Importance should be given to bringing up children in a family environment, Minister for Women and Child Development Veena George has said. She was speaking after virtually inaugurating a two-day national workshop on ‘Deinstitutionalisation and family-based alternative care’ organised by the Women and Child Development department in association with UNICEF here on Tuesday.

This document answers the most frequently asked questions surrounding family strengthening and alternative care in India while also addressing misconceptions around it. It aims to help practitioners, child protection workers and researchers to build their understanding of family strengthening and alternative care in India. This document has been developed in accordance with the Mission Vatsalya Guidelines.

This paper concentrates on the discussion of some contextual issues along with the challenges that are closely associated with social work practice at Macro, Mezzo and Micro levels of intervention. Here in the paper, theoretical approaches and techniques that are significantly applicable in social work practice have been presented along with some challenge-related contexts in social work practice in Bangladesh.

Sri Lanka government officials visited the state of Rajasthan in India to view family-based care models that will inform Sri Lanka’s child protection system as the country transitions into an innovative approach that supports children in family settings. CERI, in partnership with UNICEF Sri Lanka and UNICEF India, hosted the delegation’s visit to family-strengthening, foster care, and group foster care models implemented by Foster Care Society and the Department of Child Rights in Rajasthan.

This article focuses on some of the care leavers networks in South Asia. 

This paper examines the understanding of poverty emerging in voluntourists’ accounts of their first-hand experiences of poverty alleviation. Based on the ethnography of an orphanage in Nepal, the authors show that despite voluntourists’ good intentions and even (self-)criticism of the volunteer tourism approach to poverty relief, their accounts tend to consolidate rather regressive ideas about poverty.

This report provides a summary of the learning exchange that took place around family-based care (family strengthening, foster care, specialized group care) in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India on August 24 - 28, 2022.

Why is it so important to consider mental health and emotional well-being in child care and child protection? How can we address mental health needs in a non-clinical environment?

A parliamentary standing committee has expressed serious concern over the decline in the number of children coming to adoption agencies over the years, saying it points to trafficking or a thriving illegal child adoption market.