Across the world, millions of children grow up outside their birth families – often due to poverty, conflict or loss. The safe, stable and nurturing care that many of these children need is provided not in institutions but by relatives or close family friends, in what is known as family-based alternative care, or kinship care.
Family-based alternative care (FBAC) is the cornerstone of many child protection systems globally, yet the evidence on how best to strengthen and sustain it – particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) – remains limited. To directly address this knowledge gap, CEI and our partners at Monash University are collaborating with UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Strategy and Evidence, supported by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) as part of its Global Campaign on Children’s Care Reform, to develop a series of rapid evidence reviews.
“Sadly, the number of children in need of safe and secure homes has reached extraordinary levels globally,” explains Dr Stephanie Smith, CEI Associate Director.
“We urgently need to identify the most effective ways to support caregivers in FBAC – those caring for the children of relatives or family friends – and to highlight evidence-informed strategies that can guide policy and practice in LMICs.”
While family-based care has clear benefits over institutional settings, there is still much to learn about how best to support families in FBAC across diverse social, cultural and economic contexts.
The new project will address this critical knowledge gap through a synthesis of global evidence on FBAC in LMICs over the next six months, in three complementary reviews:
Together, these reviews will provide UNICEF, its partners, and the wider children’s care community of practice a foundation for future programming and policy development aimed at strengthening FBAC systems globally.
“Our goal is to provide rigorous, timely evidence that can inform real-world decisions,” says Dr Sharon Chi Tak Lee, CEI Principal Advisor. “By integrating what we know about effective care models and implementation in different contexts, we can help shape more equitable, sustainable approaches to supporting caregivers and children.”
The project is part of CEI’s broader mission to improve the lives of people facing adversity by using evidence to inform policy and practice. It builds on our long-standing expertise in systematic reviews, implementation science, and translating complex evidence into actionable insights for decision-makers.
