Using the findings from a qualitative study, this paper explores social workers’ experiences of intervening in affluent families in the UK when there are child protection concerns.

This thesis explores the experiences and meanings that are attributed to kinship care by caregivers, young people of African descent, and social workers.

The aim of this study was to investigate how workers within Child Protective Services (CPS) systems in Colorado and the Netherlands measure and perceive the effectiveness of their CPS system.

This analysis examines both historical and contemporary approaches to addressing religion and race in child welfare policy and practice, with a particular focus on adolescent youth.

This study evaluated the health service needs of left-behind children ages 3-5 years old in Hunan Province, China.

The aims of this study were to systematically evaluate and comparatively analyse the mental health status of left‐behind children (LBC) in China and to provide a scientific basis for mental intervention and healthy education for LBC.

The First International Conference of the Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with the theme “Emerging and Contemporary Social Issues: The place of Social Work Education and Practice in Nigeria” was held 10-13 September 2018 and included 96 oral presentations of papers by delegates from across the country. Several papers focused on illegal adoptions of children in Nigeria and the role of social workers in addressing this practice.

This article by staff attorney for family law and child welfare at the Virginia Poverty Law Center's Center for Family Advocacy, Valerie L’Herrou, outlines and analyses several new bills introduced by the Virginia General Assembly in 2018 and their impacts on young people aging out of the foster care system and family reintegration.

This study investigated out-of-home placements in Finland among children with a biological mother having schizophrenia, and their relation to maternal characteristics and adverse perinatal health outcomes of the offspring.

This study explored the personal self-care practices of foster parents in one southeastern state in the US.

This exploratory, qualitative, multi-case study sought to understand, from the perspective of successful foster alumni college students, the role and influence of family members.

Building on discourse analyses of custody deprivation cases, the authors of this paper call for greater understanding of how disability intersects with parenting and the need for an improved support system.

This study compared adolescents in residential care (RC) in Portugal, with a Portuguese community sample on the incidence of mental health problems and psychosocial skills, explored gender differences and the relationships between mental health problems and psychosocial competencies.

This study examined the impact of the model of professional childcare in a three-year project involving fifty-three children and young people and their carers in local-authority children’s homes on two UK areas (Northern and Southern England).

This book takes readers on a journey that spans three decades and five continents, describing the work of SFAC to keep children in their families and communities or to find safe alternatives where this is not possible.

This paper from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare provides an insight into the lives of two care leavers to understand their experiences in the world outside care. It brings out significant recommendations for reforms in aftercare policies for children leaving care.

This study from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare describes the mental health outcomes and transition experiences of a group of young adults who are currently transitioning (aftercare) or have already transitioned (alumni) out of a residential care organisation for orphaned and separated children (OSC) in New Delhi, India.

This study from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare was conducted on 47 young adults who had grown up in various government and non-government child care institutions of New Delhi, India and the aftercare services they did or did not receive. The analysis revealed that the existing aftercare programmes are ill-equipped to prepare Out-of-Home Care (OHC) youth to transition from alternative care to independent living.

This study from the Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare is aimed at studying the concept of aftercare from the prism of human rights and the international framework in context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN resolution, Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. Furthermore, the research is aimed at analysing the legal provisions and standards provided within the Indian legal system and how far it is attuned to the international standards.

This article from the Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond Special Issue on Aftercare explores the outcomes for young people who have transitioned out of alternative care and into independent living in Sri Lanka and the need for policy changes to better meet their needs.

This issue of the ICEB journal is a special edition on the aftercare concerns of young adults who leave the care of agencies and embark on a journey of their own.

The main objective of this study is to explore, from a bottom-up perspective, the moderating effect of an experienced happiness indicator (OHS) and the daily-life activities shared between caregivers and adolescents in the residential care system in Peru.

This volume is an effort to highlight best practices for children without parental care.

This article describes Indonesia's PKSA/Child Welfare Program, including its successes and drawbacks, and makes recommendations for further implementation.

The present study is part of a knowledge translation project in collaboration with local CWS with the aim to develop, implement, and evaluate Enhanced Academic Support (EAS) for primary school children in Child Welfare Services (CWS) in Norway.

This article reports a research study in Victoria, Australia, that explored nonfamilial kinship care through analysis of administrative data, interviews with young people and carers, and focus groups with kinship care support workers.

This paper paves the way to ensuring that challenges faced by informal caregivers are addressed in a manner that will make them more supportive to orphans.

This report is divided into two parts. Part A focuses on the dangers that occur at Pennsylvania’s residential facilities when the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (“PA-DHS”) fails to provide meaningful oversight. Part B provides background on child residents’ educational rights, details the inferior education that children at these residential facilities receive, especially those children with disabilities, and the devastating consequences.

This report is based on the largest ever national survey of kinship carers. It explores the experience of kinship families, and draws comparison with findings from a 2010 Survey.

This report presents findings from the first survey focussing on the challenges faced by kinship carers in the UK in bringing up children and their experience of discrimination and stigma. 

In this podcast episode, University of Melbourne researcher Dr. Meredith Kiraly joins Patricia Karvelas in The Drawing Room along with Nic, who is the full-time carer of her 2 year old nephew.

‘Monique's early childhood was the sort of experience that might have broken most kids. Now 19, she found a loving home with a relative when she was nine. It's called kinship care, and it's the fastest growing form of care for children who can't live at home.’

This guide aims to provide social workers with a clear framework for undertaking preliminary assessments of family and friends.

This article is an attempt to analyse and describe the process of change in child substitute care that has taken place since the re-independence of Estonia in 1991.

National organizations working on behalf of kinship families have several exciting resources to share with the field. This article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care highlights some of those resources.

This article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care outlines policy and practice tips for supporting grandparents raising grandchildren due to the current opioid and heroin epidemic in the US.

In this article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care, Los Angeles Judge Michael Nash, Ret. shares court and agency strategies to engage and support relatives for children and families involved in the child welfare system in the US.

Providing relative caregivers the same financial benefits and supports as nonrelative foster caregivers is the focus of ongoing US federal litigation described in this article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care. The litigation addresses the equitable treatment of relatives who care for children in the child welfare system.

This article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care describes a national campaign launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with other national stakeholders, to transform foster parenting by changing the way systems and communities partner with foster parents to help children stay safe, heal, and thrive in their own families and communities. The article highlights the considerations identified by kinship foster families as fundamental to feeling supported by child welfare systems and providing the best possible care.

This article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care summarizes seven steps to create a kin-first culture—one in which child welfare stakeholders consistently promote kinship placement, help children in foster care maintain connections with their families, and tailor services and supports to the needs of kinship foster families.

This article from the Child Law Practice Today July/August 2017 Issue on Kinship Care explores kinship care in the US, including its benefits to children and families.

This issue focuses on the role of kin and relatives as permanency resources for children in the child welfare system.

In addition to discussing the legal implications of immigration status on foster placements, this article provides promising practices and other tools for those who work closely with immigrant caregivers in the child welfare system.

Within the context of kinship care, the main objectives of this work are to study the characteristics of contact between foster children and their birth parents, and their relationship with key variables of fostering, the children and their kinship caregivers.

This article presents a comprehensive, narrative review of international, research literature on informal, kinship care.

This systematic review evaluated the effect of kinship care placement compared to foster care placement on the safety, permanency, and well-being of children removed from the home for maltreatment.

This article examines whether and how felt caregiver burden influences the reported propensity of caregivers to want to adopt the children in their care.

This study from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal examined the impact of a kinship supports intervention implemented in 16 children services agencies in the US.

This paper from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal discusses a three-phased service model assessed using Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) conferences with informal kinship caregivers and their families.

In this empirical analysis of kinship caregivers and children from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal, researchers sought to determine the protective factors that mediate against risks and produce optimal levels of child well-being for children being cared for by kinship caregivers in the US.

This study from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal examines the characteristics of children and their caregivers, the extent of children’s prior involvement in the child welfare system and the factors associated with placement instability in informal kinship care.

This study from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal examined if kinship navigation services can improve family needs, caregiver self-efficacy and placement stability of children in the care of their grandparents or other relatives.

This article from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal explores the Family Connections Discretionary Grant Program in the US.

University at Albany, New York State Kinship Navigator, and the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) formed a collaborative partnership to plan and host a Kinship Care Summit in Albany, New York in September 2016. The Summit included presentations by authors of kinship manuscripts that were accepted for this Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal.

This study from the the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal uses nationally representative survey data to describe differences in characteristics, adverse family experiences, and child well-being among children in kinship care with varying levels of involvement with the child welfare system in the US.

The purpose of this introduction of the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal is to offer a conceptual framework for addressing the challenges involved in developing a coherent set of policies and practices with respect to kinship care in the US.

This special issue focuses on the much larger number of kinship caregivers, who either intervene on their own or accept the assistance of child protective authorities that facilitate informal arrangements without taking legal custody.

This two-part special issue of the Child Welfare Journal focuses on children in kinship care—those who are being raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings, and non-related extended family members—to bring attention to this less visible area of public child welfare, featuring policy-based and empirical research on kinship families.

The Kinship Care: State of the Nation 2018 survey is the largest survey ever of kinship carers in the UK. As in previous years, it shows that many carers aren't getting the support they need to enable children to thrive.

The aims of the study were to examine the experiences and outcomes of young adults, aged 16-26, who had lived, or continued to live, in kinship care in the UK.

This briefing paper, which is the third in a series, provides a brief overview of the characteristics of the children growing up with relatives in Scotland.

This briefing paper, which is the second in a series, provides a brief overview of the characteristics of the children growing up with relatives in Wales.

Children and young people, many from conflict-affected countries, who arrive in Australia on orphan relative visas are highly vulnerable. In this book by David Rose and Klaus Serr, professionals with experience of working in this field discuss their perceptions of the needs of these young people and their carers.

This article explores current child protection services and programs in the United States and offers suggestions for development of new child protection programming to further meet the needs of vulnerable children.

The aim of this research was to gain an insight into experiences of Roma foster parents with providing foster care in Roma settlements in Croatia.

This book presents the results of this research on more than 52,000 children placed in public care in Romania (in special protection) who receive family or residential-type protection services as well as on the children at risk of separation from their families from the source communities.

The aim of this study was to examine changes in parental empowerment and child behavioural problems during a period of youth care and how changes are related to the kind of services provided.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the risk of depression in adulthood in children raised by substitute parents from an early age differ by care arrangements.

The authors of this article examined social and economic resources in the environments of children involved with child protective services and their associations with children's cognitive performance.

The current study examined the use of socio-emotional well-being measures among a sample of 57 children and youth living in a congregate care type setting such as a group home or shelter.

This systematic review of children left behind by migrant parents by Gracia Fellmeth and Kelly Rose-Clarke and colleagues in The Lancet included studies from all LMICs, and considered both forced migration and labour migration.

This systematic review investigated the effect of parental migration on the health of left behind-children and adolescents in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The objective of this article is to examine the impact of international female labor migration on left-behind parents by taking into consideration the daughters' marital status.

This article assesses the contribution of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme in reducing rural poverty in the Karaga district of Northern Ghana, using a mixed research design to compare the livelihoods of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries.

This article analyzes the impact of volunteer tourism on children’s wellbeing in residential care facilities in Cambodia by employing a child rights-based approach.

This qualitative study sought to explore the perspectives of a group of South African caregivers, all of whom were in receipt of a Child Support Grant (CSG), in relation to their own caregiving and family functioning.

This research utilized Indigenous methodologies rooted in oral traditions, storytelling practices, and the Medicine Wheel teachings to examine how individuals, families, communities, social workers, and organizations can assist Indigenous youth who are aging-out of foster care and are transitioning into adulthood.

This paper identifies key educational outcomes among young people in care in Ontario (Canada) of pre-school, elementary, secondary, and post-secondary age.

This chapter from the Handbook of Parenting and Child Development Across the Lifespan explores five domains of research connecting social support and parenting: (1) intergenerational transmission of parenting; (2) community and neighborhood; (3) marriage quality; (4) grandmothers; and (5) offline and online friends.

These recommendations have been developed by the Opening Doors for Europe’s Children campaign and are based on the work of the campaign since 2016, calling for a stronger commitment to maintain, strengthen and expand the use of EU funds for deinstitutionalisation reforms in Europe.

Using data from Ghana—a country that has initiated reintegration of children from residential care facilities, therefore providing a natural opportunity for comparative research—the authors of this study from the Children and Youth Services Review used hope, whether the child has been reunified with family/caregivers or remained in the care facility, and a statistical interaction of the two, along with controls, to predict the Child Status Index, an internationally-established measure of child wellbeing.

This chapter from Asylum Determination in Europe focuses on unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Greece and their experiences of residing both in shelters and refugee camps.

For this study, ten multilevel meta-analyses were performed to examine factors that can affect instability of foster care placement.

Nurturing Strangers focuses on loving nonviolent re-parenting of children in foster care. This book is a jargon-free mix of narrative and real-life case studies, together with the theory and practice of nonviolence.

This paper examines the efforts of a court to improve outcomes for older youth who are exiting foster care by implementing an Emancipation Checklist (EC) to guide discussion around 12 stability indicators thought to improve youth transition to adulthood (e.g., education, employment).

This article examines the findings of a mixed-method implementation-evaluation of a local non-governmental organization's Orphans and Vulnerable Children program.

The All Babies Count (ABC) initiative was a comprehensive health systems strengthening intervention designed to improve neonatal care in rural public facilities. This article describes ABC implementation outcomes, including development of a quality improvement (QI) change package.

This study investigates the difference in the well-being of children in kinship care when compared to children in other care settings within Africa, examining factors that are associated with their well-being outcomes.

This collection of poetry and writing throws the spotlight on living 'in care' - a subject rarely explored in literature and yet experienced by more than 60,000 children in the UK every year.

The purpose of the present Situation Analysis of Children with Disabilities in Albania is to generate comprehensive knowledge about children with disabilities to inform concrete actions by the Albanian government and UNICEF Albania to address the most critical rights violations of children with disabilities.

This paper aims to highlight inequality in current adoption processes and procedures in England and Wales.

This article celebrates the positive difference that being around and caring for animals can make for looked after children. It explores the benefits and makes a case for a proactive approach.

Using the data from a a nationwide evaluation of accessibility of employment and education in Latvia, the authors of this paper argue that due to the fragmented implementation of deinstitutionalisation (DI) and lack of a child centred approach throughout the education sector, despite educators firmly believing they are acting in the best interests of children, current practices of care contribute to the creation of ‘inclusive exclusion’

This statistics publication from the UK Department for Education provides information about looked after children in England for the year ending 31 March 2018.

Based on attachment theory, this study was conducted to analyze the contact between these children and their biological parents, and the factors affecting this contact.

This paper focuses on the longitudinal examination of perceived reactive attachment disorder (RAD) symptoms and indiscriminate, insecure and pseudomature behavior in foster children, many of them having experienced maltreatment and neglect in the family of origin.

Exploring the testimonials collected during a focus group and 45 individual interviews with adult alumni of such institutions the Romanian research team enrolled in the SASCA Project revealed a wide range of forms of violence and traumatic consequences.

The goal of this study was to simultaneously examine the independent and interactive effects of paternal and maternal corporal punishment, and child temperament on child emotion regulation over time in China.