Despite Hungary signing on to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), there has been no significant change in the number of people with disabilities in Hungary who are placed in institutions. Mass institutionalisation continues to be the predominant form of care for people--including many children--with mental health issues and intellectual disabilities.
The Deinstitutionalization Toolkit is designed to provide all those interested in institutional closures and expanded community living opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities (ID/DD) with information, strategies, state data, and case studies that can facilitate closure and build community capacity to serve more people with ID/DD in the community. It covers topics such as building a broad-based coalition, understanding and working within the political environment, creating a community system of care, and relevant laws, policies, and court decisions.
This report documents Ukraine’s Soviet-era system of orphanages and other institutions for children with disabilities. The report details the violence, exploitation, and other human rights violations that are frequently committed against these children. It also shows how families who wish to keep their children with disabilities at home are often forced to institutionalize them as a result of lack of support.
This document reports on an Institutional Learning Process that has critically analysed the impact and effectiveness of Terre des hommes’ (Tdh) engagement in Albania over the last 14 years. It looks at the role Tdh has played in the emergence of a State Child Protection System (CPS) in Albania.
The report discusses progress made towards universal prohibition of corporal punishment of children, including by highlighting examples from individual states that have recently implemented legal and policy reforms. The report also considers prohibition and elimination of corporal punishment in the context of the new Sustainable Development Goals, and discusses initiatives by religious leaders and members of faith-based communities and organisations that are increasingly taking action towards prohibition and elimination of corporal punishment. Lastly, the report discusses the latest research relating to corporal punishment.
Nuevo libro: Infancia: transitando nuevos caminos.
Lecturas y propuestas en torno a la Ley de Protección Integral de los derechos de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes. Un aporte para provincias y municipios.
The purpose of the toolkit is to assist all public authorities in Europe involved in the programming and implementation of EU Structural Funds (and other relevant funds) to make decisions which will help to improve the lives of more than a million European citizens currently living in institutional care. The toolkit aims to explain how EU funds can support national, regional and local authorities in designing and implementing structural reforms to develop quality family-based and community-based alternatives. The toolkit explicitly deals with the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), but it aims to apply also to the programming and implementation of the European Agricultural and Rural Development Fund (EARDF) and the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA).
This report was written by Keetie Roelen and Helen Karki Chettri from the Centre for Social Protection (CSP) at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), with inputs and support from Family for Every Child and Challenging Heights, Ghana. The report investigates the links between child wellbeing, children’s care, family cohesion and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP), a national social protection scheme in Ghana which aims to reduce extreme poverty in the country and is centred on providing cash transfers to the most vulnerable.
This fact sheet summarizes a qualitative research study conducted by the National Adoption Coalition South Africa (NACSA) that explored child abandonment and adoption in the context of African ancestral beliefs in urban South Africa. The goal of this one-year study was to better understand the growing practice of child abandonment and declining adoption rates in South Africa.
This thesis by Brian Babington, submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University, uses a discourse analysis methodology to shed light on deinstitutionalisation policymaking in Indonesia. In examining the factors that led Indonesia to adopt a policy to reduce reliance on the panti asuhan type of children's institution, the dissertation reveals that Indonesia appears to have adopted this policy change not primarily as a result of concern for children's rights, but rather because of political, economic, cultural, and religious factors. It also explores how the policy shift attempted to appease both pro-reform and pro-panti asuhan groups.
To better understand the situation of children in institutional care in Greece, Roots Research Centre, the national coordinator of Opening Doors for Europe's Children, conducted the first nation-wide mapping of institutional and residential care in Greece. The study revealed "a patchwork" of public and private institutions and residential care facilities with little or no oversight of quality and no monitoring of the numbers of children and what happens to them.
According to the advocacy organization, First Focus, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee is planning to consider new legislation known as the Family First Act in January 2016. The legislation would direct investments at keeping children safe and supported at home and in family-like settings.
The United Nations, Department for Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy and Development released the Final Report of the Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on "Family Policy Development: Achievements and Challenges” which was produced after the 14-15 May 2015 EGM. The meeting focused on changing families, family law reforms, violence in the family and their impact on family policy development.
A press release from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India recapped a series of new initiatives by the Ministry during 2015. The achievements relevant to children’s care are briefly described below and include the launch of the flagship programme Beti Bachao Beto Padhao for protection of the girl child; several initiatives to track, restore, and rehabilitate missing children; and adoption reforms and a new foster care system.
In this TED talk, pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains how childhood trauma--such as abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse--has real, tangible effects on the development of the child's brain. Children who have experienced high levels of trauma and adverse childhood experiences are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. This is because of the body's stress response system, which is activated repeatedly during childhood by the adversity.
This study carried out in the United States used a lens of family stress theory to explore adoptive parents’ responses to unexpected characteristics of their children.
This study in India sought to develop the SAFE Checklist in order to assess site-level threats to child protection among children and families living in settings of adversity. The tool was field tested in two diverse sites in India (a construction site and a railway station) and the results demonstrated that the SAFE Checklist is a sensitive tool that captured the differences between the two sites from the standpoint of core child protection issues.
On July 27–29, 2015, the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally, in partnership with the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, held a workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to examine topics related to supporting family and community investments in young children globally.
The State of Grandfamilies in America 2015 identifies key state laws and policies designed to address barriers and to better support grandparents and other relatives raising children. The report also offers recommendations to help guide the development of supportive federal and state policies and services for grandfamilies.
This guide, published by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, provides a summary of promising practices currently used in recruitment and retention of foster/adoptive families.
The Kingdom of Cambodia signed into law on 8 December 2015 the Sub-Decree on the Management of Residential Care.
The Framework for the Protection of Children broadens UNHCR’s understanding of and engagement in protection of children. It articulates six goals that encapsulate UNHCR’s commitment to protect and realize the rights of children of concern to the Office, and offers practical guidance on how to achieve them.
The CPC Learning Network and UNHCR are collaborating to develop and test a Child Protection Index (CPI), a measure of strength of the child protection system in refugee settings, based on UNHCR’s Framework for the Protection of Children. This report details the results of the baseline study conducted from December 2014-February 2015 in Kiryandongo and Adjumani refugee settlements, Uganda.
In this short video, Amanda Thorsteinsson documents the proliferation of orphanages in Uganda and the role of well-intentioned Westerners in contributing to this problem.
The Child Welfare Policy Manual, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau, contains policy questions and answers applicable to child welfare programs operated by the Children's Bureau.
