Family Summit to showcase progress, insights, and best practices in advancing family-based care and child protection reforms in India. It builds on lessons from its “Leadership Dialogue” series and collaborations with government, civil society, and care-experienced youth.

This study aimed to highlight the challenges faced by care leavers due to the absence of or inadequate aftercare support during the transition, which increases care leavers’ vulnerabilities to homelessness, unemployment, substance misuse and ruptured social relationships.

India Alternative Care Network (IACN) is calling for contributions to the 17th edition of IACN Quarterly. If you are a practitioner, academician, researcher, civil society organization, or a funder and wish to share learning, information, interventions, case studies, perspectives, and knowledge resources on children without parental care or at risk of separation, email your submission to iacnsecretariat@iacn.in on or before January 10, 2025.

The Changing the Way We Care℠ (CTWWC) Life of the Award Report highlights the initiative’s global efforts to promote safe, nurturing family care for children. Since 2018, CTWWC has been driving care reform in countries like Guatemala, Kenya, and Moldova, while supporting smaller projects in Haiti and India.

India Alternative Care Network (IACN) invites you to learn more about the mental health issues of children transitioning from institutional care to family-based care on 10 October 2024 at 3:00 - 4:30 pm on Zoom.