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”Tag: #alternativecare
Community-Based Care
The need for family-based and community-based alternative care has been mentioned often in these blogs. Many decades of research has shown that children do much better when they grow up in a family and as part of a community. However, it is important to understand what community-based care really means because too often there is a misunderstanding about this, with harmful effects on the child.
Continue reading “Community-Based Care”Birthday Traditions
With my birthday coming up this weekend, I guess I had better uphold the tradition created over the past two years of writing a birthday blog (you can read the previous ones HERE and HERE). In the previous blogs, I discussed the many children who do not get to celebrate their birthday, either because they grow up in an institution where no one cares about it, or because they do not know when their birthday is because their birth was never registered. This year I want to look at the significance of birthday traditions.
Continue reading “Birthday Traditions”Mandated Rapid Return of Children
In a previous blog (HERE), I have mentioned the fact that pandemic restrictions have led to some countries requiring children in institutions to be sent home with little or no notice. Recently, the journal Child Abuse and Neglect published an article about research done on children living in institutions who had been rapidly returned to their families due to a government mandate as a result of measures taken to control the spread of Covid-19. The research did a survey on the circumstances of the rapid return of the children and the challenges that were encountered.
Continue reading “Mandated Rapid Return of Children”The Simulation Lab Conference Report
In February this year, I was a co-organiser and facilitator of the conference: Immersive Simulation Lab for Family-Based Care (you can read about the event HERE)in Pune, India. In April, I mentioned the delays in bringing out the conference report, due to the increased and shifted workload due to the pandemic and the lockdown that accompanied it, and I gave a sneak peek at the contents (you can find it HERE). As it turned out, the delays ended up being even longer than expected. However, the moment has finally arrived and the conference report is finally completed.
Continue reading “The Simulation Lab Conference Report”Deinstitutionalisation During the Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has had an enormous effect on the efforts to deinstitutionalise alternative care in many countries. The interesting thing is that there have been two main effects, pulling in opposite directions. There does not seem to be a lot of middle ground at the moment.
Continue reading “Deinstitutionalisation During the Pandemic”Eurochild’s DataCare Project
In November, I mentioned my excitement at learning that Eurochild was planning to start a research project to see whether it would be possible to come to definitions of alternative care provisions that would make data comparable across Europe. The reason why this got me so excited, is that when I was doing the research for Alternative Care for Children Around the Globe (which you can download HERE), the main problems I ran into were lack of data gathered on vulnerable children and data not being comparable between – and sometimes even within – countries.
Continue reading “Eurochild’s DataCare Project”Child Protection Issues Foreseen
In the email I posted in the previous blog (HERE), which in turn was forwarded to other organisations, a strong increase in children ending up in institutions due to the pandemic was mentioned. I would like to explain further why this fear exists, and I will also like to share with you some of the issues that came up during conversations I have had with people involved in child protection and alternative care in various countries, as a result of sending the email.
Continue reading “Child Protection Issues Foreseen”Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Continued Development
Part 20 of the explanation with the ToC: Development work is never done. There is no such thing as a perfect child and social protection system Even if someone should manage to establish something that would be considered a perfect system according to today’s best practice, by next month new insights and information will emerge to show that certain things that were long considered to be beneficial turn out to be harmful to children. So, changes need to be made again.
Continue reading “Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Continued Development”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.
Continue reading “Model for Setting Up Alternative Care System: Identifying Those at Risk”