Multistage Processes of Identifying Children at Risk or Out of Family Care: a Case of DOVCU Project Methods in Uganda

AbstractBy 1996, Uganda had about 36 Child Care Institutions (CCIs), also known as orphanages. Over recent years, there was an exponential increase in number of CCIs and most of them are not formally licensed by the government. Available evidence in Uganda indicates that institutional care is taken as priority response to out of family children without exploring family-based care options and this has detrimental effects on child development and wellbeing as well as the future. Key factors such as HIV and AIDS, child abuse and neglect, endemic poverty, migration, and family breakdown have contributed to the increase in institutionalization of children. It is against this backdrop that the Uganda Government through MGLSD introduced a National Framework for Alternative Care in the year 2012, in line with the UN Alternative Care Guidelines and Article 20(3) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that emphasized institutional care as a last resort. In this context, and the subsequent domestication of the UN guidelines, coupled with evidence of an unregulated increase in the use of residential care for orphans and vulnerable children in Uganda, the Deinstitutionalization of Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Uganda (DOVCU) project was very relevant and timely. The overall objective of the project was to support actualization of Alternative Care Framework (ACF) in Uganda, by working with CCIs to re-conceptualize and embrace family-based care but also work with communi...
Source: Global Social Welfare - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research