Kinship and Foster Care: Understanding current practice in Cambodia

Family Care First (FCF), facilitated by Save the Children, is a network of organizations working together to support children to live in safe, nurturing family-based care. The Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY), through the Child Protection Department (CPD) have prioritized policy and programming to promote family based alternative care for children separated from their families, recognizing that children grow, develop and thrive best in families.

MoSVY has strengthened the policy framework to reduce the dependence on institutional care and worked to strengthen alternative care options such as kinship care, foster care and adoption. Most recently the Prakas on Procedures to Implement Kinship Care and Foster Care was approved in May 2021 to guide kinship and foster care practices.
Through this research, the CPD in partnership with FCF aims to enhance the understanding of common practices of kinship and foster care in Cambodia and identify gaps and good practices that are scalable to promote quality options for family based alternative care programs. The service providers participating in the research are FCF partners: Children in Families (CIF), Cambodian’s Children Trust, Friends International, Holt International, Hagar International, Komar Rikeay Cambodia (KMR), Mith Samlanh. M’lob Tapang and M’lub Russey.

The research applied a mixed method approach including a desk review of existing literature, collection of qualitative data through a survey with 233 carers and children in foster and kinship care, interviews with the Provincial Departments of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (PDoSVY) in nine provinces and social/case workers from the nine FCF partners. Also, a mapping exercise was conducted to identify other service providers reporting to provide foster care and kinship care in all 25 provinces.