In late November 2022, Catholic sisters representing Catholic Care for Children in six countries will gather in Rome to further their efforts to see all children growing up in safe, nurturing families.  

From Global Sisters Report: 

“Millions of children worldwide live in institutions. Catholic Care for Children (CCCI) officials say 80 percent of them have a parent or close relative, but are placed there because of poverty.
‘No child should live in an institution because the family is poor or overwhelmed by the difficulty of accessing basic health services, social protection, or education for their child,”' says Sister Niluka Perera, CCCI coordinator.  Perera made comments in a statement announcing CCCI's new website, adding that the site will enable sisters and religious institutes to easily share resources with each other, the public, and the variety of organizations involved in the global care movement. 

According to the website, the initiative involves 116 communities of women religious who have already transitioned 2544 children living in institutions to family or family-like environments."

Read more on GHR partner Catholic Care for Children International, a global initiative to reform the way women and men religious care for children who are outside of family care. 

Through our Children in Families (CIF) initiative, GHR supports Catholic sisters and other key faith actors who are championing care reform. Learn more about our work.

On August 24, 2022, the Children’s Code Act became official law in Zambia. This act solidifies various rights and protections for children, and officially establishes procedures for the regulation of foster care, adoption, and child care facilities.

This is a truly monumental milestone within the country after years of hard work among GHR partners and the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services to draft, revise, advocate, and shepherd the bill through the system to become law. The Children’s Code Act adds to an already impressive list of policy changes (e.g., Alternative Care and Reintegration Guidelines, Foster Care and Adoption Guidelines, Minimum Standards of Care for Child Care Facilities) that GHR’s investments and collaborative efforts have contributed to in strengthening the child protection system in Zambia for the long-term. 

President Hakainde Hichilema signed the Children’s Act after it was adopted in the Zambian National Parliament. This legislation is aligned with international child rights standards and will enable the protection of vulnerable children, especially those without adequate parental care, children living in the street, refugee children and children on the move. The law will also protect children who have experienced violence, abuse and neglect and will ensure their access to justice.  

The adoption of the Children’s Code Act represents the Zambian Government’s commitment to the rights and welfare of the child. The Act will protect children in all settings and will create an environment where all children can grow and thrive with full potential. The GHR Children in Families team wishes to acknowledge and celebrate our partners in Zambia—ACEZ, CMMB, CRS, Save the Children, UNICEF, and ZAS—for their tremendous contributions to this achievement.     

Through long-term partnerships with local governments, GHR has worked to improve child welfare and child protection in Zambia and Cambodia, utilizing a systems-strengthening approach that prioritizes family- and community-based care for vulnerable children over a reliance on orphanages. 
Through an innovative, collective approach, the Foundation’s efforts in Zambia and Cambodia have focused on addressing the structural elements needed for sustainable, generational change, with investments in multiple partners working collaboratively in each country. This form of country systems development work attempts to address root-cause issues around child welfare and to deliver programs more effectively and holistically, in accordance with a government’s vision.

Mark Guy, Children in Families Senior Program Officer, shared “Protecting children means strengthening their schools, their home lives and even the income security for their families. It is a tall order — and not something any agency or government can manage alone. GHR is humbled by the opportunity to resource, collaborate with and learn alongside these partners.”
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GHR’s learnings are captured in two reports that describe how the Foundation and its partners focused on locally-led systems strengthening. Explore the reports below:

Zambia Summary Report 
Cambodia Summary Report 

As Pope Francis apologizes to Canada's native people for the Catholic Church's role in the forced cultural assimilation and resultant abuse of Indigenous children, he offers a humbling example of efforts towards acknowledging and responding to the intergenerational trauma caused by government-funded Christian schools that separated families and isolated children from their culture. Part of a colonial project of assimilation, Pope Francis recognized these atrocities as “the colonialist mentality (which) disregarded the concrete life of people and imposed certain predetermined cultural models.” He reminds us, as Indigenous communities have long known, that “colonization has not ended; in many places it has been transformed, disguised and concealed.”

This represents a first step in a long process, as true acknowledgement of the indelible harm caused by the Church will need to be accompanied by meaningful action. The wounds of forced separation and abuse continue to mark the lived experiences of Indigenous communities today, a painful truth echoed in the responses of many Indigenous leaders to the Pope’s apology.

Through our work, GHR has learned about the vital importance of family care for a child’s long-term development and overall wellbeing, prompting our efforts to help strengthen families alongside Catholic communities, especially with Catholic Sisters. We know the Church has the potential to be a dynamic force for good in the world, as Pope Francis illuminates, and that it will take the support of a global community to continue the healing process.

While the Pope’s visit cannot erase the trauma of the past, GHR in inspired by Pope Francis’s steps toward reconciliation. The Foundation embraces similar opportunities to model his example and reflect on ourselves, our work, the communities we serve and opportunities for reconciliation from structural and systemic harm along the way.
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Learn more about GHR’s work with the Church and family strengthening here, and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition’s work for truth, healing, and justice for boarding school survivors and descendants.

Through our Children in Families (CIF) initiative, GHR supports Catholic sisters and other key faith actors who lead with love as critical agents of change in care. To prevent children from being separated from their families in the first place, we also learn and collaborate to ensure systems overall are oriented toward family preservation and strengthening. And because alternatives to family care are sometimes necessary, we work alongside partners to ensure care is of high quality and for the shortest possible duration.

Catholic Care for Children (CCC) is a visionary initiative, led by Catholic sisters, to see children growing up in safe, nurturing families. Guided by the biblical mandate to care for the most vulnerable and animated by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching—especially the dignity of each person—CCC teams are reducing the need for institutional care by encouraging and facilitating family- and community-based care for children.

Download the July 2022 edition of AMECEA Magazine here to learn more.

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. 
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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.