From a Child’s Rights perspective, the workshop covers abuse, neglect and abandonment of children with and without special needs who are removed from parents or given a place of safety due to being unaccompanied or refugee children. The use of residential care institutions rather than other forms of alternative care (such as foster care or adoption) is discussed in relation to critical periods in human development and the effects of adverse/traumatic experiences. It presents the latest figures for the number and characteristics of all children in residential care institutions and foster care for 54 countries in Europe and Central Asia 2013 and compares the number of young children under 3 years to a previous survey 10 years earlier 2003. The alarming rise in unaccompanied and refugee children in residential care institutions is also discussed.
In July 2011, UNICEF launched a call to action to end placing children under 3 in residential care institutions. The same should apply to older children, especially as adolescence has also been identified as a critical period for brain and socio-emotional development. In countries with community with good support services, the child's needs are considered when placing children in public care but placing siblings together and family care for disabled children still remain problematic. Adoption practices that suddenly relocate children to unfamiliar carers without support often result in placement breakdown and further damage to the child. This poor practice is commonly seen in international adoptions, where the needs of the child are rarely considered.
Children, especially those unaccompanied or refugees, continue to be frequently placed in institutional care throughout the world. This occurs despite wide recognition that institutional care is associated with harm and negative consequences for children’s development. The workshop consider the evidence for critical periods in human development and the harm to both young and older children caused by institutional care. It describe a Model of Best Practice involving 10 steps to de-institutionalise and transform children's services, which has been published on UNICEFs Better Care Network and is used by Lumos and Hope and Homes in Europe, and RELAF and Hope and Homes in Central and South America.
