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This section includes resources, news and other key documents related to children's care in the context of the current humanitarian crisis affecting Ukraine and surrounding countries. This section is updated daily. For more resources, visit the growing collection of documents in the BCN Ukraine Response Repository.
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This is the Ukrainian version of the Key Recommendations document. The aim of this guidance document is to provide a framework to support child protection practitioners and policymakers working both inside Ukraine and in host countries to implement responses related to children’s care in the context of Ukraine in line with international standards and good practice on children’s care and the provision of alternative care.
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This study conducted by UNICEF with data from 22 countries across the region shows that children are bearing the heaviest burden of the economic crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. It highlights that the Russian Federation has experienced the most significant increase in the number of children living in poverty, with an additional 2.8 million children now living in households below the poverty line. The study sets out a framework to help reduce the number of children living in poverty and prevent more families from falling into financial distress
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This report by the independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine documents war crimes, violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been committed in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. It found that the Russian armed forces are responsible for the vast majority of the violations identified but also that Ukrainian forces have also committed international humanitarian law violations in some cases.
In particular, it finds that "children have become the victims of the full spectrum of violations investigated by the Commission, including indiscriminate attacks, torture, and rape, suffering the predictable psychological consequences.
Related:
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This portal was created on behalf of the Office of the President of Ukraine as a tool for finding children, rescuing them and liberating them from places of forced displacement or deportation.
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This video and attached parenting tips offer simple and practical recommendations for Ukrainian parents on how to help themselves and their children to overcome various crisis situations.
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The Better Care Network will continue to share tools, guidance, information, and other resources regarding children's care and protection during the COVID-19 pandemic as practitioners, policymakers, and other key stakeholders work to respond to the needs of children and families impacted by this crisis. For more resources on COVID-19 and children's care, visit the growing collection of documents in the BCN COVID-19 Resource Center.
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This thematic report is a merged and synthesised version of two full study reports, each focusing on education and healthcare in Malaysia. More details regarding the background, methodology, findings and recommendations of this project are found in the respective study reports.
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The COVID-19 pandemic posed a fundamental threat to the care of children in Eastern and Southern Africa. It exacerbated many causes of separation and violence in families and placed a huge strain on services that aim to improve children’s care. Responding to these challenges also led to rapid adaptation, innovation, and learning. This paper documents lessons learnt on care reform that emerged from the pandemic.
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This U.S.-based study seeks to determine if COVID-19 has resulted in unique impacts on foster care alumni, and if these impacts are the same for LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ transition age youth.
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Understanding the Situation |
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This document answers the most frequently asked questions surrounding family strengthening and alternative care in India while also addressing misconceptions around it. It aims to help practitioners, child protection workers and researchers to build their understanding of family strengthening and alternative care in India.
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A short introduction to the key components of successful care reform based on lessons learnt from Eastern and Southern Africa.
The paper is accompanied by a video where experts from countries with established care reform programmes explain why they choose to prioritise care reform and the lessons they have learnt.
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This technical report is a product of desk research carried out from March to July 2022 through two phases of inquiry. The report aims to enable policy makers, civil society and advocacy groups to better articulate the value of the social service workforce in health systems through a presentation of the latest global evidence on social service workforce roles, functions and promising practice models, and related influence on health outcomes and costs.
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This brief provides an overview of the data and evidence gaps on violence against children in East Asia and the Pacific. It calls for greater attention to generating, sharing and applying quality data and evidence to protect the safety and rights of children within the region.
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During 2021-2022, Changing the Way We Care in partnership with three civil society institutions: Keystone Moldova, Child, Community and Family (CCF Moldova) and Partnerships for Every Child (P4EC), conducted a series of assessments at the national level, including a complex evaluation of six residential institutions (RI).
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Disrupting Harm in South Africa is the 13th in a series of reports which shares the findings of children’s perceptions of and participation in various online practices, as well as exposes their experiences of online child sexual exploitation and abuse in South Africa.
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In this chapter of the book 'Human Rights and Social Justice', the authors focus their attention on issues and challenges facing rural youth who have exited care, with special consideration of First Nation or Indigenous youth in Canada, and offer a multidimensional framework that can support anti-colonial and anti-oppressive models of practice.
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The Scottish Parliament’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee has published its latest report on kinship carers, calling for improved support for carers.
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This report details Changing the Way We Care's enquiry into the faith-based community in Moldova and its involvement in the ongoing reform of care for vulnerable children.
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This book 'Youth Without Family to Lean On' draws together interdisciplinary, global perspectives to provide a comprehensive review of the characteristics, dynamics, and development of youth (aged 15–25) who have no family to lean on, either practically or psychologically.
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The aim of this systematic review is both to summarize findings regarding the prevalence of mental health disorders among unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) in European countries since the last available systematic review (October 2017), and to describe associated risk factors.
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Despite rising numbers of unaccompanied child migrants in the Americas, very limited research directly engages with youth as they journey north to seek protection in the United States. In this article, the authors examine young Central American migrant experiences of bordering, focusing on policing and shelter management.
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This paper aims to analyse how State policies, on the book and in practice, shape family reunification. It focuses on child migration under constraint in France, by analysing the timing and factors of (non-) reunification among foreign immigrants, whose legal conditions for family reunification are much more restrictive than for those who obtained French citizenship.
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This qualitative study designed to identify potential prognostic factors relating to the outcome of children placed in a welfare center or foster care before the age of 4 years was based on the analysis of 34 case histories of children placed in a welfare center or foster care in Angers, France.
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In this scoping review the authors analyze the findings of studies conducted over the past two decades that have specifically examined face-to-face contact with birth parents for children in non-kinship foster care, with the goal of determining more clearly when it may contribute positively to the child's well-being. The review involved a search of nine electronic databases in Spain, the U.S., Portugal, and the UK.
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This book examines the involvement of those with care experience in the criminal justice system in an Australian jurisdiction. The majority of children in care do not come into contact with the youth justice system. However, among children involved in the youth justice system, those with care experience are overrepresented. The authors focus on the process of colonialisation and criminalisation, rather than crime.
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This study, based in Romania, examined longitudinal data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care following exposure to severe psychosocial deprivation.
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This paper contributes to the scholarship on refugee law and resettlement by exploring the ways in which the crisis in the Uyghur homeland in Turkey has impacted and continues to impact Uyghurs’ refugee narratives and priorities as they reorganize their lives in the diaspora.
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The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the experience of birth children of foster parents. The study examines the retrospective narratives of 14 Israeli adults, ages 18–38, whose families fostered a child for at least one year in the context of the Israeli foster care system.
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Policies, Standards, and Guidelines |
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This joint statement, issued by the United Nations, addresses the question of illegal intercountry adoptions in several countries, with an increasing number of adoptees discovering inconsistencies or errors in their adoption process, and that stories they had been told about their origins and the reasons for their adoptions were fake.
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This global guide is intended to inform policy makers and workforce managers in ministries of social welfare, finance and planning, and, where applicable, provincial or district authorities and other relevant national bodies responsible for the recruitment, deployment, funding or regulation of the social service workforce.
The guide can also be used by a national level leadership group tasked with defining an adequate level of resourcing for social services, and, on this basis, a minimum ratio of workforce to population, alongside other steps to strengthen the social service workforce.
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The purpose of this global guidance is to advise policy makers and planners on how to apply a set of variables to their specific context to enable them to calculate the costs of human resources required to meet a target minimum ratio of social service workers per population, in the country in question.
The guidance first discusses the essential steps that need to be taken to prepare for a costing exercise, and then the specific steps to take in a costing exercise for the workforce, which are outlined in the costing tool itself (to be released at a later date).
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Este documento está diseñado para orientar a las personas u organizaciones que están apoyando un proceso de transición para pasar de proporcionar atención residencial a un modelo que promueva la atención familiar y comunitaria.
El documento está diseñado en torno a las Fases de la Transición de Better Care Network. Se basa en el trabajo que Changing the Way We Care ha realizado en los últimos años para apoyar a diferentes proveedores de atención residencial, tanto religiosos como laicos, en su propio proceso de transición. Hay ejemplos y enlaces a herramientas relevantes, mensajes y actividades sugeridas que pueden utilizarse para apoyar las diferentes fases del proceso.
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The purpose of this research conducted by DONCEL with support from the Latin American Network of Care Leavers, Better Care Network and Changing the Way We Care, is to map ‘activists’ with lived experience of alternative care in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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This case study highlights the transition of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. It is an honest look at the emotional, logistical, and practical elements involved in transitioning from a residential care model which existed for more than 100 years to a provider of community-based and family-centered services.
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This case story is meant to illustrate transition, the actors involved, the challenges and the success factors; recognizing that each transition is an individual process with different starting points, different dynamics and different evolutions. Story International’s transition example demonstrates the ups and downs of divesting from the orphanage model.
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Practitioner Profiles
These profiles allow practitioners to share learning and connect with others working in care reform.
Here are a few of the most recent profiles featured in our library:
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Child's i Foundation
Project Manager
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Children, Communities and Families (CCF) Moldova
Program Manager
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Changing the Way We Care
Social Worker
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Children in Families (CIF)
Foster Care Manager
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Catholic Relief Services
Program Manager
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Organizational Directory
Our Organizational Directory lists organizations, agencies, foundations, and networks working in the field of children’s care.
Find organizations or other groups working in your country or region with whom you may be interested to partner or collaborate.
If you have a website or other documentation of the work that your organization does, send it along for review for possible inclusion in our online directory.
If you would like to feature a more in-depth profile of your organization in our Directory, please fill out this form with information about your organization and we will review it.
* Please note that the inclusion or exclusion of organizations in this Directory does not necessarily entail any judgement or endorsement on the part of BCN or its advisory group on the quality of their programs or services.
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This was an interactive workshop organized and hosted by the Transitioning Residential Care Working Group on 18 October 2022 as part of the Transforming Children’s Care Global Collaborative Platform.
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The Task Force on Foster Care of the Transforming Children's Care Global Collaborative Platform held the fifth webinar in the spotlight series on Foster Care Practice on 15 September 2022. The webinar explored participation in foster care with particular focus on individual decision making for children and young people. We heard from people with lived experience of foster care in different contexts, including Uganda, Ireland and Argentina.
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The Adolescent Data Portal features global, regional and country-level data on key indicators together with information on the socio-economic contexts in which adolescents live are found here. The portal includes globally comparable indicators, closely linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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The video provides key lessons learnt from COVID-19 on care reform from interviews with UNICEF, government and NGO staff in Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi and Kenya. The video focuses on the following areas:
- Including care reform in emergency preparedness and response
- Understanding and demonstrating the impact of a rapidly changing context on care
- Remote support to care reform
- The vital role of community volunteers
- The importance of proper reintegration processes and support
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The Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Learning Platform hosted a webinar with panel of experts who explored how the social service workforce can be strengthened to support care reform in Eastern and Southern Africa.
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Kinship care (care by extended family or friends of the family) is the most common form of alternative care in the region, yet also the least well-supported. This webinar explains why it is vital to invest in kinship care and provide examples of promising practices.
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New York Times 22 Oct 2022
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Julian Resendiz - Oklahoma News 4 18 Oct 2022
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Hanh Nguyen, Themba Lewis, Hui Yin Chuah - The Diplomat 12 Oct 2022
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Saghir Al Haydari 02 Oct 2022
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Brit McCandless Farmer 02 Oct 2022
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Purity Mugo, Jane Ndungu - Kenya News Agency 30 Sep 2022
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Niall McCracken - BBC News 30 Sep 2022
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Joe Duggan - iNews 30 Sep 2022
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Cecilian Russel - AllAfrica 29 Sep 2022
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The Associated Press 29 Sep 2022
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Ana Luisa Brown - Prensa Latina 29 Sep 2022
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UN Child Rights Committee 29 Sep 2022
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Mercy Karuuombe - The Namibian 29 Sep 2022
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Rebecca Laffan - Irish Examiner 28 Sep 2022
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David Molloy - BBC News 12 Sep 2022
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Ariana Eunjung Cha - The Washington Post 06 Sep 2022
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Shift the Mindset, the Model, and Money Towards Family Reunification and Strengthening |
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Newsletter participants, currently 4,790 in total, work on issues related to the care and support of vulnerable children across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. The purpose of the newsletter is to enable members to exchange information on matters of mutual concern. If you would like to share a document, raise a specific issue, request a newsletter subscription, or reach out in any other way to the Network, please send the information to us at contact@bettercarenetwork.org or visit our website at www.bettercarenetwork.org.
Thank you!
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Better Care Network | 521 West 146th Street P.O. Box 214, New York, NY 10031 - USA
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