This article describes the current strategies of the  “Building a Europe for and with Children” programme, a programme of the Council of Europe. The strategy focuses on four areas of action: promoting child-friendly services and systems; eliminating all forms of violence against children; guaranteeing the rights of children in vulnerable situations, and promoting child participation. A further standard is available on children’s rights and social services friendly to children and families for ensuring that children lacking or placed outside parental care are given adequate treatment.

To facilitate well-informed decisions, the researchers collected and disseminated evidence from systematic reviews (SR) to local child welfare stakeholders in Norway through plain language summaries. This article describes that process.

This article describes the experiences of Inuit children from Greenland who were removed from their families and taken to Denmark in the 1950s in an effort by the Danish government to re-educate them as “Little Danes” and to “modernize” Greenland.

In this speech delivered at the 9th European Forum on the Rights of the Child in Brussels, Věra Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality highlights the current dangers faced by many of Europe’s children today, including poverty and institutionalization.

This rapid review of the literature on residential care for looked-after children in the UK aims to describe the use of residential care for children within the child welfare systems of England and other relevant countries; review the evidence on children’s outcomes from residential care; and review the quality of the evidence and identify gaps in the evidence base in order to inform future research priorities.

Volume 2 of the Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations provides guidance, primarily addressed to local authorities and their staff in England, about their functions under Part 3 of the Children Act 1989 which concerns the provision of local authority support for children and families. In particular it describes how local authorities should carry out their responsibilities in relation to care planning, placement and case review for looked after children.

This article from the Irish Times explains that the Council of Europe has ruled that the lack of a clear ban on corporal punishment in Ireland is a violation of children’s rights and the European Social Charter.

Norway’s child welfare agency (Barnevernet) has come under recent scrutiny for its practices regarding children of immigrant parents. According to the article, children of immigrant parents make up 40% of foster care placements.

UNICEF is calling for the rights and wellbeing of migrant children to be at the heart of Europe’s immigration policy.

This report was developed as part of a mapping study aimed at analysing the situation of alternative care and family support in the Baltic Sea Region, assessing the achievements since the 2005 Ministerial Forum and identifying relevant opportunities and challenges for the future.