ACE Zambia, founded in 1998 as a faith-based organization supporting orphans and vulnerable children, gradually shifted from operating multiple residential care facilities toward strengthening family- and community-based services after recognizing the harms of long-term institutionalization. Between 2014 and 2025, the organization closed all residential homes, expanded preventative and family-focused programs, and ultimately increased its reach by supporting far more children in safe family settings using the same level of resources.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

كجزء من الحملة العالميّة لإصلاح رعاية الأطفال، تُحثّ الدول على تقوية الأسر، وتوسيع نطاق الرعاية البديلة الآمنة والحانية ضمن بيئة أسريّة، والإنهاء التدريجيّ والمستمرّ لاستخدام المؤسّسات لرعاية الأطفال.

Dans le cadre de la Campagne mondiale pour la réforme de la prise en charge des enfants, les pays sont encouragés à renforcer les familles, développer des modes de prise en charge alternatifs sûrs et favorables au développement de l’enfant, et mettre progressivement fin au recours aux centres d’a

Como parte de la Campaña global para la reforma del cuidado de la niñez y adolescencia, se exhorta a los países a fortalecer a las familias, ampliar los cuidados alternativos seguros y protectores basados en la familia y poner fin progresivamente al uso de instituciones para el cuidado de la niñe

Las niñas o niños que no pueden ser cuidados por sus madres o padres a menudo viven con familiares o amigos de la familia. Este tipo de cuidado se le conoce cómo cuidado familiar.

As crianças que não podem ser cuidadas por seus pais geralmente vivem com parentes ou amigos da família. Esse cuidado é conhecido como cuidado por família extensa ou próximos.

This paper analyzes child rights in conflict, with a particular focus on the ongoing war in Ukraine, where children face heightened vulnerabilities to trafficking and exploitation. It identifies the key impacts of contemporary conflicts on children and the role of social workers in these contexts.

This study explores the experiences of young Syrian migrant women transitioning out of institutional care in Türkiye, revealing how gender, migration status, and structural barriers shape their pathways to adulthood. It finds that gaps in education, employment support, housing, social capital, and aftercare services create persistent instability and exclusion, underscoring the need for more inclusive, gender-sensitive aftercare policies.

Investing in parent and caregiver support is one of the most impactful and cost-effective actions countries can take to advance children’s rights and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.

Climate change is increasingly recognized as a child rights crisis, with children without parental care being particularly vulnerable to its impacts. This brief highlights how climate change heightens risks of losing parental care, creates unaccompanied children, and disrupts alternative care systems, and it offers recommendations for policymakers and practitioners to prevent separation and protect these children.

Governments across Europe and Central Asia have advanced child care reforms, yet many children—especially those with disabilities or from marginalized communities—still face risks of separation without strong statutory family support systems in place. This White Paper outlines the essential policies, services, workforce standards, and rights-based approaches countries need to prevent unnecessary separation, strengthen families, and ensure every child can grow up safely in a supportive family environment.

The Moldova Transformation Guidance aims to support the transformation process of residential care facilities (RCF) to models that promote family support and community-based services, or to safely close them and redirect their resources. National and local authorities can use this guidance to design, plan, budget, communicate, and coordinate transformation at both individual and system levels.

The publication summarizes lessons and good practices from the Community Engagement for Better Care pilot project implemented in four communities by Diaconia of the Bessarabian Orthodox Church in Moldova in 2024-2025. The project explored how faith communities - especially the Orthodox Church - can support children and families in need.

This booklet of sermons, developed by Diaconia of the Bessarabian Orthodox Church in Moldova promotes solidarity-based communities where children and families thrive in safe and nurturing environments. It provides sermons for priests to emphasize child protection, family values, and community engagement.

This article reports that in 2024, over  2,000 children identified as trafficked or unaccompanied asylum seekers went missing while under the care of local authorities in the UK — 37% of 2,335 trafficked children, and 13% of 11,999 lone‑child asylum seekers in care.

This report, from Ireland, provides a comprehensive exploration of the principles and practice of independent advocacy for children and young people with care experience, with a view to signposting what constitutes best practice in this field and proposing a model of advocacy practice which reflects the key themes arising. Resulting from a research project carried out with EPIC (Empowering People in Care), the report draws from the views of those who have experienced advocacy as children and young adults, those who have provided advocacy as professional independent advocates, management personnel responsible for the provision of those services in the context of EPIC and significant stakeholders in the field of advocacy service provision. 

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of the institutional, legal, and social frameworks surrounding child protection in India. Anchored in a multidisciplinary approach, the book brings together insights from law, social work, psychology, education, and public policy to examine how various systems interact in addressing the issues related to protection of children from abuse, neglect, trafficking, and exploitation.