Physical Abuse of Young Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Alarming Increase in the Relative Frequency of Hospitalizations During the Lockdown Period

Mélanie Loiseau, Jonathan Cottenet, Sonia Bechraoui-Quantin, Séverine Gilard-Pioc, Yann Mikaeloff, Fabrice Jollant, Irène François-Purssell, Andreas Jud, Catherine Quantin

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%).

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Care Reform in Malawi: A Virtual Study Tour

Emily Delap of Child Frontiers, UNICEF Malawi country office, UNICEF ESARO, Changing the Way We Care, Government of Malawi

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.

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Caring Systems: Maximising Synergies Between Care Reform and Child Protection System Strengthening in Eastern and Southern Africa

UNICEF ESARO, Changing the Way We Care

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.

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Practical Guide on How to Protect Family Unity and Reunification More Effectively in Human Mobility and Mixed Movement Contexts During the Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

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.

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South American Panorama of Adoption Practices: Cases of Countries in Transformation

Child Identity Protection (CHIP)

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. 

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Gatekeeping Factsheet

Changing the Way We Care

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.

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Introducing Guidance for Alternative Care Provision During COVID-19: Policy Makers

READY: Global Readiness for Major Disease Response

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.