Providing effective mental health services to unaccompanied children released from federal immigration custody is both critically important and incredibly challenging. Developed by children’s rights attorneys and mental health experts on trauma and immigration, this Guide is grounded in the voices and experiences of unaccompanied children.
This report found that the types of abuse and the characteristics of both abused children and offenders in Saudi Arabia saw significant changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sexual and emotional abuses were reported more frequently, and the male gender is considered to feature more commonly in reports prior to the pandemic era than during the pandemic.
Findings of this report suggest that early screenings for trauma and behavioral health needs may provide important information that could be used to identify children's needs, make appropriate service referrals, establish well-matched placements, and support resource parents and birth parents toward better permanency outcomes.
In France, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a general lockdown from mid-March to mid-May 2020, forcing families to remain confined. This study found a significant increase in the relative frequency of young children hospitalized for physical abuse from 2017 (0.053%) to 2020 (0.073%).
This webinar, the sixth in the Transforming Children's Care Webinar Series, provided an introduction to trauma-informed care from various perspectives and vantage points.
This virtual study tour aims to provide you with an overview of care reform in Malawi from the comfort of your own home. Care reform relates to the care of children. It refers to efforts to improve the legal and policy frameworks, structures, services, supports and resources that determine and deliver alternative care, prevent family separation and support families to care for children well.
This paper promotes a system strengthening approach to care reform. It begins with an explanation of child protection and care and the relationship between these two concepts. It goes on to explain why system strengthening is needed to improve children’s care, and how care reform can be carried out systematically, using a range of examples from across the Eastern and Southern Africa region. The paper is aimed at UNICEF country office staff, government and others working on children’s care and protection in the region.
The purpose of this article is to describe the process of testing and piloting the UNICEF protocol on children in residential care in three countries: India, Ghana, and Kazakhstan.
The guide recommends a series of measures aimed at States, which focus on protecting family unity, preventing separation, and ensuring reunification in the context of human mobility, including for unaccompanied or separated children and adolescents, who require international protection or who leave their homes in search of better opportunities or family reunification.
This research brought together the testimonies of adoption professionals (national and international) concerned with the situation of abandoned and placed children in five South American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Peru. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the new realities of adoption, in a context where these countries have chosen to limit or stop their foreign adoption practices.
Gatekeeping es el término que describe el mecanismo, proceso o pasos específicos involucrados en la toma de decisiones relacionadas con el cuidado de las niñas, niños y adolescentes (NNA) donde exista la posibilidad de riesgo de separación familiar, o pérdida del cuidado parental.
This Gatekeeping Factsheet, targeting those engaged in care decisions, including government actors/institutions, civil society organizations, practitioners and parents/caregivers explains the objectives of gatekeeping and essential components of a gatekeeping system, core principles of effective gatekeeping and signs that a gatekeeping system is operating well or needs to be strengthened.
This second webinar in the 'Introducing Guidance for Alternative Care Provision During COVID-19' webinar series hosted on 28 January 2021, is aimed at policy makers and explains their role in developing policies and guidance to prevent family separation during an outbreak.
The first webinar, hosted on 27 January 2021, is aimed at health practitioners with the goal of introducing the guidance and helping practitioners understand their role in preventing family separation and supporting unaccompanied and separated children.
To complement the CIF partner interventions targeting the child and family and to enhance the sustainability of reintegration efforts, the project is using a Hotspot approach to address community-level, environmental factors that may contribute to a child’s increased risk of family separation. The collective application of the Hotspot approach is completely innovative in the Zambian child care reform space. In this brief, we spotlight the Hotspot approach and promising observations to date in undertaking this strategy.
Building on the CIF+ Learning Brief Vol 1.pdf, Volume 2 draws from CIF+ partner programming experience, achievements and lessons learned. This document outlines lessons for stakeholders that are interested in child reintegration efforts and highlights examples of the pilot as it works to support children and families in Zambia.
The CIF+ pilot is a collaborative, locally led, intensive effort with the main aim to reintegrate 200 children from Child Care Facilities (CCFs) in Lusaka district, into families over a period of three years (2019-2021).
This study provides an overview of the situation of children on the move within Africa and assessed the extent to which Member States of the African Union have established normative and institutional structures to address the needs of children on the move in their territories. It presents an informed overview of the routes that children move along in within the continent, the reasons why they move and where these children move to as well as the risks that they are exposed to whilst on the move. The study also scrutinises the legal frameworks affecting child mobility in the continent.
A systematic review exploring the lived experience of matching children with foster families and examining the evidence on the outcomes of matching decisions.
The State of the World’s Children 2021 calls for commitment, communication and action to promote good mental health for every child, protect vulnerable children and care for children facing the greatest challenges.
This report presents the very first quantitative analysis of the risk of sexual violence against children in conflict for the period 1990-2019.
This study aims to answer two research questions: a) How do youth and staff/professionals define/conceptualize authentic youth engagement (AYE)? and b) What are youths’ and staff/professionals’ recommended strategies for authentically engaging youth? Thirty stakeholder interviews (15 youth, 15 staff/professionals) and 81 surveys (46 youth, 35 staff/professionals) were completed.
This bulletin provides information for child welfare professionals about the importance of permanency for youth and strategies for achieving it. Permanency efforts for youth should include both legal permanency (e.g., reunification, adoption, kinship care) and relational permanency (i.e., a relationship or connection with a caring adult, such as a relative, neighbor, service provider, teacher, or other important person in the youth's life). These adults may provide lifelong support that can help youth transition to adulthood and may even become a legal permanent option for the youth.
This report provides key recommendations from three roundtable discussions about how to support permanency with kin, relational permanency, and successful older youth adoption.
Most children involved with the child welfare system are not separated from their families but instead receive services while living at home. This issue brief explores effective in-home services that are being used to promote safety and help keep children and families together, as well as practical considerations for their implementation. It then presents promising practices used by States and jurisdictions that are working to improve their delivery of in-home services.
This episode focuses on the current reality of reunification across the public child welfare system. Listeners will hear a conversation among child welfare professionals, members of the American Bar Association (ABA) Center on Children and the Law(opens in new window), the Children’s Bureau, and an alumnus of foster care.
The purpose of this study is to determine the association of face-to-face contact with biological parents and externalized behaviors, while taking into account placement instability and foster parent interactive sensitivity.
The purpose of this study is to determine the association of face-to-face contact with biological parents and externalized behaviors, while taking into account placement instability and foster parent interactive sensitivity.
This policy brief draws on the substantial evidence on the health, educational, and economic benefits of family-friendly policies to recommend four transformative shifts in workplaces.
This is the 3rd and final presentation in the Kinship Care in Brazil mini-series. Here, Claudia Cabral of Associação Brasileira Terra dos Homens describes the importance of considering the extended family when making decisions about children’s care, and efforts to advocate to the Brazilian government.
This is the 2nd presentation in the Kinship Care in Brazil mini-series. Here, Jonathan Hannay of ACER Brazil, shares learning from a programme of formal therapeutics kinship care that draws upon the Breaking the Cycle approach. Correction: The number stated at 17:02 should be 4, not 17.
This is the 1st presentation in our Kinship Care in Brazil mini-series. Here, Ana Angélica Campelo of Brazil’s Ministry of Citizenship, shares an overview of the social welfare system in Brazil and how kinship care fits within it.
Adolescents living in residential youth care (RYC) are at risk for disadvantaged social relationships, which in turn present a risk factor for increased loneliness. Social relationships of Slovenian adolescents aged 15–18 years and living in RYC group homes or in their primary families were investigated by relying on the social convoy framework.
This guidance note aims to address the migration data gaps in a manner relevant to all stakeholders, and promotes a whole-of-society approach. It is also meant to help operationalize IOM’s Migration Data Strategy and includes recommendations on enhancing gender indicators and gender-based methods in data production, protection, dissemination and use. The note provides succinct information on the extent to which gender is captured through macrolevel global data sets, along with a discussion of key issues relevant to gender and migration data.
Age plays a critical role in a child’s migration, but how will gender mediate that experience? Which gender-specific vulnerabilities, needs, and opportunities influence the lives of girls and boys on the move? This report reviews the existing evidence base – official statistics and quantitative and qualitative studies from the community level to the global level – to shed light on these important questions.
The purpose of Policies and Practice: A Guide to Gender-Responsive Implementation of the GCM is to provide clear, concrete and practical guidance to governments and other key stakeholders on gender-responsive implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). Building on the gender-responsive approach outlined in the guiding principles of the GCM, this guide prioritizes the specific needs, challenges and vulnerable situations of women, girls and gender non-conforming people at all stages of migration due to their increased vulnerabilities to human rights violations and gender-based discrimination. It takes into consideration the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination they may face while highlighting the positive contributions that they make in countries of origin, transit, and destination.
Scopul analizei de situație a copiilor din Republica Moldova, cu accent pe copiii
vulnerabili și prevenirea separării de părinți, este de a oferi o imagine completă a
situației lor actuale, inclusiv în urma efectelor pandemiei COVID-19 și care să servească
elaborării de recomandări concrete cu privire la o serie de decizii bazate pe probe, pe
care statul dar și actorii societății civile au nevoie să le ia și, ulterior, să le implementeze,
pentru a îmbunătăți situația grupurilor celor mai vulnerabile, precum și pentru a
eficientiza sistemul de îngrijire alternativă a copilului din Republica Moldova.
Analiza actelor normative de reglementare a serviciilor sociale şi a finanțării acestora a fost realizată cu scopul de a elabora recomandări practice privind îmbunătățirea cadrului normativ și a mecanismului de finanțare a serviciilor sociale de prevenire a separării copilului de familie și a celor de îngrijire alternativă.
În 2021, Changing the Way We Care a lansat o analiză situațională a sistemului de îngrijire a copilului în Republica Moldova. Rezultatul acestei analize sunt 8 rapoarte bazate pe cercetări ample ale partenerilor CTWWC: Copil, Comunitate, Familie (CCF) Moldova, Keystone Human Services International, Moldova și Parteneriate pentru fiecare copil (P4EC). Aceste rapoarte oferă o imagine de ansamblu a situației copiilor vulnerabili și a familiilor acestora din Moldova, atât în contextul dezinstituționalizării, cât și al prevenirii plasării în instituții rezidențiale.
Scopul evaluării individuale a 184 de copii din șase instituții rezidențiale este de a obțineinformația actualizată privind indicatorii demografici și situația socială, educațională,psihologică și medicală a copiilor plasați în instituțiile rezidențiale pentru a planificareintegrarea lor în mediu familial și/sau pregătirea pentru tranziție de la servicii deîngrijire de tip rezidențial la îngrijire de tip familial.
Scopul studiului este de a identifica o serie de informații relevante cu privire la factorii
de succes și cei de risc în procesul de reintegrare familială, necesare pentru a formula
recomandări care să contribuie la decizii bazate pe probe în îmbunătățirea acestui
proces, prin prisma inițiativei CTWWC.
Scopul studiului este de a elabora o serie de recomandări practice concrete pentru
schimbarea cunoștințelor, atitudinilor și practicilor grupurilor țintă incluse în cercetare în
vederea eliminării barierelor existente în procesul de reintegrare a copiilor
dezinstituționalizați și a prevenirii separării de părinți a copiilor din familii vulnerabile prin
evaluarea și analiza nivelului de cunoștințe, atitudini și practici în domeniul reintegrării
familiale a copiilor separați și prevenirii riscurilor de separare.
Obiectivele revizuirii MC sunt de a aduce MC în conformitate cu cele mai recente dezvoltări legislative și metodologice, cu bunele practici globale și a spori calitatea prestării serviciilor, inclusiv a consolida participarea activă a copiilor și familiilor în proces.
Scopul studiului este de a cunoaște situația actuală a serviciilor sociale axate pe
consolidarea capacității familiei de a asigura un mediu sigur, stabil și afectuos pentru
copii, precum și a serviciilor destinate copiilor care au nevoie de sau se află în îngrijire
alternativă și în proces de reintegrare, pentru a putea formula recomandări care să
contribuie la decizii bazate pe evidențe în îmbunătățirea acestora.
Scopul evaluării sistemului de formare profesională inițială și continuă a personalului din
domeniul protecției copilului și familiei din Republica Moldova este de a contribui la
consolidarea acestuia în baza celor recente dezvoltări programatice, legislative și
metodologice la nivel național și internațional, cât și să contribuie efectiv la sporirea
calității prestării serviciilor pentru copiii și familiile vulnerabile prin creșetrea
competențelor profesioniștilor din sistem.
The purpose of this Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is to provide a standard and consistent approach to case conferencing as part of a comprehensive case management approach utilized during decision-making processes for children. The SOPs should be utilized by institutions (e.g. Charitable Children’s Institutions, or CCIs) and organizations as well as other actors engaged in decision-making around children’s care and protection.
Launched on October 1, 2018, the CTWWC initiative is organized around three main strategic objectives: (1) Governments promote family care; (2) Children stay in or return to safe and nurturing families; and (3) Key stakeholders make meaningful commitments toward family care. The second year of the initiative is summarized in this report of progress.
The analysis presented in this report looks at historical trends in child marriage, with a focus on selected countries that have recorded significant declines in child marriage prevalence. It offers an overview of changes in the practice together with a review of other shifts that have occurred in these countries in terms of girls’ access to education and employment opportunities, as well as economic development and poverty reduction.
Left-behind children (LBC) are a social and educational concern in China. Researchers have identified psychological and behavioural effects on LBC. This study creates a profile of LBC in rural Sichuan and identifies life and values education (LVE) as a beneficial intervention.
Lumos worked together with partners on the family-based care for unaccompanied children project between 2018 and 2020, in four camps in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. This evaluation report considers the various components of the project and provides recommendations to child protection and refugee response practitioners, with the aim of improving the quality of child protection programming and its impact on unaccompanied children in refugee contexts.
