UNICEF Bulgaria's project, "Family for Every Child," aimed to demonstrate that viable alternatives to institutionalization exist, and that as long as a network of suitable support services is in place, deinstitutionalization is achievable. UNICEF Bulgaria commissioned this evaluation to establish whether the project had been successful

The aim of this study was to examine whether 1) attachment to the biological parents mediates the association between abuse and suicidal risk (SR) and 2) attachment to a foster parent (whether from a foster home or an institution) moderates the effect of attachment to biological parents on SR.

The aim of the current paper is to examine the demographic, crime-related and psychosocial characteristics of child welfare and juvenile justice youths in shared residential care and subsequently examine its relationship with offending behavior in adulthood.

This study uses data from a survey on the health and development of 420 children mostly under the age of three, placed in 12 infant care institutions between 1958 and 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland. The children exhibited significant delays in cognitive, social, and motor development in the first years of life. Moreover, a follow-up of a subsample of 143 children about 10 years later revealed persistent difficulties, including depression, school related-problems, and stereotypes.

"The pandemic has had an adverse impact on all children. That has been more severe for those with special needs but an almost forgotten group of especially vulnerable children are those who experience abuse and neglect," says this Irish Times in this editorial. 

This article from the Irish Times calls attention to a new report from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission Investigation, highlighting how "thousands of Irish babies were put up for adoption for all the wrong reasons."

Ireland's Child Care Law Reporting Project (CCLRP) has published a collection of 48 cases underscoring the severe impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on vulnerable children, according to this article from the Irish Times.

"A wholesale independent review of children’s social care will set out to radically reform the system, improving the lives of England’s most vulnerable children so they experience the benefits of a stable, loving home," says this press release from the UK Department for Education.

"The [UK] government has launched a review of children’s social care in England, calling it a 'once-in-a-generation opportunity' to overhaul a system it says is failing vulnerable young people and creaking under the strain of rising numbers of children entering care," according to this article from the Guardian.

"Ireland has again been brought face-to-face with its cold and callous past with the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes revealing stories of cruelty, emotional abuse and soaring infant death rates in a series of State- and religious-run institutions," says this article from the Irish Times.