This briefing paper seeks to address key misunderstandings about de-institutionalisation. It explains what it is and what it is not and addresses key questions often asked about the need for such institutions, the role they play and the impact of this transformation and what it entails.

El meollo de este proyecto de investigación de dos años está en los testimonios de más de 300 jóvenes con experiencia en acogimiento en Albania, República Checa, Finlandia y Polonia. Su conciencia colectiva del proceso de finalización de la acogida nutrió directamente a los hallazgos y a las recomendaciones sobre políticas presentadas en este volumen.

Through a comprehensive statistical analysis and literature review, this UNICEF report provides a child rights-based up-to-date review of the situation of children under the age of three in formal care in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEECIS).

This report presents the findings from a two-year peer research project which includes the testimony of more than 300 young people with care experience in Albania, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Poland. More than 40 care leavers from the four countries were selected and trained to play an active role in the all aspects of the projects. The interviews revealed widespread inadequacies regarding the process of leaving care, promoting the research team to draw up recommendations to address them.

When orphans in Ukraine reach adulthood, some are deemed "incapacitated" - a label that consigns them to a life in institutions. But many of these young people may have nothing wrong with them at all. It is an official classification in Ukraine that critics say strips the bearer of basic human rights.

TransMonEE is a database that captures a vast range of data on social and economic issues relevant to the situation and wellbeing of children, adolescents and women in 28 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States and the European Union. This document includes inter-country comparisons of data on several issues related to children’s care.

This article provides an update on a series of projects that have highlighted the issue of institutionalization of children in Europe, arguing that babies and small children aged less than 3 years old, with or without disability, should not be placed in residential care without a parent or primary caregiver.

This edition of Insights produced by UNICEF summarizes the findings and recommendations of studies on the impact and outreach of social protection systems in Albania, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine where high rates of child placement in formal care still persist. The research offers important insight into the weaknesses and challenges faced by social protection systems in the region, but also point to ways in which policy-makers might maximise the impact of social protection systems in order to ‘keep families together’.

This comprehensive manual provides an overview of child abandonment and its prevention in Europe, exploring the extent of child abandonment, possible reasons behind this phenomenon, the consequences of abandonment, and good practices in terms of prevention. For the purposes of the EU Daphne-funded project, child abandonment is defined in two ways, namely open and secret abandonment. Country specific in-depth reviews of child abandonment and its prevention are provided for 10 countries and results from an EU-wide survey analyzed.

Utilizing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, this paper from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 examines critical components and current characteristics of alternative care for children in low‐resource countries.