In 2013 The Better Care Network and Save the Children UK began an inter-agency initiative to review and share existing knowledge on international volunteerism as related to the alternative care of children in developing countries. Supported by The Oak Foundation, this initiative  - known as Better Volunteering, Better Care - was created in response to a growing concern from child protection specialists and other stakeholders about the negative impact of volunteerism within this setting. On 17 and 18 June 2014, the initiative brought together actors from across the child protection, education, corporate, faith-based and tourism sectors for a two-day workshop to share their respective experiences and identify potential ideas to support communication and engagement strategies to address the issue. 

Having completed the workshop and developed a subsequent report, the initiative is currently in the third of the following three phases: (1) Review Phase, (2) Convening of Key Actors, and (3) Strategy Development. This third phase involves combining the learnings from the review phase and workshop and developing an engagement strategy. The overall goal of the strategy is to generate change in knowledge, behaviours, and practices of volunteers. For more information on the workshop, the executive summary produced during the review phase, and the rationale for the initiative, please click here.

This report by Family for Every Child examines why children continue to experience inadequate care throughout the world and it highlights what action is needed - and by whom - to ensure that children are better cared for. It offers an explanation of why the care of children is crucial to the achievement of several fundamental human rights as well as to broader development goals. The report defines the elements of adequate care, including secure, stimulating and responsive care, and why adequate care is important - describing the magnitude of this problem, its global social and economic impact, as well as the physical, social, and emotional, impact on children themselves.

 Recommendations in the report center around ensuring adequate care by supporting family care for children. According to Family For Every Child, achieving more effective family care for children means strengthening the ability of vulnerable families and communities to adequately care for their children by: (1) building a deeper understanding of a family's context and culture, (2) making the care of children a political and financial priority, (3) reinforcing the inclusion of effective care of children as a part of greater humanitarian work, (4) increasing social protection for vulnerable families, and (5) ensuring that countries adhere to the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. It also means increasing child participation and inclusion in decision-making, and enhancing family-based alternative care. The report also includes an example of progress in care reform in Brazil.

This report reviews the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, adopted in Cairo in 1994. The report reviews 20 years of achievements  as well as remaining areas of concern in the implementation of the Programme to Action. The framework presented in this report outlines a path to sustainability which demands better leadership and greater innovation to address critical global needs pertaining to the realization of human rights. Among the key findings and recommendations related to the care of children, this report highlights issues such as: adolescent sexual and reproductive health, maternal health and maternal deaths, HIV/AIDS, migration, families caring for family members with disabilities, child abuse and neglect, separation of indigenous families, children living on the street, and birth registration.

The report also highlights the global needs for: more population surveying; greater use of data for development planning; capacity strengthening; creating enabling legal and policy environments for participation and accountability; and collaboration, partnership, and coherence. The report concludes with key areas for action in governance and accountability; an emphasis on sustainability, including a description of the threat of global climate change, and an outline on paths to sustainability; and a look at monitoring the implementation of the Programme to Action beyond 2014.

To read more, please click here

 This report, issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, examines the situation and needs of unaccompanied children who emigrate from Central America and Mexico to the United States, and offers recommendations based on those needs. The report also features demographic information, including the age, gender, family structure, language, education, and country/region of origin of these unaccompanied migrant children.

Four hundred and four children were interviewed in this study and asked to share their reasons for leaving their countries of origin. The most common responses from the children were: violence in society, deprivation, abuse in the home, to reunite with family, or for greater opportunity. From this study, the UNHCR has determined that there is a great need for international protection for many of these children coming to the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Based on the need for international protection, the UNHCR offers 13 points of recommendations to the governments of these countries.

 To read more, please click here

 Unaccompanied asylum seeking children and child victims of human trafficking are some of the most vulnerable children in the UK. Because of the circumstances they have faced, unaccompanied and trafficked children often have complex needs in addition to those faced by looked after children more generally, and it is the duty of the local authority providing for their care to protect and support these highly vulnerable children. This guidance from the UK Department for Education sets out the steps local authorities should take to plan for the provision of support for looked after children who are unaccompanied asylum seeking children and child victims of trafficking. 

 The Guidance outlines: official definitions of unaccompanied and trafficked children; the responsibilities of local authorities in regards to these children; training and awareness necessary for those working with this vulnerable population; strategies for the assessment of individual cases of unaccompanied or trafficked children; planning, protection and placement processes; steps for advocating on behalf of unaccompanied or trafficked children; a guide to the support services available to children who are unaccompanied or victims of trafficking; and protocols for planning for transition to adulthood and leaving care. It concludes with an appendix of associated resources organized by topic.

 To read more, please click here

In this paper, Save the Children International reviews the implementation of the UN Guidelines on the Alternative Care of Children in the Western Balkan Countries of Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The report reviews the current situation and accomplishments in the process of reforming the child welfare systems in these countries. The paper offers a regional perspective and recommendations for decision makers, practitioners, and other interested parties for further development of the child welfare system in accordance with the UN guidelines on alternative care and in accordance with the rights of the child.

Based on this review, Save the Children makes 14 recommendations to decision-makers and practitioners in the Western Balkan countries. Among these recommendations, the organisation advises decision-makers in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to: create policies that promote family life and support parents; transform residential institutions; create, monitor, and evaluate the implementation of new regulation mechanisms; develop and support gatekeeping mechanisms; employ appropriate personnel (including many more social workers); and to develop procedures to include the participation of children.

 This PhD thesis paper, by Michael Maher King of the University of Oxford, reviews the situations of children in institutional care in Israel and Japan. According to the paper, Japan and Israel are significant outliers in the global trend towards deinstitutionalisation of alternative care for children. Ninety per cent of children entering care in Japan, and eighty per cent of children entering care in Israel are placed into institutions, some of which can house over two hundred children. This qualitative research explores whether there are any shared mechanisms behind the stability in institutional alternative care in these two very different countries. The study is centered around interviews with policy elites and practitioners, and also draws on: secondary literature on alternative childcare in these countries; literature on deinstitutionalisation, notably the emerging emphasis on the role of gatekeeping mechanisms; and primary sources, including government guidelines on recent initiatives promoting change.

To read more, please click here

The journal Australian Social Work has published a special issue on young people transitioning from out-of-home care. It highlights that although young people transitioning from care face specific challenges and have unique needs, they often lack the support required to transition to adulthood successfully. International awareness of this unique situation has grown in the last decade, as evidenced by the articles in this special issue which cover a variety of topics related to youth transitioning from out-of-home care throughout the world. Articles from this issue include:

• Young People's Transitions from Care to Adulthood in European and Postcommunist Eastern European and Central Asian Societies

• Understanding Care Leavers in Russia: Young People's Experiences of Institutionalisation

• Life after Growing Up in Care: Informing Policy and Practice through Research (Australia, UK, Ireland, Canada, US)

• Leaving Care with "Cultural Baggage": The Development of an Identity Within a Transnational Space (Sweden)

• Young People Leaving Care: Participatory Research to Improve Child Welfare Practices and the Rights of Children and Young People (Finland)

 "A Child of the State," Lemn Sissay - TED Talk, 24 October, 2012

In this powerful TED Talk, poet and playwright Lemn Sissay tells his story of growing up in foster care in the UK. His mother had immigrated to the UK from Ethiopia in the late 1960s and became pregnant. Sissay's mother was sent to a "mother and baby home" was encouraged to put her infant son into care. The social worker found foster parents for the baby, to whom he had given the name 'Norman,' and told them to treat it as an adoption, as though Norman was their child. He grew up in this family for 11 years. After 11 years, Norman's foster parents returned him to his social worker and to the State, and Norman left the only family he had known. During the next four or five years, he was held at 4 children's homes, including an "assessment center," which Sissay describes as a "virtual prison for young people." After he left the center, he found solace in creativity and poetry and was able to find his birth family. 

To view the full video, please click here

"What neuroscience and social science tell us about the effect of care environments on children" - Dr. Kathryn Whetten and Dr. Charles Nelson, 25 August, 2014

 This video features a segment of a talk on the effects of care environments on children, hosted by the Christian Alliance for Orphans. The key speakers featured include Dr. Kathryn Whetten & Dr. Charles Nelson, who discuss the Positive Outcomes for Orphans study (POFO) and the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), respectively. Nelson speaks about the negative outcomes in brain development associated with the institutionalization of children and why early experiences are so important to brain development. Dr. Whetten discusses her multi-country longitudinal study which examines the situations of children in multiple care settings and where caregiving characteristics are related to positive outcomes for children, even in residential care. Both presenters discuss the need for more family support and community-based programs as well as more quality care in all settings.

To view the full video, please click here

 The Future of Children Launches New Blog - 'The Child & Family Blog'

Foster Care India Launches New Website