A global approach
The challenges in preventing family separation and providing the best possible support for those children without parental care is a global one. We may go about finding our different solutions in countries and regions, but we all struggle to find ways that ensure these children’s rights are fully met. We're all facing barriers to provide everything children need to reach their full potential - regardless of their circumstances.
So what can CELCIS offer to our international partners and friends?
At CELCIS we always work in partnerships, and our extensive work in Scotland is the ‘petri dish’ where we have tested our different approaches to making sustained change happen successfully. We’ve developed these approaches into partnership-based programmes of sustainable child care policy and practice reform, and now we are happy to work with international partners building on our experience.
Just one look at the Moving Forward implementation handbook for the UN Guidelines for Alternative Care of Children gives you a good sense of the innovative and professional approach we take to our work. This was a highly collaborative piece of work, one where we were commissioned to engage with practitioners, government officials and strategic leaders from around the world to create a handbook that illustrates the policies needed to achieve care reform for children as outlined in the UN Guidelines. The handbook offers promising practice examples to illustrate how this has been done around the world, in different cultural and economic circumstances. The handbook has been welcomed, has received wide acclaim, and is now available in seven languages.
There’s more in the pipeline too. We’re excited about a new tool we’ve been commissioned to develop called Tracking Progress which will help governments recognise the progress they have made towards implementing the UN Guidelines , gaps in provision and what the next steps should be.
To make our international work so vibrant and successful, at CELCIS we bring together a colourful and rich mix of people including practitioners child rights experts, researchers, academics, technical experts, digital learning experts, and young people. This skilled and highly experienced team create relevant, effective and evidence-informed learning tools to bring about change both in Scotland, and abroad. For example:
- we deliver workforce development through training and learning,
- we deliver technical assistance through consultancy and support, and
- we support child care system reform through our framework for sustainable change.
Some of our recent partners include UNICEF, Save the Children, Better Care Network, SOS Children’s Villages International, International Social Services, Terre des Hommes and the Oak Foundation. We’ve contributed to projects in countries as diverse as Turkey, Malawi and Estonia, and we hope to keep working with our international partners to make the world a better place for all children in, and at risk of, alternative care.
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