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”Tag: #familystrengthening
Start with the Institution, Cover Wider Child Protection
At the end of last year, I attended an online course organised by Harvard X: Child Protection: Child Rights in Theory and Practice. It was an interesting course that gave a very good overview of what Child Rights and Child Protection entail, looking in detail at several aspects, and also providing insight into what is needed to work towards effective Child Protection. On this latter subject, one of the issues that came up was that in the past – and to a certain extent still – the tendency was to use a siloed approach to individual child protection issues, which usually led to limited success.
Continue reading “Start with the Institution, Cover Wider Child Protection”The Promise of Institutions
I have mentioned it in various ways on various occasions, but I think it is important to lift this point out and look at it closely. The point being that children ending up in institutions is not just about push-factors – such as not having anywhere else to go – there are major pull-factors. If you are not aware of this and do not take it into account, it will not be possible to avoid the unnecessary separation of children from their families or to successfully remove children from institutions.
Continue reading “The Promise of Institutions”A Story for Christmas
Today’s blog is not a Christmas story. However, Christmas is a time for storytelling, and also a time to contemplate how things may not always be what they seem. And so I want to share a story with you about a girl whom I have known for some time and about what happened to her over the past few months.
Continue reading “A Story for Christmas”Rapid Return Strategies
As mentioned HERE at the end of September an order was given in India to move 184,000 children from institutions back to their families or else into other family-based placements within 100 days. In response to this situation, I developed two strategies to help institutions prepare children for the move as well as possible in the limited time allowed and to help organisations support children who had already been moved out with little or no preparation or support, to mitigate the risks of these situations. These strategies were written in such a way that they are relevant for India, but can also be used in other countries.
Continue reading “Rapid Return Strategies”Innocenti’s Report Card Recommendations
In the previous blog (HERE), I discussed some of the finding from the 16th Report Card brought out by UNICEF’s Innocenti last month, ranking 41 rich countries on the well-being of their children. In this blog, I want to have a look at some of the recommendations given in the report.
Continue reading “Innocenti’s Report Card Recommendations”Remember the UNGA Resolution on Child Rights?
Last December, there was a lot of excitement about the adoption of an unprecedented UN Resolution on Child Rights (you can read the blog about that HERE). It raised a lot of hope that there would be a real boost in making sure Governments take measures to ensure that children can grow up in their own families or in family-based alternative care. And then the pandemic happened.
Continue reading “Remember the UNGA Resolution on Child Rights?”Family Strengthening IS Economic Stimulus
While there was a sense of relief when the EU managed to reach agreement on the Recovery Fund, which is to help EU economies fund economic stimulus to prevent the post-pandemic recession from becoming a bottomless pit, and the next EU long-term budget, there was disappointment too. There had been a lot of hope among people like me who work for child protection and child rights coming up to these talks. This was because there was to be a requirement for EU member states to spend at least 5% of the resources allocated to them from the European Social Fund Plus on addressing child poverty. In the text of the final agreement, this requirement was not mentioned.
Continue reading “Family Strengthening IS Economic Stimulus”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”Post-Pandemic Child Poverty
It is known that the current Covid-19 pandemic – in combination with the measures taken to mitigate the dangers – has very serious economic consequences, all across the world. We are expected to emerge from the pandemic into an economic recession that is worse than anything seen since the Second World War and that may even rival the situation in the 1930s. There will be widespread job losses, as well as loss of income in other ways. This situation is predicted to push millions more people – including families with children – below the poverty line. And many of those already living below the poverty line below the extreme poverty line.
Continue reading “Post-Pandemic Child Poverty”