This report, produced by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS provides an update on the global AIDS epidemic as well as information on HIV prevention and treatment, HIV/AIDS as it relates to human rights and gender, HIV investments, HIV/AIDS estimates and data, and country progress indicators and data.

This report provides data on children living in urban settings, including statistics, conditions, and personal testimonies. The report also includes UNICEF’s recommendations for policy regarding children in urban settings, working with this population, and for future action. Sections that are relevant to children’s care include: children living and working on the streets, migrant children, urban emergencies, and many more.

This article briefly summarizes the literature on elements of research, practice, and policy pertaining to the development and care of children raised in institutions. It covers such children’s development while they reside in institutions and after their transition to adoptive or foster families.

Abstract

This paper from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 proposes a number of key components for translating research into policy and programs: analyzing the situation, using evidence to build the case for action, developing policies, building program capacity in child welfare and early childhood development, creating a family‐based child welfare system, and developing a system of monitoring and accountability.

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.

This chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 reviews sensitive periods in human brain development based on the literature on children raised in institutions.

This chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 reviews the neurobiological literature on early institutionalization that may account for the psychological and neurological sequelae discussed in other chapters in this volume.

Children within institutional care settings experience significant global growth suppression, which is more profound in children with a higher baseline risk of growth impairment (e.g., low birth weight [LBW] infants and children exposed to alcohol in utero), according to this chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4.

Attachment has been assessed in the extreme environment of orphanages, but an important issue to be addressed in this chapter of Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4  is whether in addition to standard assessment procedures, such as the Strange Situation, the lack of a specific attachment in some institutionalized children should be taken into account given the limits to the development of stable relationships in institutionalized care.