Family Strengthening and Support – Policy Brief

Around the world, millions of families are struggling to provide care and protection for their children. Greater political and financial commitment is needed to help build parents’ capacity to care for their children. In many areas across the world, years of conflict, natural disasters, internal migration, chronic poverty and HIV and AIDS have reduced the ability of families and communities to care for their children. Financial and social support is vital to enable immediate and extended families to provide adequate care and protection for their children, and to avoid family separation and abandonment, as well as to promote national economic and social development. This policy brief calls for greater political and financial commitment to help build parents’ capacity to care for their children and to tackle the poverty and social exclusion that underlie many of the problems experienced by children and their families.