This brief by the International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC) calls for urgent global action to close these data gaps and strengthen evidence-based policies that uphold the rights of unaccompanied and separated children. Based on a 2025 literature review of more than 200 sources, it identifies key trends by age, gender, migration status and route, and other variables.

This webinar, held December 16, 2025, spotlighted the powerful intersection between two consequential global advocacy movements in human rights: the reform of alternative care systems for children and the advancement of children’s access to justice.

This case study describes how ACE Zambia transitioned from providing residential care in Zambia to pioneering family-based care, including foster care, and supporting other residential care service providers to transition.

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) affirms the importance of family, culture, and community in children’s lives and obligates governments to support families and protect children from discrimination, violence, and exploitation, yet many countries still lack policies that require a child-rights approach, prioritize best interests in decision-making, or prohibit corporal punishment. This article critically examines how effectively Australia, Canada, and the United States have implemented key CRC principles—particularly best interests and corporal punishment—by comparing their child protection policies, legislation, and practices to assess the Convention’s influence and its potential to drive broader system reform.

The development of foster care in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region should be seen in the context of a global movement for child care system reform, framed by the key principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989), the UN Convention on the Rights of Pers

What We Stand For: Essentials of Children’s Rights is an engaging, story-driven online course that brings UNICEF’s child rights mandate to life. The course helps translate their shared commitment to children’s rights into everyday practice across all areas of work.

The Chapin Hall report evaluates the My First Place program, which provides intensive case management and fully subsidized housing to young people aging out of extended foster care in six California counties. Using data on 2,598 participants, the report finds that program completers were more likely to be employed, earned higher wages, and were more likely to enroll in and complete a semester of college compared with nonparticipants or those who did not complete the program.

Adoption in Zimbabwe, while intended to provide stable families for children without parental care, often marginalizes adopted adolescents by excluding them from decisions, limiting transparency, and severing cultural ties. This study highlights the emotional distress and identity challenges this creates and calls for more inclusive, transparent, and culturally grounded adoption practices that uphold children’s rights and voices.

Building on a presentation invited for a Kilbrandon Children’s Research webinar on media representations of children and young people in the care and criminal justice system, this article discusses the legacies of Canadian ‘care’ practices premised on violent assimilation and erasure.

This study examines how children in Swiss residential care perceive safety, revealing that while institutions aim to protect them, many still experience both safety and unsafety shaped by physical spaces, institutional rules, and relationships with staff. By centering children’s voices, the article highlights gaps between residential care’s protective mandate and children’s lived experiences, calling for a more nuanced, justice-oriented understanding of safety in child welfare.