Did you know that family stability and structure affect the child’s subsequent adolescent and adult mental, behavioral, and health development?Research further shows that most vulnerable children who end up doing well despite previous hardships have experienced at least one stable, supportive, committed relationship with an adult.

This emphasizes the importance of a meaningful relationship in the life of EVERY CHILD.

Challenge:
Child Separation: Ideally, all children should grow up in safe and loving family environments but sadly, we live in a complicated world with natural disasters, violent conflicts, and other humanitarian crises that cause child separation from their families.As of the end of 2017, Africa registered the largest average number of children in its migrant population, where at least one in four African migrants is a child– an average of 6.5 million in total.

To put it bluntly, this is more than half the global average, where more than (57 %) of African refugees are children. Grim– right?Sadly, it actually gets worse on national levels. As of 2020, there were 13 million vulnerable children in Kenya, according to reports by UNICEF. Out of these, millions of young girls and boys are unaccompanied or forcefully separated from their families or guardians. Some of these children are separated from their families because of wars and poverty, but others are separated from family care because of discrimination.

Discrimination may be prevalent against children living with disabilities or children of different ethnicities, gender, or sexual orientations. Some children may be separated due to government policies that fail to prioritize family care.Besides being far away from their families, separated children face heartbreaking human rights violations in different forms such as forced sexual abuse, child marriages, and child labor.

For most of these children, separation lasts for days, months– even years at times– so child separation leaves them even more vulnerable to repeated exploitation, violence, and abuse. These dreadful situations inevitably affect their mental, physical, and social development. But what if these children were not separated from their families in the first place? What if we dealt with the root causes of child separation instead?

Solution
Remember the immense developmental impact family stability and structure has on developing children?According to a study by UNICEF, the Government of Kenya, and Global Affairs Canada, more than 80% of children in institutional care have one or both living parents. Most of these children could stay with their families if some of the reasons that cause child separation, such as poverty, were mitigated in the first place. For instance, poverty is the leading reason why some children stay in institutions where they can access meals or education.

What if these children’s families were supported using sustainable parenting support programs?Fortunately, more governments and organizations globally have realized this and have come together to preserve and champion family unity through Alternative Childcare systems.Alternative Child Care advocates for childcare through family, kinship, or community-based care systems.

In Kenya, this is implemented through a set of guidelines and regulatory policies contained in the National Care Reform.The National Care Reform helps existing Charitable Children Institutions (CCIs) transition to an Alternative Childcare system that safely and sustainably reunites separated children with their families, as soon as possible.

This is done through child welfare programs and frontline practitioners who tirelessly reintegrate these children through family tracing, parenting support programs, and alternative living arrangements (where the child's safety is not guaranteed at home). Besides the heart-wrenching Child Welfare state, this is also the story of ordinary people who strive to make a difference for these children, and change lives, one child at a time!For these reasons and more, we celebrate and walk alongside first-respondent organizations and frontline workers who focus on safe and sustainable child reintegration.We salute you!

History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children

Nelson Mandela

South Africa