This toolkit guides EU staff on supporting child care and protection system reforms during the EU accession process, drawing on lessons from past experiences. It emphasizes the vital role of civil society in shaping reform priorities and implementing legislation in candidate and potential candidate countries.
In this editorial, The Lancet calls for prioritization of family strengthening efforts and greater societal and political action to invest in early identification of family stressors and remove barriers to family stability well before children are put at risk of harm.
Christians have a long-standing involvement in the care of children, both at home and overseas, with many of those at the forefront of establishing orphanages and residential settings motivated by their faith to take action.
This publication provides an overview of orphanage trafficking and examines how OSCE participating States can contribute towards global efforts to combat orphanage trafficking and orphanage voluntourism.
This infographic by UNICEF illustrates how violence against children and violence against women coexist and intersect in multiple ways, and can each have devastating and long-lasting impacts.
A well-established and growing body of evidence demonstrates the multiple ways in which violence against children and violence against women intersect or overlap. This brief summarizes what is known about the potential for parent and caregiver support programmes to reduce both violence against children and violence against women, and why addressing these intersections matters for children’s protection and well-being.
A well-established and growing body of evidence demonstrates the multiple ways in which violence against children and violence against women intersect or overlap.
The BCN Advisory Board plays a key role in the governance of the organization, ensuring its fiduciary responsibilities are fulfilled and providing guidance, support and oversight to BCN’s Executive Director and staff team.
The Qualitative Assessment of How the 3B/4D Social Cohesion Approach Effects Disability-Related Social Exclusion in Zambia by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) highlights the Inclusive Family Strengthening (IFS) project's significant impact on reducing disability-related social exclusion. The project utilized introspection, intragroup and intergroup connections, and action to foster empathy, acceptance, and support for children with disabilities.
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Positive Parenting Annex (PPA) implemented by Catholic Relief Services in Zambia. This initiative aimed to support caregivers of children with disabilities by enhancing their parenting skills and resilience.
This report evaluates the Inclusive Family Strengthening (IFS) project's impact on caregivers of children with disabilities in Zambia. It highlights significant improvements in caregiver resilience, social support, and access to essential services. The report notes increased positive parenting behaviors, such as showing affection and rewarding good behavior, and a reduction in the use of corporal punishment.
This report highlights the Inclusive Family Strengthening (IFS) project by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Catholic Sister congregations. This project aimed to improve the wellbeing of children with disabilities and keep them in family care.
The Teenage Mother project is an intervention model to support teen mothers, developed by Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) in Rwanda. The documents provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges faced by teen mothers, the prioritization of causal factors, and the implementation of the Active Family Support (AFS) model to address these challenges.
This Resource List catalogues critical resources to guide ethical good practices in participatory research with children in humanitarian contexts. It is not an exhaustive compilation, nor does it propose new ethical guidelines. Instead, it highlights existing tools that help researchers and practitioners understand, utilise, and apply well-established ethical principles.
The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) is issuing this Protection Alert in light of the escalating crisis and immediate protection risks to civilians in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Based on distressing reports from protection partners and the DRC Protection Cluster, this alert seeks to draw attention to the worsening humanitarian situation and mobilize urgent action to protect civilians in the affected areas.
This study aims to explore the experiences of gender expressions among transgender youth who aged out of out-of-home care in Israel.
This paper develops a typology of foster parent types through an ideal-type analysis of interviews with Danish foster parents.
In this paper, two researchers with backgrounds in ethnography describe and reflect on their experiences from a qualitative, transnational study called 'Back to the Future: Archiving in Residential Children's Homes (ARCH) in Scotland and Germany. Important goals of the study are the investigation and development of digital community archives for young people, care workers and care leavers from residential homes in order to support their memories of shared everyday life.
In Norway, legislation requires consideration of a child’s culture in all phases of child welfare work. Through a quantitative content analysis of 285 child welfare expert assessment reports, the authors explored experts’ utilisation of a cultural perspective, comparing reports concerning immigrant and non-immigrant background children.
Child Maltreatment 2023 (the report) is the latest edition of the annual Child Maltreatment report series. The report is used by researchers, practitioners, and advocates throughout the world as a source for national child welfare data. Jurisdictions provide the data for this report via the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). NCANDS was established as a voluntary, national data collection and analysis program to make available state child abuse and neglect information. Since 1991, child welfare agencies in the 50 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia have collected and submitted data for NCANDS.
The purpose of this Information Memorandum (IM) is to provide information on best practices for providing quality programs and services to young people who are preparing to transition out of the foster care system in the U.S.
SOS Children's Villages' Global Report on Children’s Care and Protection 2024 sheds light on the dynamics of child-family separation. This document can be used to call on governments and decision-makers to act to strengthen families and improve care and support systems.
This article explores the complex landscape of alternative care for orphaned and vulnerable children in Afghanistan against the backdrop of prolonged conflict, political turmoil and socio-economic challenges.
A cross-national examination of socio-economic and gender gaps based on PISA 2018 surveys
In this webinar, the Independent Expert on the Enjoyment of Human Rights by Persons with Albinism, Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond, shared findings from her recent report on children with albinism and the right to family life. Staff from UNICEF and NGOs in Madagascar, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda also shared lessons learned.
Practitioners explain the core value of children's right to participate in the process of transitioning.
Dr. Stefania Ilinca of the World Health Organization highlights the importance of nurturing family care, especially for younger children, and the need to ensure early childhood intervention and disability services are accessible at the community level.
At the occasion of the 2024 UN Summit of the Future, Hope and Homes for Children organised the first in a series of policy dialogues on 16 September 2024 highlighting the important links between the Sustainable Development Goals and global child care reform.
Since joining the European Union in 2007, Bulgaria has sought to make changes in its child welfare system for children raised in care institutions around the country. According to UNICEF, in 2021 there were 10,000 children living in alternative care in Bulgaria - most of them were ethnic Roma or children with disabilities. This is the story of how Bulgaria Without Orphans has played a role in Bulgaria's care reform.
In this webinar, the Africa Working Group on Children Without Parental Care now called Family First for Children Without Parental Care, (FAFICA), explores key global debates and initiatives advancing care reform, including updates from the African Union and global events like the Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children.
Parenting author Kayla Craig; Lauren Pinkston, Kindred Exchange; Kristin Langrehr, 111Project; and Stephanie Robinson, Faith to Action, share their own experiences of caring for orphans and adoption. Their reflections provide realistic ways to be involved in supporting orphaned and vulnerable children.
В Україні вперше особи, які перебували в інституційних установах, а також ті, хто має досвід сімейного догляду, об’єдналися та узгодили спільну позицію щодо реформування системи догляду та підтримки дітей, у тому числі розвитку програм підтримки дітей-сиріт та дітей, позбавлених батьківського піклування.
يتناول هذا التقرير ثلاث قوى عالمية قوية وطويلة الأمد (أو اتجاهات كبرى) ستترك أثراً عميقاً على حياة الأطفال من الآن حتى عام 2050، وهي: التحولات الديموغرافية، وأزمات المناخ والبيئة، والتقانات الرائدة. وبفهم هذه الاتجاهات وتداعياتها على الأطفال، يمكننا أن ندرك بشكل أفضل التحديات والفرص التي تنتظرنا.
El informe examina tres megatendencias o grandes fenómenos mundiales y a largo plazo que tendrán importantes efectos sobre las vidas de los niños y niñas de aquí a 2050: los cambios demográficos, las crisis climáticas y medioambientales y las tecnologías de vanguardia. Si entendemos estas tendencias y lo que implican para la infancia, comprenderemos mejor los retos y las oportunidades que se nos pueden presentar.
Pour ce faire, ce rapport examine trois grandes tendances, à savoir trois forces puissantes qui s’inscrivent dans la durée à l’échelle mondiale et qui auront de profondes répercussions sur la vie des enfants entre aujourd’hui et 2050: les changements démographiques, la crise climatique et environnementale et les technologies d’avant-garde.
This report examines three powerful, long-term global forces – megatrends – that will profoundly affect children’s lives between now and 2050: demographic shifts, climate and environmental crises, and frontier technologies.
The report explores three megatrends that will profoundly impact children’s lives between now and the 2050s: demographic shifts, the climate and environmental crises and frontier technologies. It also presents three future scenarios – possible outcomes, not predictions – for how children could experience the world of 2050.
Prospects for Children in 2025: Building Resilient Systems for Children’s Futures is the latest edition of the Global Outlook, a series of reports produced each year by UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, which look to the key trends affecting children and young people over the following 12 months and beyond.
In Ukraine, for the first time, individuals who have experienced institutional care, as well as those who have experience with family-based care, have united and agreed upon a common position regarding the reform of the child care and support system, including the development of programs to support orphaned children and children deprived of parental care.
The main objective of this assessment and report is to gain knowledge about children with disabilities without family support, or at risk of being so, and the alternative care arrangements available for these children in the Philippines. In addition, whether there is scope for improvement of alternative care measures in the Philippines in line with international standards.
In this article, the authors explore the potential benefits of Life Story Work (LSW) to care-experienced young people and the barriers to research, training, and practice, and suggest that clearly defined approaches could provide clarity for carers, practitioners and researchers.
This paper considers attempts to influence practice and policy from the perspectives of 15 care experienced people who had been involved in substantive public campaign work relating to children in state care and care leavers in Scotland and England. Participants shared their experiences of working to influence change and highlighted good and bad practice that they had encountered working with different individuals and organisations claiming to promote the views of those with lived experience.
This paper reports on a national policy analysis in Australia exploring how therapeutic residential care (TRC) is constructed in policy documents. One hundred and thirty-two relevant policy documents were analysed to identify the practices and the conditions that facilitate the development of relationships and connections.
This study sought to identify, describe, and correlate cognitive learning abilities among a group of 34 male children, aged 9–13, residing in care facilities in Mexico. This model represents a pioneering strategy in Mexico, aiming to enhance cognitive abilities by leveraging strengths and adopting a perspective grounded in human rights, inclusion, and interculturality.
This research analyzed key policies that affect unaccompanied children, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)'s foster care system in the United States, and the placement process and well-being outcomes.
Analyzing 23 interviews with professionals in the field, this article identifies the factors that contribute to high levels of child trafficking in Spain.
Using data from the 2016 China Migrants Dynamic Survey and drawing on the theories of family migration, push-pull forces, and social capital, the authors compare migration patterns of minority and Han children in China. Results show minority children have a higher probability of joining migrant parents than Han children. However, this may not necessarily lead to more desirable outcomes.
This article investigates the contemporary transnational and neocolonial characteristics of children’s welfare in the Philippines, drawing on the perspectives of young people in residential care settings as well as the views of programme and policy actors embedded across child protection systems.
Drawing from an Italian study conducted in residential care for children, the authors aim to investigate residential childcare educators' levels of compassion fatigue and work engagement, and to focus on the individual, work and organisational conditions associated.
