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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

Documents (304)

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  1. NGO's Complementary Report on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

    This report, submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1996, is complementary to the report prepared by the Ethiopian government. It is written in conformity with Article 45 (a) of the Convention, and it follows the general guidelines se

    Publication year: 1996 Publisher(s): NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child

  2. Statement to the Committee on the Rights of the Child by Human Rights in China, February 1, 1996, Geneva (and) Proposals for Questions and Recommendations in Relation to China's Initial Report for the Committee on the Rights of the Child from Human Rights

    Human Rights in China (HRIC) welcomes the various laws that the Chinese government has passed in recent years pertinent to the rights of children and infants, although the gap between laws and regulations and the reality remains unacceptably wide. HRIC ha

    Publication year: 1996 Publisher(s): HRIC, Human Rights in China

  3. Situation of children in Bangladesh 1996

    The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) signed and ratified the UN CRC, committing itself to the implementation of the Convention. As a follow-up, it prepared an updated report on the situation of children in Bangladesh. This report- prepared by Bangladesh Shi

    Publication year: 1996 Publisher(s): BSAF, Bangladesh Shishu Adikhar Forum

  4. PowerPoint presentations for the Training Manual on Children without Appropriate Care for Asia and the Pacific: Understanding the meaning and causes of a lack of appropriate care [Session 2]

    PowerPoint presentation that is part of the session materials for "the Training Manual Children without Appropriate Care for Asia and the Pacific" published by Save the Children Child Protection Initiative (CPI). This presentation, pertaining to Session 2

    Publication year: 2001 Publisher(s): Save the Children

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