In 2022, 40 sisters in Zambia, 17 in Uganda and 27 in Kenya will graduate, joining a growing cadre of sisters with degrees in social work or allied fields. They have studied diligently, worked hard, and pursued their training during a pandemic. They are already using their new knowledge and skills in caring for children and their families.   

These sister scholars are the backbone of Catholic Care for Children, a sister-led, charism-driven movement to ensure children grow up in safe, nurturing families.  With growing appreciation for the importance of family for a child’s wellbeing and the concomitant risks of institutional care, they are leading efforts to transition from over-reliance on institutions toward family- and community-based models of care for children.  In leading the transition, they are using their newly accrued skills to help strengthen families and ensure children can grow up in families or family-like environments.   

GHR produced this summary encapsulating the scale and impact of Catholic sisters in care, along with accounts of what their work has meant to them.

Read the summary here.

From The Monthly Grind, Official Newsletter for the Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya:

One of the most common contributors to the vulnerability of children around the world is separation from the love, care, and protection of their parents and families. Loss of parental care has many causes. Millions of children globally have already been separated or are at risk of being separated from their families due to poverty, diseases, disability, death, abuse, or any other cause. 

Kwetu Home of Peace is one of the Charitable Care Institution (CCI) allied to AOSK-Catholic Care for Children in Kenya (AOSK-CCCK) that rescues, rehabilitates and re-integrates street connected boys back to their families. On 8th October 2021, Kwetu Home of Peace held a thanks-giving mass to celebrate the reintegration of 34 boys whose parents and guardians had came to pick them home after a process of rehabilitation at the Centre. The celebration brought together all the 34 boys  who were being re-inserted to their families , the other boys still under rehabilitation, parents, guardians and invited guests.

Sr. Jane Rose Nyongesa, the director of Kwetu Home of Peace, in her opening remarks, invited the children, parents and guest to the thanksgiving celebration and noted, “Today we are gathered here to celebrate the 34 boys who have successfully finished rehabilitation and are being reintegrated back to their families. The journey began in 2018, when we rescued these boys from the street and committed ourselves to rehabilitate and reintegrate them. Today as an institution, we are happy that parents are here to take their children and continue nurturing them, loving and raising them up. The family is the most Important Institution in the children upbringing, and therefore it’s our joy, the boys are re-united back with their families.”

Mrs. Mary Anyango, a mother who was reunited with her son, Moses Otieno noted that, “As a mother it gives me joy and happiness to see my son after 5 years of separation, the reunification process today has given me a second chance to extend my motherly love and care towards Moses.” On his side Moses Otieno alluded, “During the few bonding times, we had with my mother, it feels excited when I have someone I can refer to as mother and the affection given by my mother which cannot be compared to anything else.” 

Sr. Delvin Mukhwana (DHM) the Project Manager for AOSK-CCCK while giving her speech noted that, a scriptural basis for family care is bolstered by a strong academic evidence base, which consistently finds that children who are cared for by families are more likely to thrive than those in residential care. Residential cares are often promoted as more adequately providing material needs than some families’ do, without recognizing the vital social and emotional role that family relationships play in a child’s life. Regardless of the quality of care in residential settings, children often face isolation, loss of a sense of belonging, identity struggles, and difficulty-maintaining connections given the lengthy periods of separation from their families, therefore Sr. Delvin Mukhwana encouraged the parents to be the cornerstone of upbringing their children in a family set up.

​It is high time for all of us to stand up for the care reforms for the children by promoting families values, positive parenting and family support so that children are not separated from their families because of basic needs that can be received from families, so that, the rest of the family is enhanced in remaining together, than taking children in orphanages and rescue centres for years being held hostage in the name of support. The Catholic social teaching urges that, parents be supported in their effort to raise well-formed, healthy children. AOSK-CCCK program is funded by GHR Foundation.

A recent evaluation of Catholic Care for Children in Uganda (CCCU), a project of the Association of Religious in Uganda, shows promising results for children and families. 

Catholic sisters and brothers have become champions of care reform, taking strides to see that children grow up in families or family-like environments instead of institutions. Nearly 1,000 children have been re-united or placed with families with support from Catholic sisters and brothers trained in social work and case management and resourced with state-of-the-art tools. This model has been replicated by Catholic sisters in Zambia and Kenya. The example of sisters from Africa spurred the International Union of Superiors General (UISG/Rome) to launch Catholic Care for Children International in October 2020, to support Catholic sisters across the globe in efforts to reduce recourse to institutional care for children in favor of family- and community-based approaches. 

To more fully understand the results of this work and how they were achieved, in 2020 GHR Foundation commissioned a midterm evaluation of CCCU with hopes it would inform, encourage, and inspire.

Read the full report here:

Over 1.5 million children lost a parent, custodial grandparent, or other relative who cared for them during the first 14 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a first global study estimates.

From The Lancet:

"The COVID-19 pandemic priorities have focused on prevention, detection, and response. Beyond morbidity and mortality, pandemics carry secondary impacts, such as children orphaned or bereft of their caregivers. Such children often face adverse consequences, including poverty, abuse, and institutionalization. We provide estimates for the magnitude of this problem resulting from COVID-19 and describe the need for resource allocation."

Read the full study here.

GHR envisions a world in which all children—especially those without, or at risk of losing, parental care—are living in a stable, positive, long-term family. Global research demonstrates that children raised in families have better cognitive, emotional and social outcomes than those living outside family care.

Recognizing that advancing this vision required learning from those already in the field, GHR partnered with Alia Innovations, a Saint Paul-based organization driving transformative change for the people and systems entrusted with the welfare and care of children.

Collaboration with Alia illuminated a clear need in the care sector for an accessible, easily applicable, universal messaging system around the long-term benefits of family care for children. Turning to the Frameworks Institute in Washington, D.C, GHR and Alia worked to develop simple, compelling, and far-reaching messaging strategies to advance their common efforts to preserve family connections around the globe, while simultaneously spreading this call to action to partners worldwide.

GHR hosted a webinar in May 2019, led by the Frameworks Institute, to share with partners in the space the initial messages and framing strategies -- interrogating the ideas behind them, and generating critical discussion and feedback. Language was added around attachment and love as an angle of the brain architecture, a message that FrameWorks found to be effective among broader audiences. 
​
Based on these resultant recommendations, Frameworks then crafted a day-long workshop for advocates in the care sector, covering framing techniques aimed at ensuring that specific, clear messaging was communicated to relevant audiences in a manner that was persuasive and easily applicable. Held a few days prior to the Elevate Children Funder’s Group Annual General Meeting, several members of ECFG were in attendance, creating a space where advocates could share their personal experiences and learnings.

The next steps in this process include using these framing recommendations for future communications around family strengthening and care for children, and supporting initiatives doing the same.  

GHR Foundation's Children in Families funding supports child protection interventions that strengthen families, respond to children without family care and drive further evidence of innovative approaches. ​In Uganda, GHR’s Sister Support initiative found Catholic sisters are well-positioned to realize the best possible outcomes for vulnerable children and children living outside of family care by combining the Catholic tradition of care with insights from contemporary research.

In 2016, with guidance and funding from GHR, the Association of Religious in Uganda formed Catholic Care for Children in Uganda (CCCU) to unify Catholic sisters championing reform. The organization has helped hundreds of Catholic leaders and administrators from care institutions understand new child protection legislation and embrace an alternative care framework.

This week, CCCU launched a comprehensive new child protection policy at the Association of Religious in Uganda’s annual meeting of religious institute Superiors. Formed by stakeholders including Superiors, administrators and Diocesan representatives, the policy is an important document required by law to provide guidance for work with vulnerable children. The new policy will now be disseminated to stakeholders for implementation.

Designed to protect children from abuse or neglect, the child protection policy outlines best practices for ensuring the safety of child for whom services are being provided. Training manuals on child protection are currently being distributed to congregations of Catholic sisters, staff members of care institutions, political leaders, parents and community members through radio messages, community dialogues and home visits. Members of the Association of Religious in Uganda plan to visit religious institutes and provide detailed in-person trainings.
​
Recognizing the right of every child to life, dignity, development and protection, this new policy indicates a commitment by Catholic sisters in Uganda to minimizing risk, practicing accountability and maintaining a proactive approach in their efforts to provide family-like care for vulnerable children. To learn more about how Catholic sisters are joining the effort to provide stable, positive, long-term family or family-like environments for children, contact us.

At GHR, we value sharing knowledge and listening to one another. We find every opportunity to cross-pollinate between programs, foundations and initiatives, leveraging expertise and boosting creativity. One such collaboration is happening now, between our Children in Families and Sister Support initiatives.

In 2016, when the Ugandan parliament passed progressive legislation to ensure better outcomes for children living outside of family care, Catholic sisters stepped up and championed reform. With guidance and funding from GHR, Catholic Care for Children in Uganda—part of the Association of Religious in Uganda—is leading the way toward a “family-like environment for every child.” In its first nine months, the organization “won hearts and minds,” helping hundreds of Catholic leaders and administrators from care institutions understand the new legislation and embrace an alternative care framework.

​Phase one of Catholic Care for Children in Uganda is well underway. Of the seventy Catholic brothers and sisters slated for social work training, the first 22 successfully completed their first semester in May. More than a hundred people have taken intensive courses on child protection and a high-quality child protection policy has been adopted by the Association of Religious in Uganda.
 
Catholic Care for Children in Uganda leadership is planning for phase two, during which it will help congregations responsible for 46 Catholic care institutions implement best practices and pilot efforts to move from institutionalized care to community- or family-based care. These efforts will lay the groundwork for a larger movement toward the alternative care framework. Catholic Care for Children in Uganda is an exciting cross-initiative collaboration, advancing the goals of both our Sister Support Initiative and our Children in Families initiative.

Through this collaboration, we are strengthening Ugandan congregations in ways that ultimately benefit children. By sharing expertise and thinking outside the box, we can find truly innovative solutions. To learn more about GHR's Children in Families and Sister Support initiatives, contact us.

From the European Foundation Centre Blog:

"From Sihanoukville, Cambodia to Makululu Compound in Zambia, we are seeing children reunited with their families. These communities, recovering from issues like conflict or the impact of HIV/AIDS, are getting stronger day-by-day.
​
One fact is central to our work in these communities: Most children living in orphanages..."
Read more

When international nonprofits approach global development issues, they often use a top-down structure to work with local partners. This makes sharing local knowledge and best practices difficult, and diminishes the ability of local partners to influence governments or implement policy change.

In 2009, U.K.-based nonprofit Every Child realized the limitations of their approach to helping vulnerable children and families. Taking a radical leap of faith, they decided on a creative, innovative restructuring. Every Child disbanded itself and began a seven-year planning period, emerging in 2016 as Family for Every Child, an independent global alliance of former international partners and grassroots civil society organizations.

Family for Every Child’s act of creative reconstruction attracted GHR’s attention, and ultimately, support. In 2012, our Children in Families initiative became one of Family for Every Child’s first funders, issuing a small grant to assist them in capacity building for membership engagement. More recently, we supported Family for Every Child’s development of Guidelines on Children’s Reintegration, a valuable resource for child protection around the world. Today, Family for Every Child is a global alliance composed of 30 organizations with shared goals, connecting and collaborating to break the glass ceiling that prevents many local organizations from achieving policy changes that effectively protect children.
​
Bold nonprofits that choose innovative, lean approaches to global problems often lack the support necessary for growth. To fill this gap, GHR is committed to supporting organizations like Family for Every Child. We believe impact can be maximized when approaches to challenges are continuously re-imagined, and we hope to collaborate with more organizations that embrace risk and reinvention to better serve the communities in which they work.

​GHR funds collaborations between nonprofits and civil society organizations because we value bold and innovative solutions to challenges faced by vulnerable children. What does collaboration look like within your organization or alliance? Share your success, opportunities and questions in the comments below or learn more about GHR’s Children in Families initiative here.

GHR Foundation's Children in Families initiative is working in Cambodia to support child protection interventions that strengthen families, respond to children without family care and drive further evidence of innovative, pro-family approaches. This geographic focus began less than one year ago, and the dedication demonstrated by our partners is already showing progress.
 
One of these partners is First Step Cambodia (FSC), an organization focusing on the male victims and survivors of sexual abuse and their families and communities. FSC provides direct services to children and families, expands organizational training on child abuse and conducts research on Sexually Harmful Behavior (SHB), as well as related gaps in social work practice. In the first few months of partnership with GHR, First Step Cambodia began collaborating with other GHR partners, including M’lup Tapang, M’lop Russey and Angkor Hospital for Children, to support services for children affected by sexual abuse and SHB. This relationship has already resulted in referrals, the co-management of complex cases, collective effort to support cases and the sharing of resources and expertise. Interventions provided by FSC have brought positive changes to clients’ lives. Eight cases were closed during the first half of 2016, and significant improvements were made in helping children cope with fear, communication, difficulty at school and isolation. FHC has witnessed families who fully support their children instead of blaming them, and communities which welcome victims back instead of discriminating against them.
 
Another partner demonstrating early impact is Bethany Christian Services, which is working in Cambodia to increase the number of children placed from orphanages into long term foster, foster-adopt and kinship care families. They are doing so by building a platform of services, including networks of churches and non-governmental organizations that provide alternative care services to children. During the first half of 2016, Bethany placed 20 children in kinship care. Eight children were placed in new long term foster homes, and 20 families have undergone training and preparation to be foster families. In addition to providing direct services to families, Bethany is training four other organizations to care for vulnerable children and orphans within families. They plan to expand this training program to include ten partner organizations.
 
The inspiring progress of grantees like First Step Cambodia and Bethany Christian Services is indicative of the change that is possible in Cambodia. Each child they serve brings us closer to a world where all children—especially those at risk of losing or without parental care—are living in a stable, positive, long-term family or family-like environment. To learn more about GHR’s work in Cambodia, contact us.