This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post focuses on the commodification of children as part of the volunteering experience.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post explains why backpackers and young people on their “gap year” should avoid volunteering in institutions and offers alternatives for those looking to volunteer.

This post is part of Better Volunteering Better Care’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post describes the ethical dilemmas involved with short-term volunteering, particularly volunteering with children, and how to apply child-centered ethics to short-term volunteer projects.

This post is part of Better Volunteering Better Care’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post poses the question “would you be happy for a volunteer, who has no experience and has undergone no background checks, to help out at your local school or nursery?”

This post is part of Better Volunteering Better Care’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post offers a brief explanation as to why most children in “orphanages” are not orphans, what happens to those children, and a list of ways in which people can help address  the situations.

The video ‘Last Minute Orphanage’ offers an unique insight into the world of volunteering. It tells the story of 3 volunteers who travel to Cuzco Peru to volunteer for a few weeks with children.

This post is part of Better Volunteering Better Care’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. The post serves as a follow up to her research on “responsible” tourism companies.

This post is part of the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative’s month-long spread of articles aimed at raising awareness around the issues of orphanage volunteering. In this blog post, Anna McKeon from the Better Volunteering Better Care Initiative, writes about her time as an inexperienced international volunteer in orphanages in Thailand and Kenya and shares the top five lessons she learned about volunteering and why it is harmful to volunteer in child care institutions.

This report from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University provides an overview of the science of early childhood development, particularly brain development and the impacts that early experiences have on brain development.

The 2016 2016 OVC Applied Research & Best Practice Symposium will take place May 4, 2016 in Orlando, FL, USA. The 2016 Symposium will focus on the integration of trauma-informed practices into all aspects of care for OVC.  It is designed to help frontline OVC practitioners integrate their program design and implementation with current research and the best knowledge available today.