Investing in children: The best way to prevent separation from parents and families

The reliable and disaggregated data on children deprived of family care, living in different forms of public care is essential information to implement the UN Guidelines on Alternative Care of Children and its principle on necessity and suitability. At the same time all needed information and data would also be needed on all forms of support, universal, targeted and specialized services provided or not provided to children and their families locally to prevent separation of children, on different forms of informal care. While there have been many efforts made to prevent institutionalization of children worldwide especially in the most developed countries, placement of children out of their families for different reasons, many of them closely related to poverty is still too often accepted. Some current programs in Europe described in the article can contribute to better implementation of the current policies and recommendations globally, however there is a parallel movement towards emphasizing the need and value of institutional care and the lack of alternatives in many cases, that should also be taken into consideration. More research, evidence and data is needed to defend the arguments for deinstitutionalization.