Keeping Children Out of Harmful Institutions - Save the Children

5 Conclusions and
recommendations: what
needs to change
Millions of children are currently living in harmful
institutions. Many more children are being
abandoned into them every day. Governments,
multilateral organisations, donors, NGOs, faithbased
organisations and communities must all take
action now to stop the harmful institutionalisation
of children.
Some countries have already taken steps to protect
and care for their children. Unfortunately, these
efforts are too few and far between, and too often
lack long-term political and financial commitments.
The design and delivery of national and local
childcare and protection systems must be
transformed to enable families to look after their
own children, and to ensure that, where necessary,
children have access to positive care alternatives.
The new international Guidelines for the Appropriate
Use and Conditions of Alternative Care for Children
provide the framework for action.
Above all, greater political commitment is required
to spearhead these changes. The challenges to
creating positive care options for children can and
must be overcome. Governments, together with
other development actors, must prioritise this issue
and put an end to the political apathy, corruption
and misconceptions that surround it. This will
require a new era of political leadership to ensure
that positive childcare and protection practices are
pursued at every level.
Save the Children is calling for:
Every government to make a long-term
commitment to building family support
services and family-based alternative care,
and to tackling the overuse and misuse of
residential care in line with the Guidelines.
This should be reflected in budget allocations,
national strategies, and laws and policies that
prioritise the prevention of family separation,
and that ensure that children have access to
good quality family-based care alternatives where
necessary. Particular priority should be given to
ensuring that children under the age of three can
stay with their own families or have access to
family-based alternative care.
Governments to ensure that all forms of
alternative care adhere to the principles
and standards set out in the Guidelines by:
• creating and enforcing national minimum quality
standards through certification, inspection
and monitoring
• taking legal action against unregistered or
unlawful care institutions
• building an effective cadre of social workers,
capable of supporting and monitoring the care
of children, including re-training institutional
care providers where necessary
• creating coordination mechanisms at every level,
so that government, care providers and donors
can work together effectively to prevent and
respond to care and protection concerns.
21