Governments and stakeholders across all social sectors – from healthcare to education to child protection and beyond – must address the root causes of child-family separation and prioritize care and support systems to help families stay together and support children and young people.
By strengthening families in their caregiving roles and increasing their resilience to social and economic risks, we can secure every child’s right to grow up in a safe, stable and nurturing family environment.
SOS Children’s Villages recommends a three-pillar approach.
- Enhance preventative child protection.
- Expand access to inclusive family support.
- Adopt an integrated approach to care and support.
Invest in integrated care systems that enable safe, stable, and supportive family environments for every child by guaranteeing children and families access to adequate child and social protection, and both basic and specialized support services that reduce vulnerabilities across the life course.
We adopted a child-centred approach to value the lived experiences and voices of the children and families impacted by separation that are largely missing in current studies.
Because of the global gap of information regarding the situation especially in middle and low-income countries, we embarked on a groundbreaking multi-sectoral collaboration of 1,179 research participants from Cote d'Ivoire, Denmark, Indonesia, El Salvador, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and Uruguay. This involved participatory research with 517 children and young people, 290 adult family members and consultations with 368 stakeholders from multiple sectors, including child protection and social protection.
The participating academic research institutions are: American University of Central Asia, Brown University, Child Consulting Ltd., Daystar University, International University of Grand-Bassam, University College Copenhagen, Saint Joseph University in Beirut, University College Absalon, Universidad Tecnológica de El Salvador, Universitas Islam Bandung, and Universidad Católica del Uruguay.
The project was made possible through the financial support of SOS Children’s Villages Hermann Gmeiner Fund Germany, as well as SOS Children’s Villages Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.
Events and experts on understanding and preventing child-family separation
Contact Evidence & Learning for more information.
Groundbreaking global research identifies the drivers of child-family separation, concluding that a devastating web of family-level, societal, and systemic factors is causing family breakdown and driving children into alternative care. The report calls on governments and stakeholders across all social sectors to address the root causes of child-family separation and to prioritize care and support systems to help families stay together and support children and young people.
Author: SOS Children’s Villages
Rosalind Willi and Claudia Arisi
Publication date: October 2024
Full report, English (pdf, 6.1 MB)
Full report, French (pdf, 6.7 MB)
Full report, Spanish (pdf, 6.3 MB)
Full report, Russian (pdf, 6.5 MB)
Executive summary, English (pdf, 2.5 MB)
Executive summary, French (pdf, 2.6 MB)
Executive summary, Spanish (pdf, 2.6 MB)
Executive summary, Arabic (pdf, 2.4 MB)
Executive summary, Russian (pdf, 2.5 MB)
Country case study Denmark, English (pdf, 2 MB)
Country case study El Salvador, English (pdf, 2.4 MB)
Country case study Indonesia, English (pdf, 2.4 MB)
Country case study Ivory Coast, English (pdf, 2.1 MB)
Country case study Kenya, English (pdf, 2.4 MB)
Country case study Kyrgyzstan, English (pdf, 2.3 MB)
Country case study Lebanon, English (pdf, 3.1 MB)
Country case study Uruguay, English (pdf, 2.7 MB)
Social services workforce decision making, Denmark, (pdf, 313 KB)
Social services workforce decision making, El Salvador, (pdf, 357 KB)
Social services workforce decision making, Kenya, (pdf, 491 KB)
Social services workforce decision making, Lebanon, (pdf, 739 KB)
An evidence review on social services workforce decision-making processes. A rapid desk review of international academic literature and case studies from Denmark, El Salvador, Kenya and Lebanon, English (pdf, 1 MB)
Key drivers contributing to child-parents separation and placement in alternative care. Research findings from an eight county study: Denmark, El Salvador, Cote d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and Uruguay, English (pdf, 1,9 MB)