Recently, I was giving training on case management to a team working to safely reintegrate institutionalised children into their families. As is usual, the issue of challenging behaviour of the children and where it comes from came up. As we were discussing this, I was suddenly struck by a link to something Trevor Noah – a South African comedian in the US – said so eloquently last year.
Continue reading “Children’s Lives Matter, So Let’s Fix the Contract”Category: Awareness
UN Day of General Discussion: Children in Alternative Care
Last month, the UN Day of General Discussion took place. Usually, this happens every two years and it was due last year. However, with the pandemic, it got postponed to this year and was held virtually for the very first time. It had been organised by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and it had been long anticipated by people working in my field. It was considered the next step after the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.
Continue reading “UN Day of General Discussion: Children in Alternative Care”How to Get Better Data
There is an increasing understanding of the essential need for data on children in vulnerable situations, including children on the move, children in alternative care, children without parental care, and children in poverty. The call for adequate data on the number of children in these situations and the support that is or is not available to them is growing day by day, from a variety of large international organisations – such as UNICEF, Lumos, Eurochild, Hope and Homes for Children and SOS Children’s Villages – as well as from people in academia. The more people start to become interested in data on children in vulnerable situations and start looking around for them, the more obvious it is that there is a serious lack in this area.
Continue reading “How to Get Better Data”Abuse of the ‘Best Interests’ Argument
There are constant loud calls for the need to make sure that Child Rights are integrated into the legislation of every country, and rightly so. Except for the USA, all countries in the world have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, meaning they have committed to upholding Child Rights, something that is only possible if these rights are embedded in national legislation. Therefore it is also right that every time a country takes the step to integrate Child Rights into their legislation – as Scotland did recently – this is applauded and highlighted. However, it turns out that countries claiming to uphold Child Rights and serving children’s best interests is not something that should be taken at face value. Because sometimes these claims are made to defend practices that are not in children’s best interests at all.
Continue reading “Abuse of the ‘Best Interests’ Argument”Understanding Alternative Care
On the international stage and in discussions among child protection experts the term ‘alternative care’, referring to care provisions where children who are unable to live with their parents are placed, is used freely and confidently. On the surface, there seems to be a clear consensus about what we are talking about. However, below the surface, things are far less clear-cut.
Continue reading “Understanding Alternative Care”Lived Experience of Family Preservation
The impression often exists that it is easy for the experts to talk about things like the need for deinstitutionalisation, for family strengthening, for community services, for helping families take care of their children with disabilities. It is easy to talk about all of these things in theory, but what do they know about the difficulties of the daily reality of these situations. I cannot answer this question for other experts, but in my case, the answer is: quite a lot.
Continue reading “Lived Experience of Family Preservation”Best Intentions, Yet Still Causing Harm
My new book: Best Intentions, Yet Still Causing Harm. Why volunteering in orphanages does not have the effect you hoped for, is now available (after some delays, mostly pandemic related). After having witnessed the effects of volunteering in ‘orphanages’ on children for over a decade, I decided it was time to make other people aware of the unintended, but serious, consequences of this kind of volunteering.
Continue reading “Best Intentions, Yet Still Causing Harm”Orphanage Industry in Myanmar Under the Coup
The news of the military coup in Myanmar and the turmoil there is very worrying in itself. However, when I heard about it, the first thing I thought about was the children. Particularly the children who have been recruited into the orphanage industry – ‘orphanages’ run for profit, something that has boomed in the country, over the past decade. What is going to happen to them?
Continue reading “Orphanage Industry in Myanmar Under the Coup”Cooperation, Not Competition
Over recent weeks and months, several initiatives have been launched to bring together experts in the fields of child protection and alternative care reform. The aim of these global workgroups or committees is to try to get past the current practice of many people/organisations working in parallel in countries, with a similar aim but different approaches. Something that is both inefficient and expensive. Plus it creates a lot of confusion. Getting past this and trying to develop a common approach and increased cooperation is a great, and important, goal. Though unfortunately not one that is within sight just yet.
Continue reading “Cooperation, Not Competition”It Is Not Just the ‘COVID-generation’
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the effects of the pandemic and the restrictions put in place to control the spread of COVID-19 on children. A lot of concerns are raised about the impact of increasing child poverty, lack of access to education, and reduced opportunities for socialising. Fears are expressed for the long-term effects on children’s health, development, educational achievements, mental health and lifelong potential. As one policymaker recently put it: this generation will forever be known as the COVID-generation.
Continue reading “It Is Not Just the ‘COVID-generation’”