Measuring Better Care: Building the Evidence to Inform Policy and Practice Around Children’s Care
This special issue of the academic journal Global Social Welfare grew out of a 2014 symposium co-hosted by the CPC Learning Network and the Better Care Network, an event that convened a number of leading academics, policymakers, and practitioners involved in the development or implementation of key initiatives to better measure issues of children’s care at country, regional, and international levels. This special issue represents an effort to present state-of-the-art learning about how to measure issues related to children’s care in a way that informs more effective policies and programs. The articles listed below are included in this special issue.
Special Issue of Global Social Welfare: “Measuring Better Care: Building the Evidence to Inform Policy and Practice Around Children’s Care”
This editorial piece, co-authored by associate director of the CPC Learning Network, Mark Canavera, and director of Better Care Network, Florence Martin, introduces the journal’s special issue on measuring children’s care arrangements. Read the article here.
Section 1: Measuring Trends in Families and Children’s Care and Living Arrangements
Who Cares for Children? A Descriptive Study of Care-Related Data Available Through Global Household Surveys and How These Could Be Better Mined to Inform Policies and Services to Strengthen Family Care
This article by Florence Martin and Garazi Zulaika offers an analysis care-related data based on available surveys from 77 countries in regions throughout the world. The article argues that better use and mining of existing national household surveys, particularly the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys (MICS), has great potential to inform child protection policy and programming. Read the article here.
Measuring Children’s Care Arrangements and Their Educational and Health Outcomes Internationally
This article by Mindy E. Scott and Elizabeth Karberg summarizes efforts to measure trends in children’s care arrangements in two regions of the world, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The results from the World Family Map Project, an annual report that seeks to monitor the health of family life around the globe, are presented. Read the article here.
Section 2: Determining the Effectiveness of Policies and Programs
Early Family Support Interventions: Creating Context for Success
This article by Deborah Daro articulates why focusing on both program and context offers policymakers a promising pathway for achieving meaningful and sustainable improvements in children’s well-being and healthy development. Read the article here.
The Value-Added Impact of Fast-Track Adoption Policy on Adoption Rates
This article by Fred Wulczyn and colleagues examines whether state-level policies that guide the termination of parental rights correspond to adoption rate differences in the United States. Results suggest that policies targeting the termination of parental rights do not account for differences in state adoption rates. Read the article here.
Improving Health and Social Outcomes for Children through the Use of a Community Caregiver Service Provision Model in Côte d’Ivoire
This article by Andrew M. Muriuki and colleagues examines the impact that the use of a community caregiver service provision model had on outcomes for children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS in Côte d’Ivoire. Read the article here.
Section 3: Improving Learning about Children in Alternative Care
A Forgotten Population: Estimating the Number of Children Outside of Households in Cambodia
This article by CPC senior research associate Beth L. Rubenstein and director Lindsay Stark reviews the issues facing children outside of households and argues for the importance of gathering robust data about this population to formulate responsive policies and services, mobilize resources, and foster accountability. Cambodia is highlighted to illustrate the recent work that the government has undertaken to quantify two key subgroups of children outside of households: children living in residential care institutions and homeless children living on the street or in other public places. Read the article here.
Determinants and Consequences of Children Living Outside of Parental Care in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: Views and Experiences of Adults and Young People in Family and Residential Care
This article by CPC faculty affiliate Mónica Ruiz-Casares and Saithong Phommavong explores the determinants of child-parent separation and the consequences of existing alternative care arrangements from the perspectives of adults and young people in Lao PDR. Read the article here.
Using Child Well-Being Assessments to Track Progress in Family-Based Reintegration
This article by Su Lyn Corcoran and Joanna Wakia reflects upon lessons learned by the organization Retrak in their work with children living or working on the street and explores the challenges and the benefits of developing a body of evidence on reintegration good practices. Read the article here.
