Community Based Care Mechanisms

The Guidelines for the Alternative Care for Children highlight the importance of providing children with care within family-type settings in their own communities. This allows girls and boys to maintain ties with natural support networks such as relatives, friends and neighbours, and minimizes disruption to their education, cultural and social life. Keeping children within their communities (ideally as close as possible to their original homes), also allows girls and boys to stay in touch with their families, and facilitates potential reintegration.

Examples from around the world demonstrate that there are many ways children without adequate family care can be supported within their own communities. This includes both formal and informal arrangements such as foster care, kinship care, domestic adoption/Kafala, guardianship, supervised independent living, child-headed households and small group homes.

These practices can be supported through a range of formal measures including social protection schemes (e.g. child sensitive cash transfers), family strengthening services, community based rehabilitation services for children with disabilities, respite care, training for caregivers, and policies that support families in alternative care-taking roles. Increasing access to free education and health services, and establishing social assistance programmes to reduce poverty, can also help the poorest caregivers to support children within the community.

In the absence of well-developed care and child protection systems in many countries, community based mechanisms can also play a key role supporting children and caretakers in alternative care situations. Child protection Committees, faith based organizations, civil society groups, volunteer associations and other community based groups can provide financial or practical support through schemes that help to fund children’s education or health costs, link them to support services or social assistance schemes, and provide mentorship and family counseling. Home visits and caretaker support groups can also play a valuable role, while awareness raising efforts to promote children’s rights (particularly if supported by community and religious leaders), can help to reduce discrimination against girls and boys in alternative care arrangements – particularly those with disabilities or from minority groups.

As long as they are not over-burdened or given responsibilities beyond their competence, community-based groups can provide vital support to children in alternative care situations. Often however, they are hampered by weak organizational procedures, limited technical capacity and poor coordination. Continued efforts by governments, NGOs and international agencies are needed to promote their institutional development and to enhance their ability to support children.

The literature in this section describes a range of care arrangements that enable children to receive adequate care within their own communities, and community support initiatives that help to sustain them.

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Continuidad en el Cuidado de Huérfanos y Niños Vulnerables

Faith to Action Initiative, 01 Aug 2015

Esta guía es la tercera publicación en una serie producida por the Faith to Action Initiative (Iniciativa de Fe en Acción) para proporcionar a las iglesias, a las organizaciones basadas en la fe, e individuos de fe con información para ayudar a guiar la “mejor práctica”. La guía proporciona una visión general de una gama de opciones de cuidado alternativo para los niños que han sido separados del cuidado parental.

The Power Of A Single Story: Why Orphan Prevention

Kelsey Nielsen, Co-Founder of Abide Family Center - Faith to Action Initiative Archives, 20 Jul 2015

This post from the Faith to Action Initiative highlights the work of the Abide Family Center in Uganda, which helps to keep families together.

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Bottom-up approaches to strengthening child protection systems: Placing children, families, and communities at the center

Michael G. Wessells - Child Abuse & Neglect, 01 May 2015

This article examines an alternative approach to child protection which consists of community-driven, bottom-up work that enables nonformal–formal collaboration and alignment, greater use of formal services, internally driven social change, and high levels of community ownership. The article offers a case example of a community-driven program in Sierra Leone.

Replicable Models for Transition to Family-Based Care

Christian Alliance for Orphans, 01 Apr 2015

The organizations profiled in these case studies have pioneered effective transitions from residential to family-based care.

Aboriginal Cultural Connections: A Child Protection Resource Guide

Prince Edward Island Community Services and Seniors, 2015

This resource guide offers a fairly comprehensive guide to engaging with the Aboriginal community on Prince Edward Island, Canada. It includes a history of the use of residential schools for Aboriginal children, as well as a description of the widespread removal of Aboriginal children from their families and communities for adoption placement in the 1960s through the 1980s.

Journeys of Faith Study Series

Faith to Action Initiative, 2015

This six-part study series from the Faith to Action Initiative, Caring for Orphans and Vulnerable Children: A Study Guide for Journeys of Faith, is designed to support small faith group study accompanying ‘Journeys of Faith: A Resource Guide for Orphan Care Ministries Helping Children in Africa & Beyond.’

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Ending Institutionalisation: An analysis of the financing of the deinstitutionalisation process in Bulgaria

Georgette Mulheir - Lumos, 2015

According to this report from Lumos, in 2010 there were more than 6,700 children living in institutions in Bulgaria.

The First Peoples Child and Family Review: Special Issue on Custom Adoptions

The First Peoples Child and Family Review Vol 10, No 1 (2015) , 2015

The First Peoples Child & Family Review proudly presents this Special Edition on Custom Adoptions in partnership with the Siem Smun’eem Indigenous Child Wellbeing Research Network at the University of Victoria. This edition contains research articles, agency experiences, cultural perspectives and personal stories that highlight custom adoption from a historical and contemporary perspective.

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Lessons Learned From The YTSA Open Custom Adoption Program

Jeannine Marie Carriere - The First Peoples Child and Family Review Vol 10, No 1 (2015) , 2015

This article is a review of lessons learned from the Yellowhead Tribal Services Agency (YTSA) pilot program.

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Key Learnings from the Ishema Mu Muryango Program

Global Communities and Hope and Homes for Children, 2015

This document highlights some of the key learnings from the Ishema Mu Muryango program, a program designed to safely and sustainably reintegrate children living in institutions in two districts of Rwanda into their families or communities and prevent further institutionalization.