October 2021
Latest Updates on Children's Care
Transforming Children's Care Global Collaborative Platform
A year ago the Transforming Children’s Care Global Collaborative Platform was launched, building on successful joint advocacy efforts by a growing coalition of actors and increasing recognition of the need to strengthen sectoral cooperation and collaboration for children’s care. The overall vision for the platform is to establish more strategic sector-wide collaboration spanning the global to the local level and inclusive of a wider range of stakeholders. It aims to enable organisations engaged in child protection and care reform to agree on common principles and approaches, leverage and build on one another’s work, secure greater and more sustainable impact, contribute to a shared learning agenda and undertake joint advocacy. 
 
The platform has grown significantly in its inaugural year and is home to more than 450 members representing over 240 organizations, networks and agencies. Four core working groups currently meet with several subgroups, task forces and communities of practice also established by members. 
 
There are a number of exciting opportunities for your organization to get involved as the community continues to grow and identifies new emerging areas of work. Whether you want to contribute to global or regional advocacy opportunities, share or learn about the latest research relevant about children’s care, work with others to strengthen how countries measure progress in reforming care systems, or develop common understanding and tools to support transition from residential care across diverse contexts, the first step is to get plugged in and be part of this growing community! 
"The platform provides a shared home for those involved in the care reform movement."
—Rob Oliver, Education and Training Director, Stahili

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.

This COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker from UNDP monitors responses taken by governments worldwide to tackle the pandemic, and highlights those that have integrated a gender lens. It analyzes which of the policy measures address women’s economic and social security, including unpaid care work, the labour market and violence against women.

Related Topic: COVID-19

The State of the World’s Fathers 2021 report – the fourth in the series from Promundo-US – presents research on care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on structural barriers that prevent equitable distribution of caregiving between women and men. The report addresses this challenge from three angles. First, it examines what “men’s involvement in care” looks like now and what it could look like if equality is achieved. Second, it hones in on COVID-19’s impact on unpaid care work and whether national COVID-19 policies are promoting equal care. Finally, it provides seven key actions – from the individual to the structural level – to promote more equitable care and, ultimately, a more caring world. View the recording of the launch event here.


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 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. 


Recent international research has warned of the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on vulnerable children. However, little is known regarding the in-care population. The objective of this study was to find out how children in residential care perceived the influence of the COVID-19 lockdown in their everyday life, relationships and subjective well-being. 
Understanding the Situation

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.



Research has shown the harm of orphanage care on children’s health, development and wellbeing and how orphanage volunteering is working to perpetuate these institutional systems which separate children from their families and communities. There is now a global movement to end both practices. These key policy recommendations were published as part of the "Put Children First: End Orphanage Care" campaign and prepared by Comhlámh and members of the End Orphanage Volunteering Working Group.


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. 

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. 

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.

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.

(These reports provide an overview of the situation of vulnerable children and their families in Moldova, both in the context of deinstitutionalization and prevention of placement in residential institutions.)

*These resources are in Romanian

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.
Policies, Standards, and Guidelines

Building on the gender-responsive approach outlined in the guiding principles of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (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.

Related Topic: Children and Migration

This Gatekeeping Factsheet by Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC), 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.

Related Topic: Gatekeeping
Learning from Practice

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. 


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. 

Related Topics: Psychosocial Support


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.

The COVID-19 pandemic is destined to leave millions more children without family caregivers. Increases in mortality of parents and other caregivers in the COVID-19 pandemic are accompanied by increases in extreme vulnerability from loss of livelihoods, schooling, health recovery and usual sources of service provision and support. This webinar aims to bring an understanding of how COVID-19 will affect the lives of children, how lessons learned from prior emergencies can be adapted, and how an understanding of complex adversities can maximize the effectiveness of our response.
Prensa Latina Latin American News Agency, 20 November 2021
Public News Service, 16 November 2021
Indian Country Today 12 October 2021

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GENERAL INFORMATION

Newsletter participants, currently 4,534 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. 

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