Promoting Kafaalah as an Alternative Family Care System within the Muslim Community

Changing the Way We Care

This brief provides an overview of Kafaalah, an alternative family care option rooted in Islamic tradition, where a sponsor (Kafiil) cares for a child (Makfuul) without severing the child's ties to their birth family. It explains how Kafaalah differs from adoption by emphasizing that the child retains their birth family name and inheritance rights.

Children Around the World: The Future of Our Earth (International Psychology)

Julia Larock (Editor), Niels P. Rygaard (Editor), Uwe Gielen (Editor), Elaine P. Congress (Editor)

This book looks at major macro trends affecting children as well as interventions that have been used to address problems that children face. Topics that are addressed include the UN Convention on Children, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that support children, and development issues like pre and post-natal health, family systems, gender roles, and puberty/adolescent issues. Attention is given to major risk factors and challenges such as sex trafficking, child labor, street children, protecting children in congregate care, and violence against children in the home, in institutions, and in the community.

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Children Around the World: The Future of Our Earth (International Psychology)

Foster Care Leads to Lower Irritability Among Adolescents with a History of Early Psychosocial Deprivation

Yanbin Niu, George A. Buzzell, Ana Cosmoiu, Nathan A. Fox, Charles A. Nelson, Charles H. Zeanah, Kathryn L. Humphreys

The current study examined irritability in 107 16-year-olds with a history of institutional care from a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care and 49 community comparison children.

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Development of a Child-Informed Measure of Subjective Well-Being for Research on Residential Care Institutions and Their Alternatives in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Sarah Elizabeth Neville, Joanna Wakia, John Hembling, Beth Bradford, Indrani Saran, Margaret Lombe, Thomas M. Crea

This study describes a participatory, child-informed process of developing a multidimensional measure of child subjective well-being tailored towards the priorities of children who have lived in residential care. The survey was administered to 180 young people in Kenya and Guatemala who were reunified with family after living in residential care or at risk of entering residential care.

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Approaches for Supporting Youth Dually Involved in Child Protection and Youth Justice Systems: An International Policy Analysis

Rubini Ball, Susan Baidawi, Anthony FitzGerald

This study offers an updated review and analysis of policy reforms across both the child protection and youth justice systems in jurisdictions such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, targeting researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the field.

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Linking Caregiving Quality During Infancy to Brain Activity In Early Childhood and Later Executive Function

Mark Wade, Victoria Parker, Alva Tang, Nathan Fox, Charles Zeanah, Charles Nelson

In this global study, the authors used data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), a longitudinal study of institutionally-reared and family-reared children, to test how caregiving quality during infancy is associated with average EEG power over the first 3.5 years of life in alpha, beta, and theta frequency bands, and associations with later executive function (EF) at age 8 years. 

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Internalizing Problems in Adopted Eastern European Adolescents: The Role of the Informant, Early Adversity and Post-Adoption Processes

Pablo Carrera, Maite Román, Isabel Cáceres, Jesús Palacios

This study focused on internationally adopted children from Russia to Spanish families who suffered early institutionalization. The study found that these children were at risk of a late onset of internalizing problems in adolescence. Both pre-adoption, adversity-related, and post-adoption factors predict variability in internalizing problems in this population.

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Child Marriage Case Management Guideline

Terre des hommes Lausanne Foundation (MENA Region), Kings College London

This guidance aims to tailor existing case management standards and guidance to include specific elements that are relevant to child marriage cases; using the voices of Syrian refugee girls from the Terre des hommes-Lausanne Foundation (Tdh) and King’s College London (KCL) research in Lebanon and Jordan to support Child Protection and Gender-Based Violence case management staff in their case management work on the issue of child marriage.

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Faith That Supports Families

Changing the Way We Care, Catholic Relief Services, Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children Issues

There is global agreement (illustrated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child [1989], the most widely adopted human rights treaty) that optimal support for a child comes from a caring and protective family.

Monitoring Change from Residential Housing Care to Family-Based Care For Children

Marian J Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marinus H van IJzendoorn

This is a comment on the the report Pathways to Better Protection which gives promising indication that deinstitutionalisation policies are closing residential housing facilities and that increasingly, with the exception of children with disabilities, children are less likely to find themselves in residential care.

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Monitoring change from residential housing care to family-based care for children

Exploring Outcomes Relating to Adoption

CoramBAAF, Adoption England

This Literature Review was commissioned by Adoption England’s Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) Leaders’ Group to support practitioners in care planning for children. This summary document is for use by those directly involved in care planning, and also aims to potentially provide some support for those writing care plans and court reports for children needing permanency away from their family.

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Invisible Victims: The Nexus Between Disabilities and Trafficking in Human Beings

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

This short paper provides an overview of the existing links between disability and trafficking in human beings, how persons living with disability are affected by trafficking, and to what extent legal standards, policy frameworks, and anti-trafficking measures integrate concerns associated with disabilities.

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Feasibility and Acceptability of Implementing a Transdiagnostic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Children Impacted by Trauma Within a Residential Treatment Facility

David Lindenbach, Alida Anderson, Emily Wang, Madison Heintz, Melissa Rowbotham, Jill Ehrenreich-May, Paul D. Arnold, Gina Dimitropoulos

This research project was an open trial examining the feasibility of utilizing the Unified Protocol (UP) -- a form of cognitive behavioral therapy -- within a residential treatment facility in Calgary, Canada for children involved with child welfare authorities who often have limited caregiver involvement.

The Need for a Participatory Recordkeeping System for Children and Young People Placed in Residential Care Homes: The Case of Sweden

Proscovia Svard, Sheila Zimic

This study demonstrates the need for participatory recordkeeping to promote the right of children and young people placed in Swedish residential care homes to record-making, to facilitate access to a complete record of their placements. It is further through record-making that the experiences of the placed individuals can be used to inform practice and policymaking.

Exploring the Determinants of Child Marriage Among Males and Females in Vietnam: A Survival Analysis

Nguyen Van Bao, Yoon Cheong Cho

While the determinants of child marriage among females have been well-documented, there is a lack of research on the determinants of child marriage among males. This study aims to bridge the gap in the literature to investigate the determinants of child marriage among males and females in Vietnam.

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In Sync or Out of Tune? How Do Differences in Adolescent and Caregiver Reports of Adolescent ACEs Relate to Adolescent Depression?: A Cross-Sectional Study

Tatiana Ndjatou, Yuqing Qiu, Linda M. Gerber, Jane Chang

The purpose of this U.S.-based study was to compare adolescent and caregiver reports of adolescent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and their relationship with current adolescent depression and to analyze the relationship between ACEs and depression.