Child Development Accounts (CDAs) are government-funded savings or investment accounts established at birth to support children’s future education, with evidence showing both economic benefits for families and positive psychological effects for children. This article focuses on how to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, CDA policies must ensure universal access, progressive public funding based on need, and early account establishment, including for children in institutional care to prevent discrimination.

Institutional mechanisms established under India’s Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and the Integrated Child Protection Scheme play a central role in safeguarding children’s rights through case management, rehabilitation, and coordination. This systematic review of literature (2010–2025) finds that while these systems are essential, they face persistent challenges such as limited resources, inadequate training, and weak monitoring, with improved outcomes linked to community-based and rights-based approaches.

Since taking office in 2025, the second Donald Trump administration significantly expanded immigration enforcement while weakening safeguards for due process, family unity, and parental rights, resulting in record detention levels and widespread impacts on immigrant families. This research by Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights found that many deported parents were denied the opportunity to make arrangements for their children, leading to increased family separations that may become long-term or permanent.

Parents living through conflict, displacement, and humanitarian crises faced extraordinary pressures that affected both their own wellbeing and their children’s development. This Global Parenting Initiative webinar brought together global and field-level perspectives to explore how parenting and psychosocial support could be better aligned within humanitarian systems.

Această evaluare națională examinează contextul, calitatea și eficacitatea programelor de educație parentală pentru îngrijitori din Republica Moldova dintr-o perspectivă transformatoare de gen, cu un accent deosebit pe contribuția lor la prevenirea violenței, la promovarea egalității de gen și la

In 2025, UNICEF and UNFPA conducted a national review of parenting programmes in Moldova to assess their role in addressing violence against children and women and to inform more effective, gender-transformative interventions. The study provides evidence to support the development of a Theory of Change and evaluation framework for strengthening prevention efforts.

Despite Kenya’s Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children program, coverage and benefit levels remain insufficient in arid regions like Samburu Central, where many eligible households are not reached and transfers meet less than half of basic needs. Using national survey and administrative data, the study finds that higher transfer amounts, longer participation, community-based targeting, and especially improved program accessibility significantly enhance household livelihood outcomes, highlighting the need to expand access, increase payments, and strengthen targeting.

This report contains the conclusions, observations, and recommendations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding the procedure for investigating serious or systematic violations established in Article 6 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention.

El presente informe contiene las conclusiones, las observaciones y las recomendaciones adoptadas por el Comité sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad sobre el procedimiento de investigación de violaciones graves o sistemáticas que se establece en el artículo 6 del Protocolo Facultativo de la Convención.

This study explores the daily functioning and lived experiences of Israeli female care leavers, highlighting how early life environments, transitions to adulthood, and individual routines shape their participation in everyday life. Findings emphasize the importance of functional skills, supportive routines, and resilience factors, pointing to the need for tailored interventions that address cognitive, behavioral, and health-related challenges.

Este rápido análisis regional ofrece una visión estratégica general del Recursos Humanos dedicados a la protección de niños, niñas y adolescentes (NNA) en Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador y Perú. Se llevó a cabo en respuesta a la falta de datos claros para la planificación y el desarrollo del personal.

This rapid regional analysis provides a strategic overview of the child protection workforce in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The analysis examines each country’s current workforce composition and capacity, the institutional systems and practices in place to plan for, train, and support these staff, and opportunities for targeted investment and innovative practice.

This Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) Plan outlines Zambia’s strategic approach to strengthening child protection through behaviourally informed programming and community engagement. Developed by the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services with support from UNICEF and partners, the plan focuses on reducing violence against children, preventing child marriage, increasing birth registration, and promoting family-based care.

This article explores the experiences of non-Roma foster parents who raise Roma children in the Czech Republic, where Roma children persistently remain over-represented in institutional care. Drawing on the Critical Race Theory and thematic narrative analysis, the study examines how foster parents navigate issues of ethnicity, stigma and institutional bias.

This study examines the disconnect between Ghana’s child protection laws and their implementation, arguing that the gap stems from tensions between global rights-based frameworks and local, duty-oriented cultural practices rather than resource limitations. It proposes a hybrid governance approach that aligns formal legal systems with traditional kinship structures and promotes culturally responsive practice to strengthen child protection outcomes.

This study examines foster parents’ perspectives on Albania’s foster care system to identify policy and implementation gaps in family-based alternative care. Findings highlight legal inconsistencies, resource constraints, and coordination challenges, underscoring the need for stronger support systems and more coherent implementation to ensure effective child protection and deinstitutionalization efforts.

This article reviews the emerging research on cross-border placements of children in care, including kinship care and intensive pedagogy models, amid rising global migration. It highlights ongoing concerns around legal frameworks, accountability, and limited comparative data, while outlining key implications and priorities for future social work research.

This study analyzed data from residential care settings in Victoria, Australia, to examine how missing episodes intersect with worker-identified concerns about sexual and criminal exploitation among children and young people. Findings suggest that going missing may signal ongoing, overlapping patterns of exploitation-related harm—rather than isolated vulnerability—highlighting the need to view these incidents as part of sustained exploitation trajectories.

This comprehensive child welfare resource provides U.S. state and national data on child maltreatment, foster care, kinship caregiving, permanency, and older youth in care. The data are essential to help policymakers understand how many children and youth come in contact with the child welfare system, and why.

This study examines the critical role of Social Auxiliary Workers (SAWs) in supporting and protecting children awaiting foster care placement within under-resourced, community-based settings in South Africa. It explores the services they provide, their collaboration with other actors, and the challenges they face, addressing a key research gap to inform stronger child protection policy and practice.

This study explored adapting the Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) program in Zimbabwe to explicitly address both violence against children and violence against women by incorporating gender-transformative approaches and actively engaging fathers. Findings showed strong interest in the program, highlighting the need for relationship skill-building, economic support, and intentional father involvement to create safer, more resilient family environments.

The report is a meta-evaluation of Save the Children Finland’s Global Child Protection programme, implemented from 2022 to 2025 in four countries in Africa – Burkina Faso, Côte d´Ivoire, Somaliland and Zambia – spanning development, humanitarian and peace-building contexts.

Building on Spring Impact's previous ISPCAN Network webinar on the fundamentals of scaling impact, this session dives deeper into what it truly takes to scale child sexual abuse prevention-focused initiatives.

This guidance is intended to support colleagues who are already engaged in this area of work in strengthening the Community-Level Social Welfare Workforce (CLSWW) through a reflective, collaborative, and Child Protection Systems Strengthening (CPSS) approach. The guidance outlines a practical assessment and strategy development process in a step-by-step manner, enabling country offices —together with government counterparts and other child protection organizations—to identify strengths, gaps, and priorities, and to plan and implement targeted actions accordingly.

This global brief examines how sustained humanitarian funding cuts since early 2025 are affecting children’s safety, access to protection services, and the overall capacity of child protection systems across humanitarian contexts. Drawing on insights from 401 practitioners across 68 countries, alongside key informant interviews, the analysis shows that what began as short-term financial disruption has evolved into systemic deterioration.

Too often, child sexual abuse prevention is seen as too complex to scale – too sensitive, siloed, or difficult to measure. In the first study of its kind, Spring Impact reveals how 17 organisations are making scale work in the real-world: reaching more children, embedding prevention into public systems, and sustaining impact over time.

For the second session in CELCIS' Emerging Insight Series they explored what is known about how AI is already being used in decision-making in responding to the care and protection needs of children. The webinar showcased examples from across the world of where systems using AI have been built, the safeguards considered and put in place, how these have been working, and what can be learned from these international case studies, including from the United States of America, the UK and Canada.

This article argues that South Korea’s long-running international adoption system was not just flawed, but driven by state policies that prioritized cost-saving and social control over children’s rights.

The Tiny Cave and the Magnificent Creatures uses the Tiny Cave as a metaphor for the often-unintentional constraints that philanthropy and international development place on young people’s expansive imaginations. Through a puppet animation adapted from the storybook and brought together on the Tiny Cave website, Children's Rights Innovation Fund reflects how funding systems can narrow both young changemakers and those seeking to support them. 

This paper introduces an Advocacy Reach Calculator developed by ChildFund International to estimate how many children and families benefit from child protection policy changes. It outlines the tool’s development and pilot testing in four countries, showing how it can support better monitoring, planning, and advocacy efforts.

Social protection programs, such as cash transfers and pensions, have expanded widely in low- and middle-income countries and play a key role in reducing poverty and supporting vulnerable populations. This handbook reviews the growing body of research on these programs, summarizing what is known and highlighting important gaps for future study.

This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected child protection services in Saudi Arabia, finding increased risks and severity of violence against children alongside challenges such as limited reporting improvements, weak coordination, and insufficient staff training and digital tools. It highlights the need for stronger emergency preparedness, better collaboration across sectors, and improved resources to ensure effective child protection during future crises.

This study explores the challenges faced by young people with disabilities in Japan after leaving residential care, finding they often struggle with adapting to new environments, managing their health, and accessing consistent support. It highlights the need for more structured, long-term support systems to help them successfully transition to independent living.

This review examines what happens to unaccompanied and separated children who go missing after arriving in Greece, a major entry point for asylum seekers, and finds that most likely continue their journeys irregularly or remain unofficially in the country. However, due to limited and mostly anecdotal evidence, it highlights a major gap in reliable data and calls for urgent research and policy action to better protect these children.

This review examines research on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected older youth with foster care experience in the United States, finding that most studies were descriptive and highlighted major disruptions in areas like housing, education, employment, mental health, and relationships. It shows that certain groups—such as youth of color, LGBTQ youth, and females—were especially impacted, and calls for stronger support systems and policies to better protect foster youth in future crises.

This review examines research on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected older youth with foster care experience in the United States, finding that most studies were descriptive and highlighted major disruptions in areas like housing, education, employment, mental health, and relationships. It shows that certain groups—such as youth of color, LGBTQ youth, and females—were especially impacted, and calls for stronger support systems and policies to better protect foster youth in future crises.

This study explores the challenges faced by at-risk Arab young adults in Israel as they transition out of care, highlighting how minority status and cultural context shape their experiences. Findings reveal cycles of family risk, identity struggles, and feelings of loss and exclusion, underscoring the need for culturally responsive, gender-sensitive, and inclusive support programs for care leavers.

This article explores the complex experiences of adopted people who identify as LGBTQ+, highlighting the intersectionality of their identities and the impact on their mental health, well-being, and identity development. It emphasizes the need for inclusive and culturally competent support systems, policies, and research to promote resilience and affirm their diverse identities.

This study examines child safeguarding practices in Catholic dioceses in Kenya, finding that although safeguarding policies and support systems exist, only a small proportion of church personnel have received formal training. The research highlights ongoing risks—including sexual abuse, child labour, neglect, and early marriage—and identifies resource constraints, cultural resistance, and institutional barriers as key challenges to effective safeguarding.

This meta-review synthesizes research on educational outcomes for children and adolescents in foster care, confirming that they often face poorer academic results and lower graduation rates. It identifies five key factors that support educational success—placement and school stability, interagency collaboration, supportive relationships with adults, academic and emotional support, and school practices that promote autonomy and participation.

This scoping review examines trauma-informed parent training programs in child welfare, identifying 24 studies—mostly focused on foster or resource parents—with a few addressing birth parents’ own trauma. The review finds that these programs, often delivered in group formats, lead to meaningful improvements for both children and parents and highlight the growing promise of trauma-informed approaches in supporting families involved in child welfare.

This webinar, held by the Care Leaders Council, is a space for international exchange among people with lived experience in care, aimed at analyzing regulatory progress, best practices, and challenges in the transition to independent living, strengthening global networks and promoting more effective public policies.

This report summarizes a regional consultation convened by UNICEF and Pan American Health Organization to strengthen efforts to prevent and address violence against children in Latin America and the Caribbean. It highlights existing evidence, policy frameworks, and good practices from participating countries to support more coordinated and effective responses to violence against children.

This study compares the role of advocacy coalitions in forming child protection policies in the United States and Indonesia, looking at the problems that arise from their different political and governance systems. The findings show how important it is to improve inter-agency collaboration, strengthen local governance, and get more political support to fix the problems with child protection services

This report explores relational practice in out-of-home care in New South Wales, Australia, highlighting the importance of strong, trusting relationships between children, families, carers, and practitioners for children’s healing and well-being. It finds that although practitioners value relational work, system pressures—such as administrative requirements and compliance demands—often limit their ability to prioritize meaningful human connections.

The 2025 State of Care report by VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai shares the experiences of children and young people in care in New Zealand, focusing on whether they feel truly cared for rather than just how the system performs. Co-written with care-experienced youth, the report amplifies their voices to highlight what is working, what needs to change, and their hopes and recommendations for improving the care system.

This study surveys residential care practitioners in Queensland, Australia to examine their training, knowledge, and perceptions related to child sexual exploitation (CSE) among young people in residential care. It finds significant gaps in both pre-service and in-service training and highlights practitioners’ strong demand for more education to improve identification and responses to CSE.

This article offers an extensive theoretical and analytical interrogation of dominant trafficking discourses, with particular emphasis on Ghana, Nigeria, and the wider West African sub-region. It argues that prevailing global and national anti-trafficking frameworks often obscure children’s agency, misrecognise culturally embedded practices such as fostering and labour migration, and produce unintended harms through criminalisation and rescue-oriented interventions.

This study reviews existing research on the challenges faced by orphans in Jammu and Kashmir, India, highlighting that while some children remain with extended family, others are placed in orphanages when relatives cannot provide care. The review finds that orphans in the region face multiple social, economic, psychological, and health challenges throughout their lives.

This article explores the process of deinstitutionalization as a central challenge of contemporary social policy in Europe, with a special focus on Poland as an example of good practices for Ibero-American countries. The Polish case shows that implementing DI requires coordinated strategies, investment in human capital, digitalization, and multi-sectoral cooperation.

This scoping review of 38 studies examines how narrative therapy is used with children and adolescents in foster care and finds that these young people often lack a sense of control and clear understanding of their life stories. It highlights therapeutic approaches such as externalization, re-authoring, and life story work as promising tools for strengthening identity and well-being, while noting the limited number of rigorously evaluated interventions for this population.

The New Zealand National Care Standards (NCS) Regulations came into effect in 2019, and set out the minimum standard of care that must be provided when the state has custody of a child. This is Oranga Tamariki's fifth report on compliance with the NCS Regulations. It finds that children and youth are still not receiving the minimum standard of care required by the NCS Regulations.

This paper explores the issue of child trafficking in Odisha, India, with a particular focus on the heightened vulnerability of children in tribal regions and the legal measures implemented to prevent trafficking and protect victims during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Working Paper outlines the complex ways in which displacement affects girls’ access to justice, and how these are often overlooked. It places special emphasis on the achievement of SDG16.2: 'put an end to abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence and torture against children', and SDG16.7: ‘ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels, ’ located in the context of the 70 Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women’s priority theme of ‘ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls. ’

This paper highlights the importance of supporting refugee parents through targeted parenting interventions to promote the well-being and resilience of children and adolescents in refugee settings. It finds that comprehensive, group-based, and longer-term programs, combined with support for basic needs, can strengthen parenting practices, though more research is needed on their cultural relevance and long-term impact.

This evaluation of Save the Children Finland’s Child-Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) programme (2022–2025) found that it improved access to social protection, strengthened government systems, and supported better parenting practices across six countries in Africa and Asia. The programme showed strong results—especially through its parenting component, which improved caregiver engagement and child development outcomes—while highlighting the need for greater government ownership to sustain long-term impact.

This literature review compares the child protection systems of Seychelles, Ghana, Kenya, and Sierra Leone with a shared colonial history under Britain to identify similarities and differences and to understand the implications of the operating child protection system on child protection social workers. Based on the findings, the paper argues for a system that empowers child protection social workers to work with discretion in the child's best interest rather than within a restrictive, controlled system.

In this book, Kathryn E. Goldfarb examines how child welfare systems, including those in Japan, do not always lead to well-being and can leave people feeling isolated despite efforts to support children and families. The book highlights the importance of relational well-being and shows how individuals create new forms of kinship and connection when traditional family ties are absent.

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the global peer-reviewed research literature on the involvement of parents with disabilities in child protection. It finds that most studies focus on parents with intellectual, developmental, or mental health disabilities and rely largely on professional perspectives, highlighting important gaps in research—especially around parents’ voices and child protection processes.

This evaluation of Uniting Vic.Tas’ Family Preservation and Reunification (FPR) Program in Australia found that intensive, in-home support helps families stay safely together, especially when practitioners build trusting relationships and provide both practical and emotional support. The study also identified opportunities to strengthen the program, including longer engagement periods, greater continuity with practitioners, and follow-up support after families exit the program.

This study explores why deinstitutionalisation has not always achieved its intended results in the Czech Republic by examining the experiences of practitioners involved in care reform. It finds that conflicting views—between paternalistic approaches and rights-based perspectives—create misunderstandings and challenges in implementing reforms, highlighting the need for stronger change management and collaboration among professionals.

This report contains the findings from a nationally representative study conducted in 2025 by Barna Group of U.S. Christians to better understand U.S. Christian beliefs around and support for orphanages, children’s homes and other forms of residential care for children.

دعوة للعمل – معاً لإحداث الأثر

في يناير/ كانون الثاني من عام 2025، أطلق وزير خارجيّة المملكة المتّحدة مبادرة جريئة تحمل رؤية: إحداث تحوّل في حياة الأطفال على المستوى العالميّ بحيث يحظى جميع الأطفال بالرعاية الأسريّة بعيداً عن العنف والاستغلال والممارسات الضارّة الأخرى.

Este informe de antecedentes para la campaña global para la reforma del cuidado de la niñez y la adolescencia explica por qué los niños deberían crecer en familias y describe los cambios necesarios para fortalecer los sistemas de atención en todo el mundo.

Ce document d'information pour la Campagne mondiale pour la réforme du système de prise en charge des enfants explique pourquoi les enfants devraient grandir en famille et décrit les changements nécessaires pour renforcer les systèmes de prise en charge dans le monde entier.

This background brief for the Global Campaign on Children’s Care Reform explains why children should grow up in families and outlines the changes needed to strengthen systems of care worldwide.

يسعى†الميثاق†العالميّّ†لإصلاح†رعاية†الأطفال†إلى†تعبئة†الجهود†لإصلاح رعاية†الأطفال†وتحسنيها،†مع†التركيز†بشكل†خاصّّ†على†©†1®†تقديم†الدعم لتقوية†الأسر†ومنع†الانفصال†غير†الضروريّّ،†©†2®†ضمان†وجود†رعاية بديلة†آمنة†وحاينة†ضمن†إطار†أسريّّ،†©†3®†إنهاء†استخدام†المؤسّّسات†كأماكن للرعا

La Charte mondiale pour la réforme de la prise en charge des enfants vise à stimuler les actions visant à réformer et à améliorer la prise en charge des enfants, en mettant particulièrement l'accent sur (i) le soutien aux familles et la prévention des séparations inutiles, (ii) la garantie d'une

La Carta Global para la reforma del cuidado de la niñez y adolescencia busca impulsar acciones para reformar y mejorar el cuidado de la niñez y adolescencia, enfocándose específicamente en (i) proporcionar apoyo al fortalecimiento de las familias y prevenir la separación innecesaria, (ii) garanti

In Myanmar, concerns have been raised that clientelism may be facilitating the recruitment of children into unregistered facilities, putting children at risk. This study uses clientelism theory and examines relationships between stakeholders involved in forty-five residential care facilities in Myanmar. It finds clientelism as a distinct driver of child institutionalization in Myanmar and as a mechanism that facilitates the recruitment and admission of children into unregulated residential care facilities, undermining their rights and safety.

This study assessed the prevalence and factors associated with physical violence against orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) in Namibia, using data from 16,507 participants in the Reach program. Findings show that 10.9% of OVC experienced recent physical abuse, with variation across districts and age groups, highlighting the need for targeted violence‑prevention campaigns, community-level behavior change initiatives, and regular regional assessments to address localized drivers of violence.

This article examines the growing number of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) in Ethiopia entering institutional care or adoption and argues that effective care requires a strong theoretical and evidence-based foundation. It proposes attachment theory and research as a guiding framework to inform policy and practice, helping decision-makers assess, plan, and evaluate alternative care arrangements to better support children’s short- and long-term development.

This article describes how, in Ghana, government officials report that more than 60,000 children are currently living and working on the streets of major urban centres, a situation described as a national emergency due to its links with deepening child poverty and multidimensional deprivation.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of how child-protection systems are structured, governed, and implemented across different legal and social contexts. The book explores the theoretical foundations of child protection, comparative legal frameworks, institutional responsibilities, and the practical challenges of safeguarding children’s rights, with particular attention to European developments.

This qualitative case study in Arua City, Uganda, explores how parenting practices contribute to the persistence of street children, drawing on interviews with 30 street-connected children as well as parents and community leaders. Findings show that poverty, neglect, abuse, weak supervision, and family breakdown—combined with push factors like hunger and domestic violence and pull factors such as peer networks and perceived economic opportunity—drive children to the streets, underscoring the need for strengthened family support, community protection systems, and parental economic empowerment.

This study systematically reviews qualitative research on how children in residential care perceive and experience safety, analysing nine studies to identify core dimensions of feeling safe. Findings reveal that safety is multifaceted and relational, encompassing violence and harm, relationships, structural conditions, and spaces, with children actively employing strategies to enhance their sense of security.

This chapter, in the book Children and Family Social Work, reviews the reform of children’s care systems in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, tracing the historical reliance on large-scale residential institutions under communism and the subsequent shift toward community-based alternatives after the Soviet Union’s collapse. While institutionalization has significantly declined and community services have expanded, challenges remain in funding, workforce development, and preventing family separation while protecting children from harm.

This study amplifies the voices of seven care leavers in Australia, revealing how inconsistent and conditional out-of-home care (OOHC) often undermines stability, belonging, and participation. Findings highlight six key themes—ranging from the “luck of the draw” in care quality to feeling powerless and unseen—underscoring the need for relational continuity, child-centred approaches, and culturally responsive, participatory care models.

This article explores the experiences of foster carers supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking and trafficked children (UASTC) in the U.K., highlighting challenges such as limited specialist training, the emotional toll of managing risk, and navigating the asylum process. Despite the small sample, findings suggest the need for trauma-informed care pathways, tailored training and supervision, peer support networks, and further research into UASTC experiences across different placements.

In this webinar, speakers shared the principles, practices, and innovative initiatives in family strengthening across the East and North-Eastern regions of India. Speakers reflected on evolving family vulnerabilities, the role of family-based care in care reform, and what it truly takes to embed family-strengthening principles into everyday practice.

This book analyzes 100 care cases to examine how jurisdiction and cross-border information sharing operate in child protection, drawing on the first empirical study of Brussels IIa and the 1996 Hague Convention in England. It highlights how children's welfare can be compromised in international care proceedings while offering recommendations to improve the interpretation and application of private international law to better safeguard their best interests.

Despite growing knowledge of kinship care, little is known about its impact on transition-age youth. This study found that while educational attainment and homelessness risk were similar for youth in kinship and non-kinship foster homes, those in kinship care faced higher incarceration risks, with placement stability significantly influencing all outcomes.

This qualitative study analyzes institutional narratives between 2002 and 2024 to understand how violence and child abuse have persisted in residential care centers in Chile, drawing on interviews and public statements from child protection authorities. The findings identify systemic deficiencies, structural problems, negligent practices, concealment, and sexual exploitation networks as key factors perpetuating abuse, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive reforms, stronger oversight, and enhanced ethical and professional standards to safeguard the rights and well-being of children under state care.

This study examined protection trajectory patterns among 49 children who experienced residential care in Spain, identifying three distinct profiles through cluster analysis of case-file and psychosocial assessment data. The findings reveal diverse pathways—ranging from early transitions to family-based care, to unstable trajectories marked by multiple placements and higher adversity, to prolonged but stable residential care often involving diagnosed illnesses or disabilities—offering important insights for strengthening child protection decision-making and promoting stable, secure care experiences.

Child participation in decisions that affect them is a core element of a rights-based child protection system, and Advisory Boards of Children (ABCs) provide a structured local mechanism to ensure their meaningful involvement in shaping policies and services. This practical guide offers tools and recommendations to support the safe, effective, and equitable establishment and strengthening of ABCs, building on 15 years of experience and aligning with UN recommendations in Moldova.

دعوة للعمل – معاً لإحداث الأثر

This document has been developed to support those engaging technically with the Global Campaign of Children’s Care Reform by providing a deeper exploration of key themes introduced in the Global Charter on Children’s Care Reform. This document offers elaboration and practical insight into several of the central themes reflected in the Global Charter. It draws on the global evidence base, links to foundational guidance and standards, and incorporates the experience and expertise of those with lived experience of care, technical experts, and practitioners.

The document presents Ukraine’s ongoing child protection reform, known as the Better Care for Every Child initiative, which focuses on shifting from institutional to family- and community-based care. It outlines the key priorities of the National Strategy on Deinstitutionalization, including early identification of vulnerabilities, family support services, inclusive education, and the development of quality alternative care.

This study examined differences in emotional and behavioural problems among 400 adolescent orphans in Kerala, India using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to assess how sociodemographic factors shape mental health outcomes. The findings revealed significant variations by gender, religion, type of orphanhood, length and type of institutional care, underscoring the need for tailored psychosocial interventions that reflect these differences.

This study examined the relationship between disability type and service receipt among U.S. transition-age youth aging out of foster care, a population in which 53% have a diagnosed disability, across all U.S. states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.

This study examines how children with unknown parentage are cared for in modern society and the societal risks they face, using analysis of existing research. It finds that factors such as religious beliefs, economic conditions, and post-birth abandonment—along with stigma and discrimination—significantly shape these children’s experiences, and calls for stronger reforms and increased investment in child welfare programs.

The Kusamala+ Stigma Reduction Toolkit is the product of a 10-year community based program in Zambia to reduce stigma for children with disabilities living in family-based care in low-income compounds and improve family quality of life

This resource presents a costed policy study on investing in disability-inclusive and gender-responsive community care and support systems across the life cycle in Kenya, developed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection.

This chapter in the The Routledge Handbook of Social Work and Migration focuses on social work with children and young people who have experienced forced migration and become separated from family members, known as unaccompanied minors. It explores the possibilities of rights-based practice with unaccompanied children and considers what might be needed to develop and sustain this.

Supporting parents and caregivers requires a whole-of-society approach, with coordinated responses from the health, education, social services, private and other sectors. This brief focuses on the role of the health sector specifically. It explains why the health sector should support parents and caregivers, describes the type of support they need, and outlines the key building blocks of the health sector response.

To launch a new Emerging Insight Series of webinars from CELCIS, this session set the scene by considering what AI might mean for children’s social care. It explored fundamental questions, potential opportunities, and challenges related to how AI is being used in practice; its role in responding to the care and protection needs of children and young people and supporting their families; and emerging understanding of the influences and impacts of AI on children’s and young people’s lives.

This article examines how frontline child protection practitioners in Maputo City, Mozambique experience the implementation and enforcement of child protection laws, focusing on perceived barriers and facilitators. It finds that resource constraints, legal gaps, and sociocultural norms hinder effective enforcement, while NGO support and multisectoral coordination act as key enablers, highlighting the need for increased funding, legal harmonization, and evidence-based interventions to prevent violence against children.

This article explores a pilot study in Italy in which care-experienced young people acted as co-researchers to examine perceptions of child maltreatment and state intervention, focusing on the co-construction of knowledge between survivors and academic researchers. It finds that peer-led research strengthens epistemic justice and professional practice by integrating lived experience with academic analysis and fostering relational, supportive spaces for young people’s voices in care proceedings.