This publication by SOS Children’s Villages International brings together research findings, learning and policy recommendations about sibling relations in alternative care gathered from five different SOS Children’s Villages associations (Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain).

This study aimed to establish the effect of brief, in-home intensive family preservation programs on prevention of out-of-home placement, family functioning, child behavior problems and social support.

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 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.

This paper explores the research evidence from England and France on the mental health of young people aging out of care and into adulthood.

This paper uses comparisons of child benefit packages in the European Union and Central and Eastern European and Confederation of Independent States (CEE/CIS) countries derived using model family methods.

This paper highlights a number of recurrent issues that help to illuminate and explain the differences that persist between France and Germany in spite of recent reform efforts in child & family policies and evaluates the success of these policies and whether they have achieved their desired effects on mothers' employment patterns, especially those of qualified female workers.

Parental leave and early childhood education and care have gained a high profile in child and family policy fields, and both have been the subject of substantial cross-national mapping, describing and comparing their main features across a range of countries. This article provides overviews on parental leave and early childhood services in affluent countries, and reflections on this mapping.

The purpose of this paper is to provide background information and offer pragmatic steps in relation to priority no. 3 of the European Declaration on the Health of Children and Young People with Intellectual Disabilities and their Families: “To transfer care from institutions to the community”. The paper was produced in preparation for the conference in Bucharest, Romania 26-27 November, 2010.

The purpose of this paper is to give meaning and insight into some of the key drug and alcohol issues that affect children from the perspectives of the children themselves. Research shows that large numbers of children who are separated from their parents are particularly vulnerable to developing drug and alcohol problems. Special attention is paid throughout the report on children looked after by relatives, foster carers, and institutions.