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Alternative care
Millions of children are living without the loving, nurturing care that allows them to be safe and grow up enjoying their childhood. Many children remain in families unable to offer them adequate care because they are too poor and lack adequate support. Other children end up in poor quality alternative care or on the street.
Save the Children recognizes that residential care can be appropriate for a small minority of children and should be available as a last resort for those children with no other options. In those contexts, regulated, safe institutions that meet agreed-upon standards can save children's lives and give them opportunities to learn and develop that they would not otherwise have. However, scientific evidence suggests that institutional care can cause significant harm to children's physical, intellectual and emotional development, with children under the age of three being particularly at risk.
Save the Children supports the development of family-based alternative care options in children's own communities for those children who cannot be with their parents. These options include foster care, kinship care and domestic adoption. The organization supports the transition away from existing institutional care services while at the same time ensuring minimum standards during the remaining time institutions provide care for children.
There is also growing international, regional and country level action towards tackling both care and protection issues via strengthening national child protection systems and reforming the care system within the broader framework.
Photo: Chloe White/Save the Children
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Guidelines for Kinship Care, Foster Care and Supported Independent Living in Liberia
Save the Children has been supporting the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Liberia to develop alternative care guidelines as well as the capacity building plan for the DSW. The guidelines are intended to p
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Children, Orphanages, and Families: A summary of research to help guide faith-based action
This resource aims to provide a concise overview of a range of studies and findings that can inform approaches to caring for children who, through orphan-hood, abandonment, or other causes, have been separated from parental care. Included are current glob
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The Child's Right to Quality Care: Review of the implementation of the United Nations guidelines for the alternative care of children in Western Balkan countries
This review of the Implementation of the United Nations Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children in the Western Balkan Countries provides information on the capacities and efforts of the Republic of Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina in
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Ending violence against children as a cornerstone for a post-2015 sustainable development framework
Save the Children is focused on ensuring that the post-2015 framework clearly accounts for the needs and rights of all children, and sees the post-2015 debate and framework as a key opportunity to raise the profile of child protection – the right of all c
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"Yarankowane" Children Belong to Everyone: Nigeria report on Kinship Care
Children without Appropriate Care (CwAC) is a priority area for Save the Children’s child protection work for the period 2010-2015. In working toward this priority, Save the Children embarked on a multi-country participatory research initiative from 2012-
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From a Whisper to a Shout: A call to end violence against children in alternative care
This report draws on evidence from an extensive global literature review, and assessments of the implementation of the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children in 21 countries. It finds high levels of vulnerability and risk of violence facing ch
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Family Support and Alternative Care: Tallinn Expert Meeting Report 2015
In May 2015, a high-level expert meeting on alternative care and family support took place in Tallinn, hosted by the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs and the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) in collaboration with the E
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Kinship Care Album: Zanzibar
This album is a compilation of information collected from children and young people during the Kinship Care research in Zanzibar by Save the Children, in partnership with the Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, Women and Children and SOS Child
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Family Support and Alternative Care in the Baltic Sea Region: Background paper 2015
In preparation for the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) expert meeting on Family Support and Alternative Care in the Baltic Sea Region, May 2015, this background paper was crafted from relevant data and information on family support and alternative
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Kinship Care Report: Syrian Refugee Children in Jordan
Building upon a Save the Children regional participatory research initiative on kinship care that was undertaken in West Central Africa and East Africa, Save the Children in Jordan adapted the research methodology to focus on kinship care of children in a
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For the Benefit of Children Alone? A discourse analysis of policymaking relating to children's institutions in Indonesia, 1999-2009
This doctoral thesis, written by Brian Keith Babington, utilizes a discourse analysis methodology to explore Indonesia’s policy change of the institutionalization of children – children who live in orphanages or other residential institutions. One goal of
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A Sense of Belonging: Understanding and improving informal alternative care mechanisms to increase the care and protection of children, with a focus on kinship care in East Africa
Building upon a Save the Children regional participatory research initiative on kinship care that was undertaken in West Central Africa in 2012 – 2013, Save the Children’s East Africa Regional Office supported a similar process in East Africa, which resul