Guest blogger, Dr Chrissie Gale, international lead for CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland), tells us about her latest work which has the potential to shape the drive for better alternative care for children in countries around the world

Gale, Chrissie

LSE Research Online

7/5/2017 LSE International Development – Mind the implementation gap: how child care can be improved globallyhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2017/06/06/mind-the-implementation-gap-how-child-care-can-be-improved-globally/ 1/3Mind the implementation gap: how child care can be improved globallyGuest blogger, Dr Chrissie Gale, international lead for CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence forLooked After Children in Scotland), tells us about her latest work which has the potential toshape the drive for better alternative care for children in countries around the world.Caring for children who haven’t had the best start in life is something we all want to get right. Here inScotland, this is something we take seriously. It’s reflected in Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC),our national approach to improving outcomes for children.But we are not alone in our ambitions to improve the life chances of our children. Across the globe,for many different reasons, hundreds of thousands of children cannot live with their parents.‘Alternative care’ is the provision of a safe and caring setting for children to live in whilst they areunable to stay with their families – adoption being an example of this. There are many instances ofgovernments and communities rising to the challenge of providing better alternative care for children.How does the care system work globally and how can we improve it?This is the exact question I, alongside colleagues at SOS Children’s Villages International, set out toanswer in our recent report as the result of a European Commission project. We looked at threedifferent continents – Asia, Africa and Latin America – and assessed what their alternative caresystems look like.We discovered that the popular assumption that national laws, standards and policies are theblockers of providing improved alternative care for children wasn’t necessarily true. Instead, lack ofpolitical will to implement regulations and put resources in place to develop a skilled workforce is thebigger mountain to climb.In many countries policies imported from developed countries are not culturally or contextuallyappropriate. Countries need to develop practices that are right for them. Around the world, mostchildren out of parental care are in extended family or kinship care. Great care is needed not toimpose ideas such as foster care with strangers where that might break down what already exists.Governments should obviously concentrate on preventing family separation, but also provide themost suitable alternative care for children where separation is absolutely necessary.Fostering dogsThroughout the research process I went to Chile, Ecuador and Nepal and found some amazingpositives. For instance, I visited an SOS Children’s Village where the woman in charge had a problemof children bringing stray dogs home. She put the dogs back on the street but they always cameback. Thinking outside the box, she got the children to foster the dogs. It helped them see what it’slike to take someone vulnerable and care for them, with the idea of getting them back into thecommunity, to a family. It also tackled the dog problem.Residential facilities as private businesses7/5/2017 LSE International Development – Mind the implementation gap: how child care can be improved globallyhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2017/06/06/mind-the-implementation-gap-how-child-care-can-be-improved-globally/ 2/3On the negative side we saw residential facilities set up as private businesses. Owners encouragefamilies to bring children in promising, for instance, better education so they could make money fromdonors.Some donors are individuals: in Nepal, trekkers visit a so-called orphanage, become friends of the‘orphanage’ and go back to Europe or North America to raise money for it, sometimes through asmall firm or church. But over 95% of the children have families, and if families were supported withthis money they wouldn’t give up children in the first place.To me, this was the most worrying finding. The lack of knowledge that donors have in the westernworld of where their money is actually going to needs to be addressed, and promptly.Voices of childrenWhat was absolutely crucial as part of the research process, was listening to and understanding thevoices of the young people themselves. We heard from more than 170 children and young people.The priority for all was family, even for those from very poor families or at risk of harm. They wantedtheir families supported so they could go back after a period of being in care. They usually stay in thecare system until they are 16 at least. Once they leave care, they are homeless, with no network orsocial skills, and their families don’t know them. This is hugely challenging and is a vicious circle thatneeds broken.Towards a better futureThe European Union has worked tirelessly for years in central and Eastern Europe and former SovietUnion countries to eliminate large residential institutions for children. They now wants to take thelessons learned to other places, hence why we embarked on this project.In the past 10 to 15 years many countries have developed a legal and policy framework aroundlooked-after children but, as explored above, we found the real challenge is implementing those rules.We have gained real insight into how to improve things, which has led to recommendations we hopemake a positive and lasting difference to children all over the world. One of the most crucial of thesebeing that the European Commission should educate donors to stop the flow of money fromdeveloped countries to harmful institutions.It’s about gatekeeping: services should prevent the gate opening unnecessarily for children to go intoalternative care, and open it for children to come out. The EU is committed to making positivechanges for children at risk of separation from their families or already in alternative care: thisresearch is a first step to informing future policy and galvanising resources to make those changes.Dr Chrissie Gale is international lead at CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence for Looked AfterChildren in Scotland), part of the University of Strathclyde.The views expressed in this post are those of the author and in no way reflect those of theInternational Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and PoliticalScience.7/5/2017 LSE International Development – Mind the implementation gap: how child care can be improved globallyhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2017/06/06/mind-the-implementation-gap-how-child-care-can-be-improved-globally/ 3/3June 6th, 2017 | Featured | 0 Comments

Mind the implementation gap: how child care can be improved globally

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online