This report explores, through responses to an online survey, interviews and focus groups, the opportunities, challenges, barriers and facilitators that members of the workforce identify as factors which bring about high quality experiences and outcomes for children, young people and families using services; close multi-agency working between practitioners across different services; continuity of support when young people transition to adult services; high quality support for the workforce and transformational change in services.

Mapping integration and outcomes in Scotland: A statistical analysis investigated if the most recent major structural reform of health and social care services to take place in Scotland has had an impact on outcomes for children, young people and families.

Case studies of transformational reform programmes examined a range of approaches to the delivery of children’s services to better understand the evidence regarding systems-level integration between children’s social work/social care with health services and/or adult social care.

Strand 1: Rapid Evidence Review reviewed existing published national and international research evidence focused on better understanding the evidence associated with different models of integration of children’s services with health and/or adult social care services in high income countries, as defined by the World Bank.

The goal of this study was to improve the understanding of current children’s services structures and delivery models in Scotland and how services can best support the needs of children, young people and their families. The research looked at how services are provided and configured in Scotland and drew on a range of international evidence too.

Family for Every Child launched its global inter-agency guidance on supporting kinship care aimed at policy makers and programme managers during this webinar on 1 February 2024.

In this conversation moderated by Gillian Huebner, executive director of the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues at Georgetown University, panelists outline Ukrainian efforts to protect its children and the measures international partners can take to support an effective response to the impact of Russia’s policies of aggression on Ukraine’s future.

The Visioning for Prevention infographic illustrates what a family-serving, prevention-focused system looks like, making clear the benefits of becoming that system.

See what an integrated, comprehensive, prevention-focused approach looks like along a three-tiered prevention continuum.
 

Read about the value of collaboration as the key to prevention, safety, and long-term stability for children and families.
 

This document presents an overview of the first version of the EU monitoring framework for the European Child Guarantee (ECG). It was developed by the Indicators’ Sub-Group (ISG) of the Social Protection Committee (SPC) and the European Commission, and endorsed by the SPC in November 2023.

The Canadian Government's Representative for Children & Youth released this report on youth justice resources which reveals a misuse of government funds to operate surplus youth justice services.

The purpose of this scoping review was to identify and map knowledge on different types of transitional support interventions currently available to support transition to independent living for care leavers.

This study examined African American families who are providing informal kinship care in the U.S. with the aim of developing a nuanced understanding of the financial characteristics, challenges, and coping strategies of these families.

Throughout the Transitioning Residential Care Cost Estimation Tool, comments and tool tips have been provided for those Primary Users and for the basic use of the tool itself. This guidance provides additional context and explanation for Technical Users.

Respuestas de niñas, niños, adolescentes y jóvenes a una encuesta mundial para el Día de Debate General 2021 sobre los Derechos del Niño y el Cuidado Alternativo

Réponses d’enfants et de jeunes à une enquête mondiale en vue de la Journée de débat général sur les droits de l’enfant et la protection de remplacement 2021

This publication is meant to guide the collection of reliable, internationally comparable data on key ECD indicators, the selection of which was informed by the Nurturing Care Framework.

Ensuring child and family well-being requires a radically different, anti-racist response of supports that center the voices of diverse children and families of color, are dignified and strengths-based, and that are offered in spaces they trust. As this brief highlights, community-based organizations across the U.S. are striving to answer that call despite numerous barriers. This brief lifts up the voices of those community providers, with the goal of highlighting and addressing the barriers that stand in the way of all families having the support they need.

In this webinar, community providers discussed the challenges they face in providing responsive services, including building evidence and operating in the context of restrictive “evidence-based” standards, as well as recommendations for actions state and federal policymakers can take to ensure all families have the support they need through expanding access and availability of programs that are developed by and for communities of color.

On December 14, 2023, Kheya Ganguly led a presentation on the Center for the Study of Social Policy's monthly Strengthening Families webinar. This presentation unpacked how to better understand how trauma affects practitioners and the ones they support. Attendees learned about new ways to conceptualize resilience by considering it rather as a transformation. 

This video case study was developed as a part of the Transitioning Models of Care Assessment Tool training package. It is 1 of 8 video case studies exploring different aspects of learning on transitioning residential care services. To access the full set of case studies or the training package, visit the BCN Transition Hub.

ACERWC released a study on the structures and functions of NHRIs on child protection to assess how child rights issues are incorporated in their mandates. The study identifies challenges and proposes areas to strengthen collaboration.

Le Comité africain d'experts sur les droits et le bien-être de l'enfant (ACERWC/le Comité), en collaboration avec les États membres de l'Union africaine, les organisations partenaires, les enfants et les jeunes, a lancé la première étude continentale en son genre sur les enfants sans protection parentale (CWPC) en Afrique. L'étude, menée de 2020 à 2022, au milieu de la pandémie de COVID-19, couvre plus de 43 pays dans les cinq régions d'Afrique.

The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC/the Committee), in collaboration with African Union Member States, partner organizations, children and young people, launches the first of its kind Continental Study on Children Without Parental Care (CWPC) in Africa. The study, conducted from 2020 to 2022, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, covered over 43 countries in the five regions of Africa.

This book explores the process of orphanage trafficking as a form of child trafficking in international law, examining the contexts in which it occurs and providing a comprehensive, holistic approach to addressing the issue as a form of trafficking

This book review is written by Elizabeth Faulkner of author Kate Kathryn E. van Doore's book, "Orphanage Trafficking and International Law".

This report provides new evidence about entry routes to care, pathways through care, and placement outcomes for the very youngest children in the care system in Wales. It is the seventh in the Born into Care series.

This report aims to shed light on care pathways and placement stability for infants in Wales, using data from the Children Looked After census collected by Welsh Government. The report is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on infant entry to care and the second, which focuses on pathways and placement outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of deinstitutionalization on the Salvadoran Child Protection System.

This report draws 14 lessons from academic research on the effects of out-of-home care on subsequent criminality. Most of the studies references in this review of based in Sweden.

To investigate and discuss the mental health status of left-behind children in Anhui Province before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and analyze its influencing factors.

This systematic review contained studies that were mostly based in the U.S. and had three primary research aims: (1) to identify the key predictors of care leavers’ health; (2) to understand how determinants of health are conceptualised within the literature; and (3) to understand what methods and data sources are used to understand the health outcomes of care leavers.

This chapter in the book "Child Welfare and the Value of Family Privacy" addresses aims and challenges in the processes of including children and youth in foster families and suggests a solution inspired by anthropological literature. The author argues that the ‘best interests of the child’ are closely tied to staying in a stable foster home, which emerged in interviews with children in the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (CWS) and foster parents.

This paper discusses the role of social workers and community volunteers in providing services to foster care children living with HIV in South Africa.

This paper explores how the COVID-19 pandemic affected care leavers in Quebec, a social group already facing obstacles to social integration.

The principal aim of this research review is to set out the nature of discipline and punishment in care settings in Scotland from 1920 to 2014.

In this chapter in the book "Child Welfare and the Value of Family Privacy", the author discusses moderate alternatives to address problems of the family by enhancing the presence of state agencies in family life. The author asks if organising families as foster homes is less morally objectionable than raising children in families by examining the child welfare system in Norway.

Children in families affected by substance use disorders are at high risk of being placed in out-of-home care (OOHC). The authors of this Australia-based study aimed to describe the characteristics of parents who inject drugs and identify correlates associated with child placement in OOHC.

This article aims to build knowledge, from a life-course perspective, of foster carers’ views of the transition from care to adulthood for young people with mental health problems by interviewing carers from foster homes in Norway and Sweden.

The objective of this paper is to further the understanding of young people’s experiences of out-of-home care (OHC) in Sweden.

The 2024 Global Outlook Prospects for Children: Cooperation in a Fragmented World examines how global fragmentation along geopolitical and economic lines will impact children in 2024 and beyond. It highlights eight key trends that will shape children’s lives and provides policy guidance to protect their rights and well-being amid this uncertainty.

Prospects for Children in 2024: Cooperation in a Fragmented World 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.

This guidance explains why supporting kinship care is so important and provides principles of good practice and lessons learnt from across the world. This is a summary of a more detailed version of the guidance, which also includes over 40 examples of promising practice from across the world.

This guidance is the first ever global, practitioner-informed guidance on how to support kinship care. The guidance is aimed at policymakers and programme managers working to improve the care of children.

This manual aims to help countries and their national statistical systems to improve the collection, analysis, sharing and use of data on children on the move.

The experience children and young people who migrated from their homes in Afghanistan – especially those who have been forced to return – can be described as a spiral of harm and neglect. For many, poverty and a desire to help their families drives them from their homes.