Child Care and Protection Policies

Child care and protection policies regulate the care of children, including the type of support and assistance to be offered, good practice guidelines for the implementation of services, standards for care, and adequate provisions for implementation. They relate to the care a child receives at and away from home.

States and all organisations with child care programmes should have child care policies which are in line with national legislation and international law, e.g. the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In line with the CRC, emphasis should be placed on the child’s best interests, with support to families prioritised in order to prevent family separation. Good gatekeeping mechanisms are essential in ensuring families receive the services they need and are entitled to, and to guard against inappropriate placement into poor care arrangements.

Home-based care, day care, and other family support services are mechanisms for assisting families in providing for the child’s development and, when used appropriately, can prevent child separation. When a child is unable to remain at home, alternative forms of community based care should be prioritised, such as formal kinship care or foster care. The use of institutions should be highlighted as a last and temporary measure. All support and care provisions should outline the referral and admission process, the use of care plans, regular reviews, rehabilitation, and aftercare procedures.

Child protection legislation which recognises that abuse can be physical, emotional, sexual, or neglect, and may be carried out by parents, caretakers, children and other adults is required. All agencies working with children should have written child protection policies which respect the rights of the child. Policies should outline behaviours and actions which are unacceptable, provide standards for the appropriate care of children, and clear guidelines on what procedures to follow and by whom, including reporting mechanisms for suspected abuse to an assigned authority for investigation.

Child care and protection policies require resources and monitoring of standards to ensure their appropriate implementation. Adequate provision and training of child care and social work staff is required to deliver family support services and alternatives forms of child care. All staff working with children should be trained and supervised in providing appropriate care for children, identifying abuse, and responding appropriately.

The literature in this section contains country reports and examples of national and organisational child care and protection policies.

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An Ethnographic Study of Community-Based Child Protection Mechanisms and their Linkages with the National Child Protection System of Sierra Leone

Inter-agency Learning Initiative on Community Based Child Protection Mechanisms and Child Protection Systems, 01 Apr 2012

The objectives of this study, which was conducted from January-April 2011 in Sierra Leone, were: to learn about local beliefs and values concerning children, childhood and harms to children; to explore the actions that communities take and the mechanisms that they use for children’s protection; and to understand if and how these actions and mechanisms are linked to the government-led child protection system.

Uganda Child Protection National Training Curriculum

01 Mar 2012

Over the past two decades of humanitarian work in northern Uganda, national and international child-focused organisations as well as government departments responsible for children have built a rich body of knowledge that has informed child protection work throughout the country. The development of this Child Protection Curriculum and related training materials is therefore a first step by the Ministry of Gender, the Ministry of Labour and Social Development, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Child Protection Working Group in Uganda, and selected academic institutions to professionalise the child protection sector within the broader realm of social work in Uganda.

Experiences of orphan care in Amach, Uganda: assessing policy implications

Christopher Oleke, Astrid Blystad, Ole Bjørn Rekdal & Karen Marie Moland - Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS, 28 Feb 2012

This paper presents findings from a study on the experiences of orphan care among Langi people of Amach sub-county in Lira District, northern Uganda, and discusses their policy implications.

“I Don't Know What They Know”: Knowledge transfer in mandated referral from child welfare to early intervention

April D. Allen, Justeen Hyde, Laurel K. Leslie - Children and Youth Services Review, 21 Feb 2012

Knowledge transfer is highlighted in this paper as a conceptual framework to understand mandated referral to Early Intervention (EI) services for young children with open child welfare cases.

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The economic burden of child maltreatment in the United States and implications for prevention

Xiangming Fang, Derek S. Brown, Curtis S. Florence, James A. Mercy , 01 Feb 2012

This paper presents new estimates of the average lifetime cost per child maltreatment (CM) victim in the United States and aggregate lifetime costs for all new cases of CM incurred in 2008 using an incidence-based approach. The authors find that the lifetime economic burden of CM is approximately $124 billion. Given this substantial economic burden, the authors argue that the benefits of prevention will likely outweigh the costs for effective programs.

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Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe: Romanian Language Summary Brochure

University of Nottingham, UK, 2012

This document is a Romanian language summary brochure of the Manual of Best Practice titled ‘Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe,’ specific to child abandonment in Romania.

Harmonisation of Children's Laws in Eastern and Southern Africa

The African Child Policy Forum, 2012

This publication is a compilation of country briefs that audit and review the level of alignment of national laws with international and regional standards.

Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe: French Language Summary Brochure

University of Nottingham, UK, 2012

This document is a French language summary brochure of the Manual of Good Practice titled ‘Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe,’ specific to child abandonment in France.

Child Abandonment and Its Prevention in Europe

The University of Nottingham, 2012

This comprehensive manual provides an overview of child abandonment and its prevention in Europe, exploring the extent of child abandonment, possible reasons behind this phenomenon, the consequences of abandonment, and good practices in terms of prevention. For the purposes of the EU Daphne-funded project, child abandonment is defined in two ways, namely open and secret abandonment. Country specific in-depth reviews of child abandonment and its prevention are provided for 10 countries and results from an EU-wide survey analyzed.

Global Report: UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic 2012

UNAIDS, 2012

This report, produced by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS provides an update on the global AIDS epidemic as well as information on HIV prevention and treatment, HIV/AIDS as it relates to human rights and gender, HIV investments, HIV/AIDS estimates and data, and country progress indicators and data.