The purpose of this review was to identify evidence-based early response strategies and interventions for improving the outcomes of children outside of family care, including children of and on the street, institutionalized children, trafficked children, and children affected by conflict and disaster, and who are exploited for their labor. A conclusion was drawn that there is a strong need for strengthening the evidence base regarding the effectiveness or early assessments and responses to children living outside family care and for using evidence to guide operational policy and practice.

This paper reviews the various methodologies applied to identify and enumerate these often hidden and/or mobile populations. Methodologies that identify and enumerate children outside of family strive to meet two objectives: (1) to estimate the number and characteristics of a specific vulnerability category and (2) to determine eligibility to receive services. Conclusions from these reviews advocate for tailoring a methodology to the specific circumstances under which it is meant to identify or enumerate children outside of family care.

The objective of this review was to strengthen the evidence-base for policy and practice for support of children outside of family care through effective, efficient and sustainable mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation. Findings show that fostering a stronger evidence-base to improve protection for vulnerable children requires evaluations that are integrated into program development, use context-appropriate methodologies able to assess intervention scalability and employ more longitudinal designs to explore children’s trajectories.

Recognizing the need for evidence to inform policies, strategies, and programs to care for vulnerable children, the U.S. Government convened an Evidence Summit on Protecting Children Outside of Family Care on December 12–13, 2011, in Washington, D.C., USA. This paper summarizes the background and methods for the acquisition and evaluation of the evidence used to achieve the goals of the Summit.

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.

The paper calls for greater prioritisation to be given to supporting kinship carers and the children in their care, including ensuring such households are able to access social protection, and receive psycho-social and health care support and assistance with education where needed.

This brief lays out the rationale for investing in social protection, care, and support for children affected by HIV and AIDS. It demonstrates how investing in these initiatives not only improves the resilience of HIV affected households but can also enhance HIV prevention and treatment outcomes.

The lack of care and protection facing children is a global crisis. This paper is part of an inter-agency series originally developed to feed into the global thematic consultation for the post MDG framework: ‘Addressing Inequalities. The Heart of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Future We Want for All.’ It looks at the relationship between this lack of care and protection and inequality. It explores how inadequate care and protection produces and contributes to inequalities and how inequality is itself a cause of inadequate care and protection. The paper also examines the long-lasting impact of inadequate care and protection which greatly affects children’s life chances into adulthood, suggesting that inadequate care and protection is in itself a form of inequity.

The lack of care and protection facing children is a global crisis with billions of children experiencing abuse, neglect or exploitation, and many millions growing up outside of families, on the streets or in harmful institutional care. This lack of adequate care and protection is commonly the result of inequalities. Children without adequate care and protection are stigmatized and have inequitable access to basic services which, severely diminishes life chances and creates a spiral of disadvantage. In order to break this spiral, the authors of this report recommend a three-pronged strategy.

In the recently released outcome document of the Fifth International Policy Conference on the African Child, conference delegates call for a reversal of the current trend of resorting to intercountry adoption as a primary solution for African children in need of alternative care, and for giving prime priority to enabling all children in Africa to remain with their families and communities.