Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) is among the most powerful storms ever recorded. It made landfall in the morning of the 8th November 2013 in Guiuan, Eastern Samar province, causing extensive damage to life, housing, livelihoods and infrastructure across nine of the Philippines' poorest provinces. The Philippines authorities estimate that 14 million people have been affected, 4 million displaced, 1.1 million have had their houses damaged or destroyed, over 103,000 people were in evacuation centers.

• A Strategic Response Plan was developed and adopted as part of the humanitarian response to support the Government of the Philippines' response to the immediate humanitarian needs of the people affected by this disaster. Among the strategic objectives identified for child protection, two are particularly relevant to children's care. 

>  Cluster Objective 4C  aims to ensure that "Girls and boys are protected from violence, exploitation (including trafficking), abuse and neglect; and the existing national, provincial and local mechanisms for child protection are strengthened."   One of the top priority activities under it is to "Facilitate and support family unity and prevent separation of children from caregivers as well as all forms of violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect."

>  Cluster Objective 4E  aims to "Support implementation of government policies in relation to displacement / resettlement in line with the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and other international standards."  One of the top priority activities under this objective is to "Support the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) presence and registration mechanisms in areas of origin, secondary movement and return areas." This activity is key to ensure children are not separated from their families without proper assessment and consideration of the best interest of each child, and that placement in out of home care outside of the affected areas can also be detected.

To access the full document, please visit: 

http://www.bettercarenetwork.org/BCN/details.asp?id=32277&themeID=1005&topicID=1031

• The Child Protection Working Group (CPWG), which is a sub-cluster of the Protection Cluster, is led by the DSWD and the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC), with UNICEF as a co-lead. A range of child protection partners are currently on the ground and all report high levels of distress amongst children and their carers - and indications of increased violence against children within families as a result of this.  Cases of separated and unaccompanied children have come to light across all three affected regions.  As of the 18th December 2013, 83 unaccompanied and separated children have been identified and documented. 

To access an updated information of child protection concerns, who does what and where, please visit: 

https://philippines.humanitarianresponse.info/clusters/child-protection

• The Child Protection Working Group has developed key messages for caregivers to support them to identify and respond to signs of distress among their children. The messages contain simple information about the types of emotional and behavioral changes caregivers might notice in their children in the aftermath of such a sudden onset disaster, and how best to respond to them to help their children recover. The messages were produced in English, Filipino, Waray, Ilongo and Cebuano. 

To access these documents, please click above on the respective language.

• After Yolanda: What Children Think, Need and Recommend. On 14th December, Save the Children, Plan, World Vision, working with UNICEF, organized consultations with 124 children and young people in Capiz, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and East and West Samar to listen to their views about the humanitarian situation six weeks after the Typhoon, find out what their priorities are and ask for suggestions to improve the response. Among the priorities identified by children and young people were rebuilding homes, returning to school, and restoring electricity. Many highlighted that they were fearful of another typhoon but also wanted to learn more about how they could prevent and prepare for future events. Many were also taking on new roles and responsibilities to help their families and communities to recover. The participants also recommended that the Government convene consultations with children and young people in the forthcoming Post-Disaster Needs Assessment so that their insights, perspectives and views on the recovery and rehabilitation of their communities are included in the final assessment.

To access the full document, please visit:

http://www.bettercarenetwork.org/BCN/details.asp?id=32276&themeID=1003&topicID=1019

This fascinating new book by Dr. Xiaoyuan Shang and Karen Fisher provides a comprehensive and clear picture of the situation of children who are orphaned or abandoned in China. Based on research conducted as part of nine related projects from 2001 to 2012, it introduces the context and framework for the alternative care system and China's welfare system as it applies to children, including its history and development in both urban and rural areas. It provides a profile of orphans and of care arrangements, describing both the formal child welfare system that has primary responsibility for the care of orphans in state care, and the informal care system, particularly the use of kinship care in rural China and urbanizing rural communities, and in an Autonomous Region of the country. It discusses the principles of good practices in alternative care and uses case studies to understand the achievements and gaps in China's alternative care practice, highlighting examples of good practices. It summarizes recent policy changes and draws conclusions about what the research means for the future of Chinese alternative care and the rights of orphans in China.

The authors find that China has two welfare strands for orphaned children that operate separately, rather than being integrated. The first is informal kinship care for orphaned children who have relatives and family networks on whom they can rely. The second is a state monopolized system to support and care for orphans and abandoned children whose parents and relatives cannot be found or contacted. The two strands are based on different principles and laws. Yet China's child welfare system is also experiencing important policy changes in  the direction of complementary integration. Registered orphans are covered by a living allowance, partly subsidized health care, free compulsory education, and alternative care formally or informally arranged. In some wealthier areas, subsidized housing for orphans' families is beginning to be available. However, according to the authors, China's administrative structures do not yet reflect the organizational authority for local responsibility to implement and coordinate child welfare in both parts of the system. Coordinating child welfare is not yet embedded in the overall social welfare system. Local approaches to alternative care vary, with opposite trends observable in different parts of China- at best, partial formalization of kinship care, non-kinship foster care, support for orphans in the community, and greater professionalization of the care of orphans with disabilities; and at worst, the re-institutionalization of orphans in some cities. The authors argue that a mixed welfare system, in which state provision supplements family and community care, could be an effective policy direction to improve support for orphaned children in China. 

In 2007 the Government of Moldova approved the National Strategy and Action Plan for the Reform of the Residential Childcare System 2007-2012. The overall objectives of the Action Plan were to reduce the number of children living outside a family by 50% and to reorganise residential institutions to support children in families. This informative evaluation commissioned by UNICEF, the Government of the Republic of Moldova and NGO partners, provides an assessment of the relevance, impact and effectiveness of the implementation of the National Strategy and Action Plan. It concludes that implementation of the strategy has contributed to a considerable reduction in number of children in institutions in Moldova, by 54% by the beginning of June 2012 from 2007 levels. Furthermore, the specific objectives of the Action Plan were judged to be realistic overall, though the evaluators concluded it was probably too ambitious to plan that all children and families in Moldova could have access to quality family-type and community-based social services by 2012. At the same time, excellent examples of local public authorities (LPAs) and NGOs processes and services to support children in families were identified in some areas, including training and support for foster carers, supported living accommodation for children in disabilities, Mother and Baby shelters, and participatory processes that involved children in the development of community based services.

The evaluation also identified some shortcomings and unexpected findings. It points to the fact that a majority of children deinstitutionalized have come from boarding and auxiliary boarding schools under the Ministry of Education rather than special institutions for children with disabilities or young children under the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family and the Ministry of Health. Despite the impressive reduction in the number of children, the combined number of institutions under the different Ministries has only reduced from 67 to 57 during that period. The author concludes that there still appears to be a large capacity for institutionalisation in Moldova. The evaluation also highlighted the slow development of foster care services, with the majority of children deinstitutionalized being those able to return to their families, while placements for those needing foster families were very limited, thought to be about 270 or less. It also found that efforts to redirect financial resources from the residential system to community-based and family-type services had not been achieved at the time of the assessment. Instead, savings arising from the reduction of children in residential institutions of the Ministry of Education had been re-absorbed into expenditures associated with the remaining institutions. The evaluation also questions whether NGO activities would continue at the same level, if funding by international donors were to be redirected elsewhere. It urges the central government to assume a more active role to support less active regional administrations to contract the supply of prevention and deinstitutionalization services from the local NGOs. 

In this article for Prism Magazine, a publication of Evangelical for Social Action, the authors ask challenging questions about the active role played by the Western Church "not only in funding orphanages where they may not be needed but also encouraging "orphanage tourism" disguised in the form of short-term mission trips." They review the evidence from global research that has demonstrated the adverse impacts of residential care on the development of children and their protection rights, and ask some challenging questions: "Why are orphanages unacceptable for children in my country, but acceptable for children in the developing world?" "Would I ever want my child to end up in an orphanage?"  The article highlight findings from global research that most children in 'orphanages' in fact have parents and that many of the children are in these institutions for other reasons, in particular extreme poverty, illness, or lack of access to social services, in particular education. They give the example of Cambodia where contrary to the Government's recent policies stating that family and community-based care are the best option for children and that new residential programs should not be encouraged or pursued, the number of children in orphanages has increased by 75 percent since 2005, and the majority of these children were accepted by nonprofit international organizations.

The authors also explore the role of 'orphanage tourism' in this context, where Westerners visit or volunteer to work at a residential care center (orphanage) in the developing world, whether the trip is arranged by a tour or travel company, a nonprofit, or by a church, and whether it entails one person dropping in to visit children at an orphanage for a few hours or a group of a dozen people coming to work at the orphanage for several weeks or months. They point out that, although orphanage tourism generally occurs out of good intentions, it is rarely in children's best interest and it can also be extremely harmful, leading in worst case scenarios to child protection concerns as well as significant misappropriation of funds. The authors also highlight that orphanage tourism leads to increasing demand for these types of opportunities in other orphanages or even to the opening of new orphanages to attract funding from donors. They point to a growing realization among ministries and organizations globally that new innovative solutions are needed to ensure orphans are cared in safe and loving families. Perhaps most powerfully, the authors call on the readers to explore their own motivations by confronting the reality of global inequalities: "Unfortunately, however, the reality is that orphanage tourism -regardless of how happy the child seems or how big a donation you give to the organization- is not a true connection between peers. The children you visit will likely never have the opportunity to reciprocate a visit, nor do they really have a choice about meeting and spending time with visitors. Your visit is much more about your emotional desire than it is about what the children need to be healthy and/or happy." 

Responsibletravel.com, a travel company operating from the UK since 2001 has issued Guidelines for partner operators for volunteering directly with vulnerable children, including in the context of orphanage volunteering. The guidelines cover volunteer trips promoted on responsibletravel.com that involve working with vulnerable children in any of the following settings: Orphanages; children's homes; youth centres (including drop-in centres); residential facilities; trafficking shelters; women and children violence refuges and other similar settings. The company has recognized that "inadvertently, well intentioned volunteers are fuelling the demand for orphans" and that there is good evidence that "orphanage volunteering is creating a surge in residential care homes, including orphanages" as service providers see these institutions as a way of drawing donors and financial contributions through the children. The company also highlights that few tourists are qualified to interact with vulnerable children and these short term interactions may in fact place children at further risk of harm, including to their emotional well-being as volunteers come and go, creating a "never-ending round of abandonment".

In summary, the guidelines stipulate that:

• Only people with professional qualifications and experience are allowed to volunteer;
• Placement lengths must be for a minimum of 4 weeks;
• Volunteer operators must have a child protection policy in place and conduct criminal records checks (or equivalent).

The partner organisations must have clear and comprehensive child protection policies in place which all volunteers must agree to and clear reporting mechanisms for violence, abuse or any other form of child protection concern (including internal reporting systems and anonymous reporting to the appropriate authority. In addition, clear media, photography and publishing guidelines must be in place to govern the use of children's images and personal information.

Overall, the research found that fostering is a positive experience for children and their foster families. Children interviewed in the foster care system were satisfied with the services they received. They successfully integrated in society, made friends and relationships, and could openly communicate with others in their community. However, the report highlights that the foster care model would benefit from better support to foster families. The great majority of foster parents interviewed did not want to foster another child for various reasons, and most potential foster parents interviewed did not want to foster either. Even fewer existing/potential foster carers, including staff with specialist childcare experience, were willing to foster children with disabilities - most citing a lack of psychological preparedness and access to appropriate supportive services. This research study identifies a number of factors that limit the expansion of foster care in Armenia, including a lack of awareness of different forms of foster care and the limited availability of social services and social workers, particularly in rural areas, that reduces the support available to potential foster families. The current legal framework hinders expanding foster care - especially short-term foster placements that may particularly benefit children with disabilities - because fostering is only available to children deprived of parental care, whereas institutional care is available to children who are not officially DPC. The authors make a number of important recommendations to reduce the need for fostering and other forms of alternative care through better preventive and community-based support services for biological families and legal guardians. They also recommend devising a more comprehensive approach to the care of children with disabilities, particularly through increasing community support services and treating foster care as a paid job.

To access the full document, please visit:

http://www.bettercarenetwork.org/BCN/details.asp?id=32279&themeID=1002&topicID=1013

This assessment conducted by FHI 360, with support from Ethiopia's Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs (MoWYCA) and the OAK Foundation aimed to generate evidence about formal community and family- based alternative child care services and service providing agencies in Ethiopia, with a particular focus on magnitude, quality and quality-assurance mechanisms. The assessment was conducted in five selected regions (Addis Ababa, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR). The research found that most if not all formal family-based alternative care and community-based alternative child-care services were concentrated in Addis Ababa and other urban centres, leaving the majority of needy children in rural areas with little access to these services. Only about half of the agencies providing community-based child-care services claimed to include services for children with special needs or disabilities. The distribution of agencies by type of service they provide suggests alignment with the principle of continuum of care, which emphasizes the availability of services preventing unnecessary separation of children and placing children in familial environments as much as possible. Nine in every 10 institutions provide community- based/Family Preservation Services (FPS). Overall economic strengthening and educational support were the most popular FPS, reported by 87% and 85.5% of the institutions, respectively, followed by provision of health care (70%), parenting skills and competencies (56%), food/nutrition (57%), and psychosocial support (58%). 

In terms of family-based alternative care services, reunification was reported as the most prevalent service provided by about half of the agencies (44.5%), and foster care placement was provided by 11% of the institutions. Adoption placement was the second most popular family-based alternative care service provided by close to two-fifths of the institutions, with far more in Addis Ababa than in all other regions combined. The vast majority of the organizations provide inter-country adoption alone. Only 30% combine inter-country and domestic adoption.  The low uptake of formal local adoption was attributed to various barriers including, lack of awareness about formal procedures on domestic adoption, reluctance to face legal procedures in particular in relation to inheritance, cultural reasons, fear of stigma and labelling, and economic problems. Discussion with community representatives, though, indicated that informal adoptions are common. The report makes a number of important recommendations, including to improve the capacity of MOWCYA and its substructures to provide adequate support and supervision to the agencies that provide formal alternative child-care services.  It also suggests that while currently formal domestic adoption and foster care are the least popular forms of care, there is untapped capacity in this regard, and innovative ways to promote these care options should be introduced.  It calls for research on the state of children under informal care, and the implications of formalizing informal/traditional family-based child-care options on the well-being of children, and readiness of families to provide support and care to OVC. 

This important assessment of foster care services in the Republic of Moldova, conducted for the Government and UNICEF, follows up on the 2012 evaluation of the five-year strategy on care reforms and its findings that despite significant results in the number of children leaving residential care, there were "very few children living in foster care". The very limited use of foster care for children with disabilities and children under the age of three was noted as a particular concern. This assessment provides a comprehensive analysis of the two main types of formal foster care offered in Moldova, the Family Type Children's Homes (CCTF) and the Professional Parental Assistance (APP). CCTF were initiated in the late 1980s as a response to children outside of parental care. This type of care is defined as "an institution created based on a complete family, offering family care in the family of parents-educators, to an orphan child or a child left without parental care."  This model was typified by identification and assessment of a couple (with some kind of educational background) to work as "parent- educators" and care for abandoned children on a long-term basis. The homes are usually located in rural areas and each of the families has between four and seven children. The APP, on the other hand, is a relatively new service, piloted since the 2000s and provided a strong basis in law since 2007.  It is similar to foster care utilized in other parts of Europe, whereby a professionally assessed, trained and monitored caregiver provides care, support and protection to a child. In the case of Moldova, a foster caregiver can care for a maximum of three children under this care option. There are different types of foster care options, including short-term, long-term, emergency and respite care.  

This literature review by the Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education at the University of Oxford was undertaken to identify the ways in which carers' children might be more effectively prepared and supported when their families are fostering. When a family experiences the transformation to a family who fosters, there will be many changes in family relations and general family life. Yet the impact of fostering on the lives of the sons and daughters of foster carers has largely been overlooked both in research and practice. This review included 17 studies from the UK, US, Canada, Sweden, Belgium and Spain. Although the report underlines that each fostered child and each carer's child is an individual, some clear messages emerged from this literature review. In particular, it highlights the importance of involving children and young people in carers' families in family discussions concerning the decision to foster, and that they should not be seen as less significant, passive members of the family. Being informed about fostering and about each particular child reduces conflicts. When the family has made the decision to become foster carers, children and young people similarly need to be informed about the nature of fostering - both positive and negative aspects. The review found that those children and young people who had received relevant information developed a significantly better relationship with foster children.

The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA)- in partnership with UNICEF and the Regional Interagency Task Team (RIATT) on Children and AIDS in Eastern & Southern Africa- is hosting the Road To Melbourne meeting series. These meetings aim to increase shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges of earlier interventions for children in HIV-exposed families.  The meeting series will culminate at the Biennial Symposium for Children Affected by AIDS in the days before the 2014 International AIDS Conference, in a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal, and in coordinated advocacy efforts.

The second of three meetings took place in Cape Town in early December on the theme:  "Successful and Promising Approaches to Meeting the Holistic Needs of Young Children Born Into Families Affected by HIV and AIDS".  Learning from Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia was presented. The next meeting is due to take place in London in February 2014.

The presentations are available on then CCBA website at:

http://www.ccaba.org/road-to-melbourne-series-presentations-from-cape-town/ 

The Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) will be hosting a Global Summit on Childhood in April 2014. The goals of the summit are to provide a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue among the global community about the experience of childhood; explore the current state of childhood from international, cross-cultural, and cross-disciplinary perspectives; examine specific issues impacting the lives of children today; and consider best policies and practices to promote the opportunities that support a positive childhood experience and to address the challenges that threaten childhood. 

For more information about registration, and a call for proposals, please visit: http://www.acei.org/programs-events/summit.html