This article examines how racial inequality shapes institutional care for adolescents in Brazil and highlights how racial literacy workshops exposed both gaps in practitioners’ understanding and systemic barriers to anti-racist practice. Despite these challenges, the intervention showed promising improvements, underscoring the urgent need to embed racial literacy in public social assistance policies and high-complexity care services to better protect Black adolescents.

This article presents a comparative analysis of the Czech Republic and Colombia’s implementation of the United Nations Guidelines for Alternative Family Care. Based on secondary data, it identifies a shared adherence to the UN framework; a strong Czech system for alternative caregivers’ selection, training and support; a deep ethical commitment of Colombian foster families to ensure children’s well-being, despite limited resources; and the relevance of supporting parents at risk of having their children removed from their care and integrating the effects of unplanned migration into alternative care strategies.

This article presents research from eight countries showing that many child–family separations are preventable, with children and young people identifying common drivers of separation rooted in unmet basic needs and broader socio-economic pressures. The study concludes that strengthening laws, policies, and access to essential services—guided by the lived experiences of children—can help keep families together and reduce reliance on alternative care.

The Children’s Commissioner’s report “The Criminalisation of Children in Care” reveals a deeply concerning pattern: children in care in the UK are disproportionately drawn into the criminal justice system, often for low-level incidents that, in a family setting, would be handled without police involvement. To address this, the Commissioner calls for a strengthened, statutory protocol among police, local authorities, and youth services; better diversion pathways; a more child-friendly prosecution process; increased legal aid and training; more stable, high-quality care placements; and improved data sharing to monitor and prevent harmful police involvement.

The Kafaalah Costing Tool Template is an Excel-based costing tool that designed to analyze of historical costing data from Changing the Way We Care’s demonstration work in Kenya related to Kafaalah.

This report provides a comprehensive costing framework for scaling two child care reform models in Kenya under the Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC) initiative: Kafaalah, a family-based care approach, and Case Management for Reintegration

This package of materials encompasses a comprehensive costing framework for scaling two key care reform models implemented by the Changing the Way We Care initiative in Kenya—Kafaalah and Case Management for Reintegration.

Changing the Way We Care’s “Care System Strengthening Learning Synthesis: Evaluation Summary” distills lessons from care reform efforts in four countries, examining how change happened across laws, workforce, financing, monitoring, and services. It finds that evidence-based advocacy, strong government ownership, collaboration, and capacity-building were central to driving and sustaining reform across diverse contexts.

This report examines how rising child poverty, social exclusion, and anti-rights movements across Europe threaten children’s rights, emphasizing the urgent need for collective action and strong civil society engagement. Focusing on vulnerable children, it reviews progress on the European Child Guarantee and broader rights issues—from mental health and protection systems to digital rights, housing, and social investment.

On 3 November 2025 the UK FCDO and Hope and Homes for Children convened a Virtual Solutions Session

This study by the Childhood 2025 Coalition highlights ongoing challenges in Bulgaria’s child protection system, particularly the lack of preparation and coordination during child–parent separation, which heightens stress for families and strains relationships with social workers. It calls for updated case management methodologies and stronger collaboration among child protection authorities, social services, and other actors to better support children and prevent unnecessary family separation.

This Lancet commentary highlights a major update to the evidence base for preventing violence against children, emphasizing findings from a new systematic review that strengthens and refines the INSPIRE Framework’s intervention strategies. It underscores that several approaches—such as parenting programs, whole-school violence prevention, healthy relationships education, and cash-plus life-skills initiatives—are proven effective, while others lack sufficient evidence and require reevaluation.

This report presents an independent assessment of Cambodia’s national and intercountry adoption systems, with a focus on the country’s progress in aligning adoption practices with international standards for child protection and family-based alternative care. Commissioned by UNICEF Cambodia in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans, and Youth Rehabilitation, the assessment evaluates the current capacity, processes, and legal frameworks governing adoption, and provides recommendations to strengthen the system in the context of Cambodia’s ongoing care reform agenda.

The anniversary event marking one year since the 2024 Global Ministerial Conference brought together global leaders, ministers, experts, and advocates to celebrate progress toward ending violence against children and to renew commitments for the years ahead.

This report examines the global sexual abuse and exploitation of care leavers, highlighting how systemic failures, both within institutions and during the transition to independence, leave young people vulnerable to harm, including cross-border trafficking and online exploitation. It calls for urgent action to strengthen safeguarding, ensure comprehensive aftercare, and create survivor-centered justice systems to protect care leavers’ rights, dignity, and long-term wellbeing.

This brief explores how the detention or imprisonment of a parent or primary caregiver affects children’s rights, well-being, and development, often exposing them to stigma, instability, and reduced access to essential services. It calls for child-sensitive justice processes, greater use of alternatives to detention, and coordinated support systems that prioritize the child’s best interests at every stage.

This brief outlines how children engage with civil court processes—such as custody, guardianship, and adoption—and highlights the profound impact these proceedings have on their rights, development, and well-being. It identifies gaps in law and practice and calls for reforms to ensure children’s meaningful participation, child-friendly procedures, and consistent application of the best-interests principle.

On November 13, 2025, the Transforming Children's Care Collaborative hosted a webinar to explore insights from two Australian initiatives—

This article highlights efforts to standardize Child Protection Case Management (CPCM) data in humanitarian settings to improve program quality, planning, and advocacy. Led by UNICEF and UNHCR through the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, the initiative establishes common data categories for risks, vulnerabilities, and services, enabling consistent analysis and stronger, evidence-driven protection responses for children across crises.

This report synthesizes learning on community-led child protection in Sierra Leone, Kenya, and India. It shows the power of communities' own agency and action on behalf of children and underscores the importance of ownership.

This study explores the informal foster care practices of the Igbo ethnic group in South-East Nigeria, revealing both its cultural value in providing family-based care and the challenges it faces. Findings highlight the lack of regulation, data, and support services, underscoring the need for greater involvement of government agencies and social workers to ensure children’s safety and well-being.

This paper examines how effectively out-of-home care systems in New South Wales and Victoria, Austalia support the participation of Aboriginal children and young people in decisions about their own care. It highlights systemic barriers and calls for structural reforms to embed Aboriginal child and youth voices at every level, rather than relying solely on individual practitioners to promote participation.

This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for families with young children involved in child protection services. While the interventions improved parenting sensitivity, attachment, and parental functioning, evidence for reducing maltreatment risk remains limited, highlighting the need for larger, more consistent studies.

This technical brief examines how public health emergencies in Eastern and Southern Africa—such as polio, cholera, Ebola, Marburg, and mpox—disrupt protective environments and increase risks of violence, exploitation, and neglect for children, including those without parental care. Drawing on lessons from multiple countries, it highlights scalable approaches to embed child protection in health responses and calls for coordinated frameworks that ensure care continuity and resilience during future crises.

This chapter in the book, Social Work Reflections, explores social work’s role in supporting care-experienced people and their families. It examines how social workers can promote meaningful participation and engagement across the life course for people with care experience.

This study explores the social, economic, and familial factors contributing to the rise of street children in Pul-e-Khumri, Afghanistan, where poverty, unemployment, and family breakdown have deepened the crisis. By highlighting the severe individual and societal impacts, it calls for targeted policies—such as poverty reduction, job creation, and access to education—to address the root causes and protect vulnerable children.

This paper examines the legal framework governing adoption in Pakistan, highlighting how Islamic principles and the Guardians and Wards Act of 1890 shape the balance between child welfare and parental rights. Through a comparative analysis with international standards, it identifies gaps in the current system and proposes reforms to better protect children’s best interests while respecting cultural and religious values.

This article provides a critical examination of the Child's Rights Act in Nigeria, with a focus on strengthening foster care through the codification of the United Nations (UN) Guidelines on Alternative Care. It analyzes the existing legal framework governing foster care in Nigeria, identifying gaps and limitations that hinder the effective protection and care of children living in foster care arrangements.

A decade after the launch of WHO’s INSPIRE Framework, this systematic review updates the global evidence on what works to end violence against children. Analyzing 216 systematic reviews, it identifies the most effective interventions—including parenting programs, safe school environments, healthy relationship education, cash-plus life-skills training, and cognitive behavioural therapy—and underscores the urgent need to scale up these proven approaches worldwide.

This study explores how stigma management communication can reduce the stigmatization of adoptive parents in Kiambu County, Kenya, where cultural beliefs often privilege biological lineage over adoption. Findings reveal that adoptive parents use strategies such as concealment, disclosure, reframing, and advocacy to challenge stigma and gradually normalize adoption, highlighting the vital role of communication in transforming societal attitudes and promoting acceptance.

On November 12, the Transforming Children's Care Collaborative hosted a webinar to explore insights from two Australian initiatives—

This review compares child protection systems in Indonesia and Ethiopia using UNICEF’s Child Protection System Strengthening framework. Both countries have established solid legal frameworks and coordination mechanisms, but progress toward system maturity remains slow due to gaps in enforcement, accountability, and support services, with Indonesia showing stronger development in workforce and data systems.

This review examined 39 studies on parenting interventions for Southeast Asian families in low- and middle-income countries and diaspora communities, identifying 31 distinct programs that generally improved parenting practices and child behavior. Findings support the effectiveness of these interventions while emphasizing the need for more rigorous research, clearer documentation of adaptations, and stronger evaluation methods to maximize public health impact.

The Strengthening the Social Service Workforce for Family-Based Care project is a two-year project implemented and managed by the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance with technical support from consultants from Child Frontiers and supported by a grant from the Martin James Foundation.

This report by Child’s i Foundation, supported by the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance and the Martin James Foundation, presents findings from consultations with 133 care-experienced children, young adults, and caregivers in Uganda to understand their needs and expectations of social workers. The insights inform new training tools and advocacy efforts to strengthen social work practices, policies, and guidance to better support vulnerable families and care-experienced individuals.

This webinar showcased the learning from Strengthening the Social Service Workforce for Family-Based Care, a two-year project implemented by the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance, with technical support from Child Frontiers, under a grant from the Martin James Foundation.

This study examines challenges that hinder social workers in South Africa from providing effective family reunification services, resulting in children staying in alternative care longer than necessary. Findings from a mixed-methods study suggest that providing resources, reducing caseloads, supervising and training social workers, and adhering to reunification principles are key measures to ensure holistic and timely family reunification.

This study examines how policy developments and the introduction of the Minor Protection (Alternative Care) Act, Chapter 602, have shaped the alternative care system and impacted the welfare and rights of children and families in Malta. It analyzes legislative intent, stakeholder perspectives, and gaps in practice, highlighting challenges and proposing reforms to strengthen the law’s implementation and support ongoing alternative care improvements.

This study explores the experiences of nine young Thai adults who grew up in a Christian orphanage supported by foreign volunteer tourists, highlighting the impact of these visits on the children. Findings reveal that while orphanages often used children to attract financial support, most volunteers provided fleeting attention, leaving children disappointed and vulnerable, emphasizing the need for orphanage models that prioritize the children’s needs over tourist interests.

This study examined the link between child neglect and family protective factors among 936 parents in Hatay, Türkiye, a region marked by migration, cultural diversity, and economic hardship. Results showed that stronger family protective factors were associated with less neglectful behavior, emphasizing the need for family-centered prevention efforts in disadvantaged, multicultural contexts.

This study compares child custody and guardianship norms in classical Islamic jurisprudence and modern codifications, focusing on Indonesia’s Compilation of Islamic Law and related laws in selected ASEAN and European countries. It finds that integrating the “best interests of the child” with Islamic legal reasoning through maqāṣid al-sharīʿah can promote child protection and gender equity, offering insights for legal reform in plural societies.

This study surveyed 340 adolescents in residential care facilities across Israel to assess their emotional well-being and sense of security during the Israel–Hamas war. Findings show high levels of sadness, stress, and anger among youth, but those who felt cared for and supported by staff reported greater security, underscoring the need to strengthen staff–adolescent relationships during crises.

This study explores the transition and livelihood strategies of adolescent girls in and out of institutional care in Harare, Zimbabwe, comparing 16 girls still in care with 16 who had exited. Findings reveal that girls leaving care rely on diverse social networks for survival but often struggle to sustain themselves, highlighting the need for transition programs that reduce institutional dependency, prevent early marriage, and promote economic inclusion.

This brief analyses the state of alternative care for children in Chile, highlighting key statistics, sectoral findings and areas for policy improvement. It is part of a broader analysis of gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI) in Chile. The analysis draws on existing literature, government reports and key informant interviews (KIIs) with stakeholders working in this area.

This report assesses Scotland’s efforts to fulfil The Promise—a national commitment made in 2020 to overhaul the country’s care system so children and young people “grow up loved, safe and respected.” It identifies significant persistent challenges in three key areas: governance and accountability, data and measurement, and resources and investment.

In this webinar, part of the University of Kent Centre for Child Protection’s ‘Critical Conversations in Child Protection’ series, Rebecca Smith and Geoffrey Oyat from Save the Children International, discussed the evolution of programs supporting family-based care and children without appropriate care, including unaccompanied and separated children, over the past thirty years.

This study examines strategies for reintegrating street children in Harare, Zimbabwe, into their families, highlighting the root causes of homelessness and the need for psychosocial support, counselling, family conferences, and community engagement. It emphasizes innovative, evidence-based approaches to ensure effective family reintegration and informs policymakers, social development officers, and researchers addressing child homelessness.

This study explores the experiences of young women leaving residential care in Catalonia, Spain, revealing that limited, inconsistent support—focused mainly on technical skills—neglects their emotional and social needs. It calls for a caring, individualized approach to guide their transition to adulthood and prevent further vulnerability and institutional abandonment.