Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Identifying Those at Risk

Part 19 of the explanation with the ToC: Once there are no more children in institutions, that too is not the end of the work to be done. Family-based alternative care and family strengthening do not just serve to absorb children who previously lived in institutions. These systems are in place to provide support and protection to the most vulnerable families and children in society.

To be able to provide this protection, there is a need for ongoing collection and analysis of data. To be able to identify children who are at risk of losing parental care and families struggling to provide for their children, to know what kind of support needs to be provided to these families to prevent children ending up being separated from their families or to prevent a decline in health due to deprivation, you need to be informed of what children are at risk. You also need data to let you know that a child may not be safe living with his or her family and may need to be placed elsewhere – either temporarily while the family receives help to be better able to cope, or long-term if that is not possible – for his or her protection.

By making sure that there are systems in place to identify children at risk at an early stage – before the situation has reached a critical point – providing support to the family is more likely to be effective and separation of the child from the family becomes less likely to be necessary. This is positive for the child because outcomes for children tend to be much better when they can stay with their family, and supporting a child in his or her own family tends to be cheaper than having to fund an alternative care placement.

So a system needs to be set up to allow early identification of significant risks to vulnerable children, combined with a response system to react to that.

If you would like to read the explanation with the model from the very start, you can go HERE.

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