The Child right to a family: foster care under the lens

In accordance to Art. 20 of the UN Convention on Children’s Rights (CRC) of 1989, foster care is promoted across Europe. Notwithstanding, civil society organisations (CSOs) have identified the following problems: insufficient access to foster care and ethnic discrimination; inadequate support to the family of origin; no data exist on the effective participation of the child on the matters that concern himself or herself. This project addresses the clear need of more in-depth research and recommendations on this issue. Its general aim is the promotion of appropriate and effective forms of foster care in accordance to the spirit of the CRC of 1989, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Parliament resolution of 16th January 2008 Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child. All these legal sources highlight the need of making the child grow up in a family environment.

For the preliminary phase, we carried out bibliographic research, in-depth interviews, collection of quantitative data on foster care at national and international level. For the exchange phase, a mutual learning process at both national and international level was realized through the participation of target groups and partners. For the dissemination phase two approaches will be put in place such as the e-newsletters and a final civil society meeting along with the distribution of a project publication.The phases in detail are the following:

• literature and secondary desk analysis;
• organization of Peer Review Meetings;
• qualitative In-Depth Inquiry;
• participated identification of indicators;
• round tables on specific critical issues.

The results achieved are the following:

• identification of strengths and pitfalls on foster care, best practices, recommendations and intermediate reports to enable CSOs to stronger activate advocacy and lobby actions at local, national and European level;
• creation of guidelines contained in the project publication to reinforce social care providers from CSOs and public authorities on their approach to biological families and children in foster care;
• increased participation of the final beneficiaries in the family reintegration process and in the individual decision-making process.

The available products are:

• report on the research and on the exchange activities;
• updating of the website “child out”;
• newsletter to European stakeholders;project publication;civil society meetings.