This document is intended to provide guidance on how to support the social service workforce and empower them to safely serve children, families, and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study uses interviews with 20 youth formerly in foster care who exhibit better-than-average outcomes to explore contextual aspects of resilience during emerging adulthood, elucidating how both relational and organizational support contribute to their resiliency.

This paper teases out the range of factors reinforcing Kenya’s over-reliance on live-in institutions as a child care and child protection model.

The present document aims to provide practical guidance to States and other stakeholders in preventing and responding to COVID-19 in the context of immigration detention, including the detention of unaccompanied and separated children, highlighting instances of promising practices as useful models to draw from.

Framed by relational dialectics theory, a contrapuntal analysis of 104 photolistings examined the discursive tensions of what it means to be an “adoptable” child.

The aim of the study was to document mental health service use (counseling and medication) among youth in foster care, examine how prepared they feel to manage their mental health, and investigate predictors of service use and preparedness.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the neglect of left-behind children (LBC) in China.

This note informs Save the Children's humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The COVID-19 Global HRP is a joint effort by members of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), including UN, other international organizations and NGOs with a humanitarian mandate, to analyse and respond to the direct public health and indirect immediate humanitarian consequences of the pandemic, particularly on people in countries already facing other crises.

This Interim Guidance addresses specific needs and considerations required in humanitarian situations, including camps and camp-like settings and the surrounding host communities, in scaling-up readiness and response operations for the COVID-19 outbreak through effective multi-sectoral partnership.

The COVID-19 Learning Pathway aims to enable humanitarians, including local responders, to be best equipped to respond to the global pandemic COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

In this video from Human Rights Watch, kids talk about the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on children.

This one page comic has been created to help children understand more about the Coronavirus.

This one page comic has been created to help children understand more about the Coronavirus.

Save the Children is sharing these drama-based relaxation exercises that are part of their global Healing and Education through the Arts (HEART) program for children living in stressful situations. 

This paper identifies key ethical considerations when undertaking evidence generation involving children during the mitigation stage of the pandemic (emergency phase), on subject matter relating to COVID-19 once the pandemic has been contained, and once containment policy measures, including lockdowns, have been lifted (post-emergency phase).

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. This microsite features resources and research projects covering a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies. 

Този придружаващ документ към Техническата бележка на Междуведомствената работна група относно Закрила на детето по време на пандемията КОВИД -19: Деца и алтернативна грижа Protection of Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Children and Alternative Care предоставя полезни съвети за насърчаване участието на всички заинтересовани страни, което е от ключово значение, за да не бъдат прекъснати услугите за деца.

Целта на тази „Специализирана информация“ е да подпомогне работещите в сферата на закрила на детето и правителствените служители в незабавния им отговор на проблемите, пред които се изправят децата, които са в риск от разделяне със семейството или в алтернативна грижа по време на пандемията от Ковид-19.

This guidance note is focused on the ‘here and now’ – and a set of recommendations to guide the work of Savings Groups during the global pandemic.

This comic is based on a radio story that NPR education reporter Cory Turner did. He asked some experts what kids might want to know about the new coronavirus discovered in China.

This study aimed to determine the approach to child welfare in Iran by reviewing Iran’s laws and macro policies, and analysing them to provide an explicit and comprehensive definition for child welfare.

In order to be better equipped to design interventions aimed at improving the educational outcomes of children for whom society has assumed responsibility, this study seeks to further our understanding about which factors that contribute to the educational disparities throughout the life course.

In this statement, the Consortium for Street Children calls on all UN Members States to take three steps for children in street situations during this pandemic.

Consortium for Street Children (CSC) is collecting information from the organisations in its network working with children in street situations around the world via an online survey as well as discussions with individual members.

This booklet from Udayan Care provides guidance on how to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of children in child care institutions in India during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This booklet from Udayan Care provides guidance on how to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of children in child care institutions in India during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This supplementary issue relates to a sequence of activities the British Academy has supported since 2015 in relation to the bringing together of a range of disciplinary perspectives on early childhood development.

This paper outlines key messages for leaving care workers for planning services not only to keep children and young people safe and supported but to make their lives as positive as possible at this time.

This study examined differences in childhood adversity, child protection involvement, and offending among crossover children by neurodisability status.

The authors of this study draw on the decision-making ecology model of judgement and decision making in child protection to speculate on possible causes of false positive errors in decision making regarding the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.

The purpose of this article is to perform a critical analysis of the procedure for determining the age of unaccompanied foreign minors in Spain and the detrimental effects that may arise from establishing the legal status of these minors.

The present study aimed to evaluate the specific impact of different forms of victimization on alcohol and cannabis use problems among adolescents in Residential Child Care (RCC) in Spain, attending to sex differences.

This page from the Consortium for Street Children website explores how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting street-connected children and features documents from the Consortium, including explanatory notes on COVID-19 and street-connected children’s rights, and other resources.

El Diálogo Interamericano y UNICEF han conformado una alianza orientada a fortalecer la construcción y la implementación de políticas integrales de la primera infancia basada en evidencia, en los países de la región. En esa línea, se convocó un Taller regional en Uruguay. Este documento presenta los principales elementos destacados y discutidos en la reunión y los aspectos en los cuales hay un mayor acuerdo entre los expertos participantes del taller.

This call to action outlines several decisive and coordinated measures that all stakeholders are urged to take to ensure that children and families are protected from the immediate and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.

This guidance is for Save the Children staff and partners already running Interim Care Centres (ICCs) during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This review provides an overview of the associated characteristics with the quality of attachment between foster carers and foster children.

This guideline provides direction for strengthening policies and programmes to better address early childhood development.

This resource guide aims to support UNICEF country teams, development partners and governments to deliver at-scale and sustainable results for early childhood development (ECD).

Through interviews with cutting edge researchers, scientists, economists, families and educators, this film explores the so called “miracle years”, a critical period of our lives that no one remembers, in a profound new way – emphasizing how the first few years are the greatest opportunity we have to give children the best start in life.

This study aims to advance understanding of social workers’ perceptions of the circumstances necessitating and preventing the placement of children with disabilities (CwDs) in institutions.

This study examined parent-child relationship variables (child attachment, parental sensitivity, and prior parenting experience) and child behavior problems in parents and their international adopted children with and without a cleft lip and palate.

This article presents findings from an exploratory in-depth qualitative research project with the objective of exploring the knowledge that social workers use to make decisions regarding permanency arrangements for Looked after Children.

This article interrogates formal public evaluations of extended care programmes with a particular focus on their eligibility criteria that have determined which groups of care leavers are included or alternatively excluded and the identified strengths and limitations of the programmes.

This quantitative study investigated how selected attributes of children (e.g., gender) and their microsystems (e.g., caregiving settings) related to the receipt of special education among a sample of 1855 child welfare-involved youth from the U.S. National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II.

In this video, One Sky Foundation share some of their work in Thailand supporting children from disadvantaged families to stay in education.

This animated video from Alternative Care Thailand tells the story of a boy in Thailand who is sent to live in an orphanage because his mother feels she is unable to care for him at home, his experiences with volunteers once he arrives at the orphanage, and how the orphanage transitioned to supporting children to live in families.

This preliminary technical note from UNICEF, ILO, and UN Women offers (interim) recommendations for employers to mitigate the negative consequences stemming from COVID-19.

This guidance note is intended to support child guidance for remote child protection case management, including the key child protection principles of survival and development, non-discrimination and inclusion, child participation, and the best interest of the child.

This document outlines some of the potential risks children face in Interim Care Centres and suggests how to manage them to ensure that children are as safe as possible.

In this first episode of a new special series on child development and COVID-19, Center Director Dr. Jack Shonkoff and host Sally Pfitzer discuss how to support healthy child development during a pandemic, including the importance of caring for caregivers.

In this correspondence in the Lancet, the authors express their concerns regarding children in residential institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic and urge authorities to undertake carefully planned measures with respect to deinstitutionalisation.

This Guideline aims to further provide technical guidance to child protection workers in Cambodia to better respond to the child protection risks during a COVID-19 pandemic through case management, including psychosocial support.

This internal case management guidance aims to provide initial support to child protection staff and partners to adapt their case management programming within the contagious environment of COVID-19.

A coalition of six disability rights organisations has launched a major international monitoring initiative entitled “COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor” to conduct rapid independent monitoring of state measures concerning persons with disabilities. 

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the impact of parental migration on the welfare of left-behind children in the Philippines so that policies can be devised to support them.

This article describes the empirical results of perspectives and experiences of 11 parents’ engagement in child protection assessment practice through in-depth semi-structured interviews in one county in North Estonia.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychosocial problems of orphan children in public primary schools in Ethiopia.

This foundational chapter attempts to provide readers with content to assist in their understanding of the characteristics, role, and experiences of kinship elderly caregivers of children affected and/or infected by HIV and AIDS.

This paper examines the efficacy of extended family system in OVC care and support in the Gutu District of Zimbabwe.

This study assesses whether sex of the caregiver is associated with HIV status of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) as a valuable strategy for enhanced pediatric case findings.

This chapter focuses on the U.S. as the nation with the largest number of adoptions. Although adoptions represent a small portion of family growth, from a demographer’s point of view they are worth investigating.

The research objective is to understand the development of collaboration in relation to the multiple issues that influence the educational attainment of youth in out-of-home care.

The authors of this article contend that the government of Zimbabwe adopted traditional practices of child welfare in its National Orphan Care Policy, yet it did not also bring the apparatus (Ubuntu) which made the traditional practices successful in traditional society.

To ensure that the well-being of the most vulnerable children are not compromised, Joining Forces Bangladesh appeals to the Government of Bangladesh, international communities, business sector, and media and civil society to take the measures outlined in this joint appeal. 

This study addressed three research questions: (1) What are ACE totals in this sample of foster parents and how do they compare with the original CDC-Kaiser study? (2) Does foster parents’ ACE exposure relate to foster child behavior? (3) Is the relation between foster parents’ ACEs and children’s challenging behaviors different based on the specific ACE?

This paper reports findings from an innovative arts-based intervention with Looked After Children and young people and concludes that holding competing value sets in creative tension is central to the success of the programme in helping young people to cope with and contest social harm.

This study aims at identifying characteristics of foster children, foster parents and foster placements associated with low satisfaction and high support needs.

This paper explores the experiences of Victorian foster and kinship carers accessing timely health assessment and ongoing healthcare for a child placed in their care; identifying barriers and enablers.

This qualitative study utilized the experiential voices of current and former youth in foster care, caregivers, and agency staff to broaden the understanding of the needs of youth with foster care histories, as well as provide a contextual lens for exploring potential risk factors leading to homelessness.

This article outlines six key recommendations for swift global action and describes UNICEF's commitments to work with communities, governments and partners to slow the spread of COVID-19 and minimize the social and economic impacts on children and their families. 

Based on the life history theory and the interpersonal function model of non-suicidal injury (NSSI), this study aimed to examine the positive impact of loneliness on friendship quality via NSSI among left-behind adolescents.

This study investigated if changes in quality of life (QoL), psychopathological symptoms and perceived self-efficacy predict aggressive behavior trajectories in youths with clinical aggression levels living in closed youth residential care in Germany.

The study documents the impact of the need-service gap (client did not receive the service they need) on family reunification status among substance-involved parents in the child welfare system.

Using a scoping review framework, the authors of this study sought to take stock of the state of the science of the programs and interventions (PIs) currently available for young people who age out of foster care.

This study examined the impact of homelessness, foster care, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) prior to 12th grade on the development of three common Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) during young adulthood

This report presents a review of published literature and consultation with current foster and kinship carers to examine impacts of COVID-19 on OOHC, highlighting the likelihood of increased service strain.

This statement from the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children calls for solidarity in light of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that no child is left behind.

In this statement, the UN Secretary-General registers concern regarding the well-being of the world’s children during the COVID-19 pandemic and notes the launch of a report that highlights the risks they face.

This article will make a case for investing in families and communities rather than orphanages by putting a spotlight on ECFG member investments in Asia.

This article examines the extent to which two key child rights principles enshrined in the Convention have been incorporated into the domestic law of seven South Asian countries: (a) the obligation to undertake active measures to prevent the unnecessary separation of children from their families and (b) the placing of a child in alternative care as a measure of last resort.

This article looks at how Miracle Foundation applies principles of trauma-informed care (TIC) at every stage: from intake and care at a CCI while awaiting placement, to preparing children and families for transition, and finally to supporting post-placement.

This article traces the evolution of the recognition of orphanage trafficking broadly, and then focusses on recommendations made by the Australian government following the release of its 2017 Hidden in Plain Sight Report.

This policy brief provides a deeper analysis of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and offers immediate and sustained actions for the attention of governments and policymakers.

This special issue of the Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond journal, guest-edited by Delia Pop, Tessa Boudrie and Mark Riley of Hope and Homes for Children, focuses on deinstitutionalization in South Asia.

This special presentation by Barbara Fallon of the University of Toronto and Delphine Collin-Vezina of McGill University is the first in a series of free ISPCAN webinars focused on the effects of COVID-19 on children, families, and systems of care.

This webinar addresses the risk factors of the current crisis on youth and families, the challenges that professionals like therapists, psychologists, and social workers are facing; and tips and strategies to manage the emotional impact of COVID-19 on youth, families, and professionals using telemedicine and other novel techniques.

In this webinar, Jamie Lachman, co-founder of the Parenting for Lifelong Health initiative, provides an overview of the open-source online COVID-19 parenting resources initiative and the current response to COVID-19, including a presentation of current resources to promote child protection and different strategies that are being used to disseminate them worldwide.

The aim of this quantitative, inferential research was to investigate how working with vulnerable and abused children and families has an impact on child protection service workers in South Africa.

This exploratory study examines practitioners’ and foster parents’ perceptions on use of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy in child welfare.

This study reports the perspectives of college students with foster care histories and self-identified mental health concerns about how these factors relate to their post-secondary academic experiences.

This study explored the effects of the factors on independent living readiness among youth under out‐of‐home care. Specifically, this study focused on the effects of caregivers' autonomy support and psychological capital on independent living readiness through personal growth initiative.

This article provides a conceptual depiction of how schools and treatment foster parents partnerships can be formed and maintained.

In this study, the authors analysed data from 27 interviews with parents whose children were removed by child welfare and four focus groups totalling 18 staff from a parent education service provider.

The aim of this study is to investigate out-of-home placement rates and child outcomes of home-visiting interventions.

This study explores the relationship between a key early intervention policy in England designed to support families with children up to the age of four and the rate at which children are taken into social care.

Current international research on the experience of care leavers in New Zealand is reviewed to identify key lessons and continuing challenges.