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. 

This report explores options for young people aging out of residential care (“care leavers”) and the potential challenges and costs of effective implementation of those options.

 Using the accumulated wisdom of a select group of accomplished managers, academics and policy makers in social work and social care, this paper retrospectively reviews the evolution of Family Support within the Irish context and distils the core characteristics of Family Support practice and service delivery. 

This report gives an overview of implemented activities in the process of deinstitutionalization, identifying the main obstacles, effects, and achieved results. The overall objective of the report is to achieve greater understanding of the progress and shortcomings of the process of deinstitutionalization and transformation of social protection in Serbia, and to analyze relevant policies that will provide input for the creation of new measures for further support of the reform process of social protection in Serbia.

This study investigates the specific training needs of the biological family during the transition phase of the reunification process in which the child prepares to return home.

This report includes the statistical information regarding looked-after children in the UK for the year 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014.

This document from the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina provides an overview and assessment of the alternative care system in the country.

This study involved the use of qualitative methods as part of a larger process evaluation to explore the longer-term experiences of parents who participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Incredible Years Parenting Programme (IYPP) in disadvantaged settings in Ireland.

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.