This paper provides a brief overview of basic family structures in EU countries and a description of family breakdown and its impact on children’s wellbeing.

This report is based on the outcomes of a survey addressed to eight National Coordinators of the Opening Doors campaign. It aims to assess the extent to which EU Member States have used ESIF to catalyse child care systems reform.

This article from the Migration Policy Institute examines the impact of labor migration on children who are left behind, from an economic and social lens, and with particular attention to gendered implications.

This study tested the capacity to perceive visual expressions of emotion, and to use those expressions as guides to social decisions, in three groups of 8- to 10-year-old Romanian children: children abandoned to institutions then randomly assigned to remain in ‘care as usual’ (institutional care); children abandoned to institutions then randomly assigned to a foster care intervention; and community children who had never been institutionalized. 

According to this report from Lumos, in 2010 there were more than 6,700 children living in institutions in Bulgaria. 

This study examines the consequences of the affective and educative nature of Romanian parents’ migration related to their children.

Using data collected from a nationally-representative household survey conducted in Moldova between September 2011 and February 2012, this paper analyses the psychosocial health outcomes of children of migrant parents by comparing them with children without migrant parents (n = 1979).

This working paper, produced by the Better Care Network and the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance, explores the topic of social service workforce strengthening as it relates to child care reform.

This report documents Ukraine’s Soviet-era system of orphanages and other institutions for children with disabilities. The report details the violence, exploitation, and other human rights violations that are frequently committed against these children. It also shows how families who wish to keep their children with disabilities at home are often forced to institutionalize them as a result of lack of support. 

Despite Hungary signing on to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), there has been no significant change in the number of people with disabilities in Hungary who are placed in institutions. Mass institutionalisation continues to be the predominant form of care for people--including many children--with mental health issues and intellectual disabilities.