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'A huge number of children are more and more becoming victims of the insensitive digital learning and of poverty. During these times, the parents of children are losing their jobs, many households are unable to have food to eat, many do not afford to even support their families’ needs, and many do not have access to the internet and technological devices. Many children will be left behind!'
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This month’s issue of the BCN newsletter, published in partnership with Eurochild, provides insight into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable children and families - including children in alternative care - and highlights recommendations for prioritizing children in COVID-19 recovery efforts across the globe, with a particular focus on Europe.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a multitude of harmful impacts on the conditions and rights of children worldwide. Last year in Europe, for instance, children were more likely to be at risk of poverty with a growing number of parents no longer able to care for their family due to salary cuts, furlough or unemployment. In some countries such as Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, the number of children in alternative care increased by as much as 30%.
A combination of financial stress, uncertainty over the future, and confinement measures has had an impact on the increase of cases of children facing intra-familiar violence and mental health issues. Particularly affected were children in out-of-home care who badly missed outside contact during lockdown, notably access to school, sports and other outside facilities – and, worse still, their own families. Unfortunately, re-institutionalisation and significant delay to further transition from institutional to community-and family-based care were also recorded in several countries, putting care leavers in an even more vulnerable position than before.
Growing up in lockdown, a report by Eurochild featured in this newsletter issue, provides a unique in-depth assessment of the situation of children’s rights and conditions in 25 European countries. The report measures concrete effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, including, with the support of the Martin James Foundation, assessment of its impacts on children in alternative care. This issue also highlights a discussion paper produced by UNICEF and Better Care Network that elaborates on the extraordinary challenges facing children and families across the globe, and the steps that can be taken to ensure their inclusion in COVID-19 recovery plans.
“Our members on the ground have highlighted issues on the rise such as poverty (including food poverty), domestic violence, mental health issues as well as educational and digital divide. It is our duty to go beyond observations and suggest specific measures to curtail the long-term effect of the pandemic on the wellbeing of children,” Jana Hainsworth, Secretary General of Eurochild noted.
Besides concrete recommendations to improve public policies in both the short and long-term, Eurochild’s report shares good practice and lists six priority actions for the European and national levels on how to steer child-centred recovery, including maintaining, strengthening and expanding investments in deinstitutionalisation reforms. Similarly, the five-point agenda for care laid out in the BCN-UNICEF discussion paper offers a comprehensive, multisectoral roadmap to guide the immediate response to ensure quality care for children as well as the long-term investments across sectors, essential for care reform. Additional resources in this issue also point to the need for global, regional, and national COVID-19 recovery plans that safeguard child rights and support children and families who have been impacted by the crisis.
Jana Hainsworth
Secretary General, Eurochild
Florence Martin
Director, Better Care Network
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Focus on Addressing the Impacts of COVID-19 on Children and Families as Part of Recovery Efforts |
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This report reflects on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on children. It compiles information gathered from 25 countries across Europe, and provides recommendations for improving public policies in the short and long-term to support better outcomes for children and families. Out of 25 country profiles, 20 also looked at the situation of children in alternative care, including the increased risk of placement in alternative care due to financial pressures and domestic violence faced by families in light of the pandemic, as well as the impacts of COVID-19 on children in out-of-home care.
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Eurochild, in partnership with its national members hosted a webinar series to bring a children’s rights perspective to Europe’s COVID-19 recovery. Webinars in the series included:
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This new discussion paper produced by UNICEF and Better Care Network elaborates on the extraordinary challenges facing children and families across the globe, and the steps that can be taken to ensure their inclusion in COVID-19 recovery plans. The five-point agenda for care offers a comprehensive, multisectoral roadmap to guide the immediate response to ensure quality care for children as well as the long-term investments across sectors, essential for care reform.
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This briefing presents the headline findings from a survey conducted by #CovidUnder19: Life Under Coronavirus, an initiative to meaningfully involve children in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 26,258 children from 137 countries across all five UN regions responded to the survey, which aimed to find out how children's rights were being impacted during Coronavirus, using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as the framework.
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In this document, UNICEF calls for A Six-Point Plan to Protect our Children: a list of urgent actions to mitigate the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and their families. The report highlights the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, including the increase in violence against children, the challenges faced by children with disabilities, and the rise in child poverty. Among the six points, UNICEF calls on governments and partners to support and protect the mental health of children and young people and bring an end to abuse, gender-based violence and neglect in childhood; reverse the rise in child poverty and ensure an inclusive recovery for all; and redouble efforts to protect and support children and their families living through conflict, disaster and displacement.
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This review from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health aimed to deepen understanding of the effects of COVID-19 on nurturing care from conception to four years of age. The review proposes program and policy strategies to guide the reorientation of nurturing care, prevent the detrimental effects associated with deteriorating nurturing care environments, and support the optimal development of the youngest and most vulnerable children in Kenya. These include the provision of cash transfers and essential supplies for vulnerable households and strengthening of community-based platforms for nurturing care.
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This issue paper from the journal of Disability & Society describes the collective actions needed to usher children with disabilities into the "new normal" post-COVID-19 period in the Philippines. These actions focus on assistive technologies to augment information and communication, critical services to sustain medical and developmental needs, adaptive learning methods to continue education, and other social services to improve access and mobility.
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In this report from Laureates and Leaders for Children, nearly 100 Nobel Laureates and international leaders have come together with youth organisations across the world to make the same demand: that the most marginalised children in the world get their fair share of the COVID-19 response. The report calls on world leaders to come together and agree a global package to help low income countries and ensure the most vulnerable to the COVID-19 crisis receive support. The report includes recommendations on child labour, child hunger, children on the move, and education.
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This briefing from The Scottish Government summarises the current evidence (at time of writing) from Scotland and the UK on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the wellbeing of children, young people and families, including those with vulnerabilities and those experiencing disadvantage or discrimination, including care-experienced young people, children with disabilities, and others.
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Resulting from the outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown, EPIC (Empowering People in Care) decided to contact all young people’s residential centres in Ireland to ensure that the voices of young people in residential homes were being heard. This article from the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care present the results of that survey, which concentrated on the needs of the young people, issues affecting staff, how work practices had changed and what extra supports were needed.
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This report from Children's Rights was developed with extensive input from LGBTQ+ young people currently or formerly in foster care, LGBTQ+ young people currently or formerly experiencing homelessness, and direct service workers. It identifies how the pandemic is amplifying some of the risks for LGBTQ+ youth in U.S. child welfare systems and propose practices to mitigate them.
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This global report from World Vision is a consolidation of six regional reports based on consultations conducted between April and August 2020 that used a qualitative approach. The report is organised around the three themes emerging from the data: (1) the impacts of COVID-19 on children and young people; (2) their resilient responses to these impacts personally, in their families and communities; and (3) the support that children and young people need to be safe, healthy and help to fight the further spread of the virus.
Read also:
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In this consultation from World Vision, 10 girls and 10 boys in Albania and Kosovo were interviewed and shared their views and experiences of the outbreak of COVID-19. Additionally, 515 girls and boys were surveyed to understand the impact of the pandemic on their lives. Participants shared the ways in which the pandemic and the subsequent measures put in place to quell the spread of the virus, have exposed them to multiple stressors and have affected their daily life, their education, their psycho-social well-being and put them at greater risk of experiencing and witnessing violence and abuse in their families and in their communities.
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This KIDS COUNT policy report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation examines how households with children in the U.S. are faring during the pandemic. Its findings are primarily based on surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The report includes recommendations for strengthening children and families during and after the pandemic.
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The present study from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health aimed to examine the effects of the Spanish confinement during the COVID-19 crisis on children and their families, accounting for child’s age. A range of child negative (e.g., conduct problems) and positive outcomes (e.g., routine maintenance) were examined, along with a set of parent-related variables, including resilience, perceived distress, emotional problems, parenting distress and specific parenting practices (e.g., structured or avoidant parenting).
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In this study from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the authors aimed to analyze the potential risk and protective factors for parents’ and children’s well-being during a potentially traumatic event such as the COVID-19 quarantine. Specifically, the authors investigated parents’ and children’s well-being, parental stress, and children’s resilience. The study involved 463 Italian parents of children aged 5–17.
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This study from the journal of Sustainability aims to examine how families with children coped during the COVID-19 lockdown in Finland and what kind of coping strategies they developed. The results showed that Finnish families employed coping strategies on three levels: macroenvironmental, relationship, and individual.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting migrant workers’ job security, making it more difficult to send remittances. At the same time, families receiving remittances are facing their own economic and health challenges, meaning that the continuation of remittances is vital to keep them from slipping into poverty. This briefing paper from the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti outlines the potential risks of reduction in remittances due to the pandemic for children in households receiving remittances and what can be done to minimize these risks.
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Focusing on Germany, this article from the journal of Child Abuse & Neglect aims to explore some of the effects of the COVID-19 measures on children and families. Furthermore, it examines a number of key challenges for child protection practitioners. These include identifying potential cases of child maltreatment without the support normally provided by teachers and child carers; and establishing and maintaining contact with clients under physical distancing rules.
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Understanding the Situation |
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The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and certain related matters was established by the Irish Government in February 2015 to provide a full account of what happened to vulnerable women and children in Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland during the period 1922 to 1998. This report from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth presents the findings of the investigation.
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The authors of this study from Development and Psychopathology used data from a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children to examine whether caregiving quality and stressful life events (SLEs) in early adolescence (age 12) influence patterns of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity.
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The present paper from Developmental Child Welfare explores the trends of institutional care in India, where a large part of the population lives in poverty. Keeping in view the socio-economic conditions of the country, the paper attempts to explore the challenges and living conditions of children in institutional care run by government and non-governmental organizations in the regions of Punjab and Chandigarh in northern India.
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This paper summarises the findings of three years of work by the UK Children’s Commissioner’s Office and provides context for two further reports. It explains the failure of local and national government in the UK to take responsibility for children in residential care and sets out what action is needed by government – both local and national – to fix this broken system.
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Using a qualitative design, the author of this study from the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal interviewed 12 social workers to explore the benefits and challenges of family support services as a means of preventing family separation in Ghana. The findings of the study suggest that the provision of family support builds up the capacity of vulnerable families to care for children and promotes children’s wellbeing and academic outcomes. Challenges that inhibit the impact of family support services include inadequate funding and poor interagency collaboration.
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This study from the journal of Child & Youth Services aims to explore the experiences of Ghanaian care leavers to discern the factors that promote and impede their educational attainment.
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This study from the journal of Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies investigates the extent and causes of child abandonment and various practices and services in relation to prevention of child abandonment in Denmark and other high-income countries.
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Policies, Standards, and Guidelines |
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The aim of this consensus statement from the journal of Attachment & Human Development is to enhance understanding, counter misinformation, and steer family-court utilisation of attachment theory in a supportive, evidence-based direction, especially with regard to child protection and child custody decision-making.
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This brief from the Korea Institute for Health & Social Affairs discusses ways in which the roles and functions of Korea’s child welfare facilities should change to better meet the diverse needs of children in need.
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This paper from the The International Journal of Human Rights introduces the Charter of Lifelong Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out-of-Home Care, centred on the critical, lifelong and diverse information and recordkeeping needs of Australian and Indigenous Australian children and adults who are experiencing, or have experienced, Out-of-Home Care.
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In line with recent policy discussions on mechanisms to regulate informal kinship care practices, this study from the journal of Child: Care, Health and Development aimed to identify how the State of Ghana could be involved in improving kinship care experience for children.
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This article from the journal of Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond presents the case for an independent care leaving policy in Ethiopia to address the multifaceted needs of children in care and improve the care leaving service in the country.
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Through the analysis of over twenty country contexts, this study from International Social Service/International Centre of Reference for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family aims at clarifying in particular: Where does kafalah originate from? What are its characteristics in different States, and how is it recognised or enforced in another State?
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The International Care Leavers Convention, organized by Udayan Care, University of Hildesheim – Germany, Kinderperspectief, and SOS Children’s Villages, brought together Care Leavers at an international level to amplify the voices of children and young people and provide them with a platform to learn, share and exchange experiences, knowledge and challenges. This document highlights some key takeaways from the event. It's accompanied by video recordings from the event
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Thirteen youth from a group home in Taiwan for teenage boys in the foster care and juvenile justice systems participated in this yearlong study which utilized a strengths-based approach to examine resiliency, their needs, and sources of support. This article from the Journal of Health and Caring Sciences describes nine key lessons learned to keep at-risk youth at the center of future similar research studies through protecting, representing, and empowering them.
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This article from the journal of Critical Social Policy explores the Nadie es Perfecto (Nobody’s Perfect, or NEP) parenting skills workshop - aimed at ‘sharing experiences and receiving guidance on everyday problems to strengthen child development' - in terms of its relationship with the daily lives of participants, based on one year of fieldwork focused on families with young children in a low-income neighbourhood in Santiago, Chile.
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This cross-national study from the Children and Youth Services Review compares and contrasts how two states- one in the U.S. (Illinois) and one in Spain (Catalonia)—support care leavers as they transition into adulthood.
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This case study from the Population Council was employed to understand actors and perceptions of, and document best practices implemented by, the ZAMFAM program, a project aimed at improving the care and resilience of vulnerable populations, particularly those at high risk of being orphaned or vulnerable due to the impact of the HIV epidemic, while supporting HIV epidemic control in Zambia.
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This article from the journal of Relational Social Work describes the development of an information system, built in order to monitor the data gathered in the context of a pilot project for early child protection interventions with unaccompanied minors in Italy.
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This article from the Children and Youth Services Review presents descriptive information on the 25 families that enrolled in and received Success Coach services - a program implemented in North Carolina, USA that works with families after a child is reunified with their family to help stabilize, build resiliency, and other protective factors within the family - and 38 families in a control group using data from baseline and follow-up surveys and administrative data to examine safety, placement stability, and well-being.
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This study from the journal Child: Care, Health and Development examines the effect of an innovative caregiver education program in China on caregivers' perceived increase of parenting knowledge.
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This paper the journal Child: Care, Health and Development reports on the results of an online survey of parent to parent (P2P) stakeholders on how text‐based support is being used in P2P programs and whether text‐based support is perceived as providing benefits to parents of children with disabilities.
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In this video on the Do’s and Don’ts of Care Leaver Engagement, Ruth Wacuka of the Kenya Society of Care Leavers discusses what makes engagement meaningful for Care Leavers and what makes it tokenistic, and in the worst cases, exploitative. This video is part of a series of practitioner learning videos from Kenya.
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In this video, Grace Mwangi discusses the specific support needs of mothers of pre-term babies or those with a congenital condition. Drawing on her extensive experience of abandonment prevention and family strengthening work in Kenya, Grace highlights the implications of the combination of shock, stigma, social isolation and rejection and the specific developmental challenges of a pre-term baby on attachment and survival. This video is part of a series of practitioner learning videos from Kenya.
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This webinar hosted by the Center for the Study of Social Policy discussed programming in the U.S. that explores how to improve community conditions that strengthen families.
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Ground Up, 27 January 2021
The Guardian, 26 January 2021
Reuters, 18 January 2021
The Irish Times, 18 January 2021
The Guardian, 15 January 2021
BBC News, 13 January 2021
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IndigiNews, 12 January 2021
The Guardian, 4 January 2021
PressFrom, 30 December 2020
NBC News, 30 December 2020
iNews Guyana, 24 December 2020
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Nka (The Swedish Family Care Competence Centre) Linnaeus University and Eurocarers
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6-9 June 2021
Milan, Italy
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Global Studies of Childhood
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Global Social Service Workforce Alliance
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Global Social Service Workforce Alliance
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Newsletter participants, currently 4,441 in total, work on issues related to the care and support of vulnerable children across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. The purpose of the newsletter is to enable members to exchange information on matters of mutual concern. If you would like to share a document, raise a specific issue, request a newsletter subscription, or reach out in any other way to the Network, please send the information to us at contact@bettercarenetwork.org or visit our website at www.bettercarenetwork.org.
Thank you!
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Better Care Network | 521 West 146th St, PO Box 214, New York, NY 10031
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