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.

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Need for Common Definitions

Jana Hainsworth, the Secretary General of Eurochild (to which I have been recently accepted as a member too), gave a presentation on the way EU involvement in promoting family-based alternative care falls short, at the Deinstitutionalisation Conference in Sofia, at the start of the month. One of the things she brought up in that presentation, was the need for common definitions for different types of alternative care. This is a very important point.

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