To explore the viability of positive youth development for youth in care, this observational study investigated whether participation in a summer camp-based reunification program for siblings separated by foster care in the US and Australia called Camp To Belong influenced youth resilience, a critical protective mechanism for maltreated youth.

This doctoral research explores how the European Union membership has changed the post-communist heritage of institutional care in Bulgaria, focusing on the transformation of orphanages through the deinstitutionalization reform

This publication outlines five clear steps that child welfare agency leaders in the United States can take to build and maintain a strong, stable frontline workforce.

This report summarizes the evidence for cash transfer programming and child protection in humanitarian contexts and recommends areas for action and further research.

The paper presents findings from a study of centre-based supervised child-parent contact. The purpose of the research was twofold; to ascertain the views and experiences of birth fathers on all aspects of the supervised child-parent contact they experienced in a centre; to find out from centre supervisors their views of engaging fathers and supervising contact, and from key stakeholders and referral agents (a community project worker, a child protection social worker, Guardian ad Litems, a family law solicitor) their perceptions of the supervised contact provision in the centre.

This paper reports on a qualitative study that aimed to understand children’s experiences of private fostering and social work practice.

The purpose of the study presented in this open access article was to provide an overview of the literature on associations between determinants and social climate and between social climate and outcomes in therapeutic residential youth care (TRC).

The purpose of the current article is to highlight the need for greater attention to foster parent self-care and integrate the research literature about foster parent stressors and self-care to propose a conceptual model of foster parent self-care.

This study aims to add to existing knowledge by exploring the impact of caregiving on kinship caregivers, particularly the stress and social support they experience and the subsequent effect on their well-being.

Changing Futures is a website for young people made by young people with experience of Tusla [child welfare] services in Ireland.

This report presents the findings of an intervention study evaluating the short-term outcomes of Sihleng’imizi Family Programme, an evidence-based preventative social-educational intervention.

This study sought to distinguish youth in the child welfare system who became involved with the justice system from youth who did not become involved with the justice system based on the youth's protective factors and their caregivers' parenting skills.

This paper reports on innovative research methods using GPS [Global Positioning System] devices that can trace social workers' mobilities and explore the use of office space, home working and visits to families in two English social work departments. This article presents unique findings that reveal how mobile working is shaping social care practitioner wellbeing and practice.

This article examines the professional identities of family therapists employed by Family Counselling Services (FCS) in Norway and their experiences providing therapeutic services to parents whose children are placed in public care.

This exploratory study investigated kinship (e.g., relative) caregivers' (N = 130) perceived and actual knowledge associated with child trauma.

This article has a twofold purpose. First, through synthesizing existing literature this article offers context and education about adverse experiences and concerns of children in foster care. Second, through an attachment lens clinical suggestions and interventions are discussed to assist MFTs in improving many of the emotional, mental, and physical health concerns found in this population.

This article reports a three-stage process of developing a model of teacher education to encompass provision for Looked After Children in schools in the UK.

The present article reports findings of a narrative review of self- and carer-report mental health data that addressed the research question: Do adolescents who reside in statutory out-of-home care (OOHC) systematically underreport their mental health difficulties in population studies?

This article explores the agency enablers and the factors which hinder adolescents and emerging adults transitioning from care to adulthood, with an emphasis on the transition into work taking a case study of the Uganda Youth Development Link.

This report presents the findings arising from a small-scale exploratory study commissioned by Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) that aimed to explore the extent to which children with care experience are over-represented in the Irish youth justice system.

This article presents the findings from a systematic review conducted on interventions for foster children and foster carers.

This brief paper focuses on the question of how care-experienced young people in Ireland fare in accessing opportunities in higher education.

This presentation is the result of a critical discourse analysis study which explored the stories­–through interviews, observations, and journals­–of three young adult women who aged out of the foster care system in a region of Central Tennessee.

This evidence and gap map will provide an overview of the existing systematic reviews and impact evaluations on the key outcome domains and interventions aimed at reducing violence against children in LMICs using an intervention-outcome framework.

This paper reports on the initial formative phase of a pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial; SOLID (Supporting Looked After Children and Care Leavers In Decreasing Drugs, and Alcohol) that aimed to adapt two evidence-based psychosocial interventions, Motivational Enhancement Therapy and Social Behaviour and Network Therapy, which will aim to reduce substance misuse by looked after children.

This study examined the predictive power of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for predicting foster placement breakdown.

This chapter from Social Work Practice in Africa: Indigenous and Innovative Approaches showcases examples of home-grown indigenous and innovative models of social work practice in Uganda, including local models for addressing the HIV/AIDS orphan crisis in Rakai district. 

To ensure protection of children from institutional abuse, there is an urgent need to review the existing laws in terms of their efficacy to protect children and feasibility in implementation. The present study suggests possible solutions, by trying to understand standardized and effective models of care systems and mechanisms.

This paper reflects on: what’s better or not after 30 years; whether legislation and financing are aligned with child welfare’s goals of safety, permanency and well-being; and what remains to be done to improve the outcomes of children and youth in foster care or otherwise involved with child welfare.

This study explored children orphaned by AIDS perceptions and experiences of HIV-related stigma and how it has affected their psychosocial well-being.

This open access paper documents the Deinstitutionalization of Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Uganda (DOVCU) project, articulating the logical steps that were undertaken to identify districts, Child Care Institutions (CCIs), Remand Homes (RH), sub-counties, and parishes to work with. It also seeks to categorically outline the inclusive process that was used to examine push and pull factors of family-child separation, identify households at risk of family-child separation “prevention households,” identify reunifying children and trace their households “reintegrating households,” and assess and classify in quantified terms the level of vulnerability in both at risk and separated households.

The aim of this study is to explore whether girls who are in residential care have fewer emotional skills than their peers, and if so, whether these girls have similar socio-emotional skills to girls who also experience disadvantaged environments but live with their families.

This study utilized administrative data that reviewed child welfare cases in a Midwestern state in the U.S. to examine interactions between teamwork and parent engagement associated with the permanency of children in out-of-home care.

This document presents findings from a survey carried out by the global level Child Protection Area of Responsibility (CP AoR) to track trends and progress in child protection coordination & determine ways the CP AoR can better support field-based coordination.

This study documents and evaluates the harm prevention work carried out by the children’s rights nonprofit Aangan Trust since late 2015 in Konia, a peri-urban slum area in Varanasi, a large city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

This open access article explores the construction of childhood and parenthood in rural communities in Indonesia based on a series of focus group discussions with service providers, community decision makers, and paraprofessionals; a group that the authors refer to as “frontline providers”.

This study applies cumulative adversity and stress proliferation theories to examine risk and protective resource profiles of youth with three different levels of housing and parental care instability.

This single group pilot study explored the effect of child–parent relationship therapy (CPRT) for adoptive parents of preadolescents who reported attachment related concerns, stress in the parent–child relationship, and child behavior problems.

This report examines the challenging relationship between Islam and fostering and adoption in the UK, and efforts currently being made to address it.

The goal of the research is to gain insight into the challenges of foster care for children with behavioral problems from the perspective of experts and their suggestions for improving foster care, with the purpose of identifying guidelines for the development of specialized foster care and protecting the welfare of children with behavioral problems.

This chapter from Social Work Practice in Africa: Indigenous and Innovative Approaches presents a traditional fostering model adopted by a group of women in Northern Uganda, analysing its potential for building resilience and for contributing to social capital and social development within the broad context of post-conflict situations.

The objective of this study was to examine prenatal care among women with a history of having a child placed in out-of-home care, and whether their care differed from care among women who did not.

This study will determine where disparities in child protection involvement exist among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children and characteristics associated with infant removals.

This paper uses administrative data to describe the characteristics and experiences of a population of youth in the child welfare system considered to be at particularly high risk of victimization: youth who have run away from foster care.

The purpose of this study is to explore child welfare workers' perspectives on ethnic matching in child welfare service delivery.

This study assesses whether LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in unstable housing and foster care and examines disparities in school functioning, substance use, and mental health for LGBTQ youth versus heterosexual youth in unstable housing and foster care.

This study is a scoping review to explore what research evidence exists about what works in safely reducing the number of children and young people in care.

The overall purpose of the study was to investigate how two different grading systems, the norm-referenced and the criterion-referenced garaging systems influence the educational achievement for children and youths placed in out-of-home care.

This study tests the prediction that foster youth who perceive having more opportunity for voice, even indirectly via a representative, more favorably rate the dependency system.

This study examined the relationship between receipt of child care subsidies and child maltreatment investigations in a sample of low‐income mothers in Illinois, USA.

This Inform briefing provides an overview of information, policy and legislation and outlines the importance of good housing and accommodation options that improve outcomes for care leavers.

The article is based on a qualitative study of residential child care practitioners’ views and perspectives of the blocks and enablers to the implementation of staying put and continuing care practice with three Scottish local authorities.

This briefing paper is for social workers. It brings together key messages from research on child sexual exploitation with implications for practice and should be read in conjunction with guidance for professionals.

This report starts to collate evidence on what appears to be important to children who have experienced sexual exploitation.

UNICEF and ILO published a joint report aiming to contribute to the ongoing discussions about the future of social protection for children.

Written for USAID and PEPFAR implementing partners, with a focus on OVC practitioners, this is a user-friendly compendium of current resources, information and job aids for early childhood care, stimulation and education.

Using synthesis and an integrative approach, the article analyzes laws, policies, and institutions that protect the rights and promote the welfare of orphaned children in the Philippines.

This article illuminates current child protection services (CPS) worker practices in situations of domestic violence in Alberta, Canada where inclusion and exclusion decisions are made for service provision, and the ways in which documents reflect these day-to-day practices.

In the current study, data were collected from 184 youth at drop-in centers in Los Angeles using behavioral health questionnaires to explore the relationships between specific aspects of foster care experiences and engagement in HIV-risk behaviors.

This paper sets out to give a rounded view of the Irish foster care system as currently constituted.

This research aimed to assess the current knowledge base regarding careexperienced children’s and young people’s engagement with the arts, and to explore the views of facilitators, young people, and their carers involved in the arts-based programme at the Wales Millennium Centre.

This article presents the results of a systematic mapping of social work training programs in countries throughout West Africa, a region historically under‐represented in global discussions of the social welfare workforce.

The Viable and Operable Ideas for Children’s Equality (VOICE) International Conference was an event co-hosted by PUSKAPA and the Care and Protection of Children (CPC) Learning Network, with 2018 theme: "Finding Scientific Answer to the 21st Century Challenges for Families, Communities, and Public Policy".

This latest report takes stock of the shifting global context and increasing movement to end corporal punishment.

The increase in the arrival of unaccompanied minors to Europe rises as a new challenge for the local authorities responsible for the reception. The comparison of two cross-border regions shows the possibility of transferring successful practices between European states.

This Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) provides an overview of the necessary elements to safely transition children from institutions to families and family-like care settings.

Despite limited research on the effectiveness of mind-body interventions with children and adolescents in out-of-home care in Canada, a review of available literature on mindfulness, arts-based methods, and yoga suggests these therapeutic interventions promote resilience and positive development.

The objectives of this article are to: 1) estimate the rate of overrepresentation of First Nations children and youth involved in child welfare investigations in the Ontario child welfare system and, 2) determine which factors drive the overrepresentation of First Nations children in child welfare at the investigation stage compared to White children.

The aim of this study was to analyse subjectisuppleve well-being (SWB) among adolescents in care, considering the type of placement in greater depth and how it correlated with several explanatory variables.

This chapter explicates the concept of the orphan industrial complex to argue that persistent narratives of “orphan rescue” not only commodify orphans and orphanhood itself but—counter to their stated goal—can actually spur the “production” of “orphans,” resulting in child exploitation and trafficking.

This article from the Oklahoma Law Review explores the US child welfare system and the practice of family separation of poor families.

This final report presents key learning, findings, and results of the “Children in Moldova are Cared for in Safe and Secure Families” (Children in Moldova) project.

These Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have been developed based on current, evidence-based practices to facilitate joint action by all health actors to effectively respond to child sexual violence in Kenya.

This article aims to explore the experiences of Ethiopian unaccompanied and separated migrant children in Yemen.

This study focuses on life satisfaction among care leavers four years after leaving care in Israel.

This study explores the lived experience of child welfare worker turnover from the child's perspective, adding an important and underrepresented voice in the literature.

This study examined the effect of privatization policy on the issue of racial disparity in the child welfare system.

In this exploratory study, through use of an online anonymous survey, local county child welfare caseworkers were asked to self-rate their knowledge of, exposure to, and comfort levels with children with developmental disabilities.

In order to gain insight into the role that decision-making plays in family preservation practice, the authors of this article studied decision-making within a family preservation (FP)-intervention program provided by the Expertise Center.

The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of Child Protective Services (CPS) reports during early childhood and substantiated investigations during childhood for children living in different types of neighborhoods.

This study compared American and Chinese caregiving grandparents regarding variables reflecting challenges and resources in dealing with the demands of raising a grandchild.

This article presents a cross-sectional survey in 19 facilities for minor refugees in Bavaria, Germany, screening for posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), depression, anxiety, externalizing behaviour, and post-migration factors.

Using a two-study design, this study tests whether sexual minority youth are overrepresented in child welfare, foster care, and out-of-home placement using nationally representative data from the United States.

This book presents the "Circle of Security" parenting strategies developed by Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, and Bert Powell in a "self-help" form.

Presenting both a theoretical foundation and proven strategies for helping caregivers become more attuned and responsive to their young children's emotional needs (ages 0-5), this is the first comprehensive presentation of the Circle of Security (COS) intervention.

The Nurturing Care Framework provides a roadmap for action. It builds on state-of-the-art evidence about how early childhood development unfolds and how it can be improved by policies and interventions.

Communication skills are fundamental to social work, yet few studies have directly evaluated their impact. This study explores the relationship between skills and outcomes in 127 families. 

At a US House of Representatives Hearing on Migrant Family Separation Policy, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D. (Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University) gave testimony on the impacts of family separation on children, highlighting the "strong scientific consensus supported by decades of peer-reviewed research" that "sudden, forcible separation of children from their parents is deeply traumatic for both the child and the parent," triggering "a massive biological stress response."

This policy brief from the Elevate Children Funders Group describes how private donors add to "the pull factors drawing more vulnerable children into institutional care and away from family or community care" in Haiti.

This policy brief from the Elevate Children Funders Group describes how private donors add to "the pull factors drawing more vulnerable children into institutional care and away from family or community care" in Nepal.

This infographic from the Elevate Children Funders Group describes how private donors add to "the pull factors drawing more vulnerable children into institutional care and away from family or community care" in Haiti.

This infographic from the Elevate Children Funders Group describes how private donors add to the "pull factors drawing more vulnerable children into institutional care and away from family or community care."

This study aims to use media reports as a resource to collate existing information on abandoned babies and to draw conclusions to inform future response.

The question addressed in this paper from the Neural Plasticity journal is what happens to brain and behavior when a young child is deprived of key experiences during critical periods of brain development.

In this webinar presented by RISE Learning Network, Omattie Madray and Zenainda Rosales presented an extensive study recently carried out which analyzed over 100 documents and conducted over 20 interviews to gain insights on practices of organizations supporting and caring for boys affected by sexual violence in their recovery process.

As increasing numbers of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) are arriving in Europe, there is a need to investigate which factors promote psychological resilience and improve their mental health. This review aims to identify preventive post settlement influences, including living arrangements, access to mental health services and effective treatments that may improve mental health outcomes.

Informed by the qualitative method and the descriptive-interpretive design, this study, which was underscored by radical humanist goals of structural social work, reflects the voices of 16 youth who had transitioned out of care.

In the present research, the aim was to develop, implement, and examine the effectiveness of an education program for mothers for the prevention of child neglect.

This study draws on a bioecological systems perspective to propose the parameters for a broader unit of analysis of inclusion for young children with disabilities in research within low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) contexts.

The goals of this study were 1) to examine this relation in youth placed in foster care with high levels of maltreatment exposure, and 2) to investigate the relation between maltreatment frequency and acute pain, and maltreatment frequency and general chronic health condition.