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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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Family Group Conference in Sri Lanka: A Manual for Trainers and Practitioners
In 2006-2008, The Family Group Conferencing (FGC) was introduced to the governmental childcare structure in Sri Lanka Tsunami response in the Southern Province. As stated in the manual, “the simplicity of the approach and the compatibility of the core con
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Assessment tool for the implementation of the UN Guidelines for the alternative care of children
SOS Children's Villages has produced this assessment tool to benchmark the implementation of the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. It has been designed as the principal research tool of SOS Children's Villages to support advocacy activit
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Stepping up for kids: what government and communities should do to support kinship families. Policy report
This report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation assesses the practice of kinship care within the United States, reflecting upon the widespread use of this care practice, the complexities facing families involved in this form of care and the interventions a
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Africa: The New Frontier for Intercountry adoption. Addis Ababa: The African Child Policy Forum
The report provides an analysis of the law and practice of intercountry adoption in Africa, with the aim of informing debate on conceptualising, developing and implementing polices, laws, programmes and research in relation to intercountry adoption in Afr
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Children living with and affected by HIV in residential care. Desk-based research
The phenomenon of residential care has been growing in recent years, and HIV is one of the factors considered to be a cause. To find out more about the scope of this problem, EveryChild and Maestral International have been commissioned by UNICEF to help i
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Family first: Prioritising support to kinship carers, especially older carers
'Family first: prioritising support to kinship carers, especially older carers' is the fourth in EveryChild’s series of papers promoting positive care choices for children living without parental care. It is produced jointly with HelpAge International. Th
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Because We Are Sisters and Brothers: Sibling relations and alternative care
"Because we are sisters and brothers" describes the most important outcomes of research activities and documentations about sibling relations in alternative care from five different countries: The SOS Children’s Village associations in Germany, Austria, F
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Children under the age of three in formal care in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A rights-based regional situation analysis
At least 1.3 million children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are separated from their families due to poverty or families` inability to cope with stressful circumstances, reveals the study 'Children under the age of three in formal care in Eastern Eur
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A Generation Out of Place: The chronic urban emergency in Rift Valley, Kenya. Report from Profiling Children Connected to the Streets in Rift Valley Province
Research was conducted in five Rift Valley towns (Eldoret, Kitale, Molo, Nakuru, and Naivash) to understand the link between emergencies and the perceived increase of children joining the streets. Findings show that emergencies such as Kenya's post-electi
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Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe
Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly states that every child has “the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents”. When a child is abandoned, this right is violated. Infants and young children are those m
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Speaking freely: Children and young people in Europe take action on ending violence against children in custody. Campaign Report
This report is published as part of the Ending Violence against Children in Custody project, coordinated by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) and funded by the European Commission’s Daphne III programme. The Ending Violence against Childre
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Toolkit on the Use of European Union Funds for the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care
The purpose of this toolkit is to assist all public authorities in Europe involved in the programming and implementation of EU Structural Funds (and other relevant funds) to make decisions which will help to improve the lives of more than a million Europe