This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author interviews Caroline Scheffer, former Country Director of the The Umbrella Foundation, who shares her thoughts on volunteer and orphanage tourism, and her recommendations for helping ensure the safety and well-being of vulnerable children in developing countries.

In this TED Talk, Tara Winkler, the Managing Director of the Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT), discusses the detrimental impacts that family separation and orphanage placement have on children and speaks out against donating to, or supporting, orphanages in developing countries.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this post, the author explains that, around the world, many orphanages are being run, not by government, but by church groups and individuals who start as volunteers. “The institutions are poorly regulated and they’re doing a job that could be done by the children’s families, with the right support,” says Smith.

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 

This paper provides an overview of international volunteering, or “voluntourism,” and its potential vulnerability to child sexual exploitation, particularly in residential care centres. 

The purpose of this consultancy is to build knowledge about the different forms of, and approaches to, arranging alternative care for children in communities in Cambodia, including pagoda-based care. 

This article from the Pew Research Center presents statistics on the number of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Europe, and the growth in child migration in the past few years.

This study was aimed to identify adjustment problems of adolescents residing in an orphanage in Kerala, India, as well as to find out the association between adjustment problems of adolescents residing at orphanage with their socio-demographic variables. 

This study implemented a 3-month yoga program with orphan adolescents in Bangalore, India and evaulated the impact of the program on adolescent executive functioning. 

Given the importance of children’s care arrangements for their development, this essay summarizes efforts to measure trends in children’s care arrangements in two regions of the world—Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.