What happens to children whose parents can't care for them?

Every Child In a Family

Children belong in families. They need to be with parents who love them, care for them and protect them.

Children should not be separated from their brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents because of poverty or lack of access to education.

Together we can make this a reality for the children of Thailand.

I am impacting vulnerable children as a:

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About Us

The Convention on the Rights of the Child Coalition for Thailand (CRCCT) members are working in partnership with each other and with the Royal Thai Government with the aim of facilitating full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Thailand.

The CRCCT has six working groups covering different areas of child rights. This website was produced for the Alternative Care working group of the CRCCT by One Sky Foundation.

Learn more about the CRCCT and the Alternative Care Working group here.

Here in Thailand and across the world many children are being removed from their families unnecessarily, before all possible efforts to support the family have been exhausted.

Poverty and its consequences remain the main factors why children are forced into children’s homes, especially in developing countries. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the U.N Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children are clear that issues of poverty for families must be solved and cannot be used as the reason to separate children.

All children should live in a supportive protective and caring environment that helps them develop to their full potential. When a child’s own family is unable, even with support, to provide adequate care for the child, the state is responsible for ensuring appropriate alternative care.

In Thailand, institutional care in the form of private children’s homes, is consistently being used as a first option for children when their families are having problems. As child rights professionals and care specialists we want to invert the funding pyramid. This means refocusing the immense amount of money being invested in private children’s homes and redirecting it to increase family support services and family based care options.

The U.N. Guidelines tell us that when children do need to be removed from their families this should be for as short a time as possible, while time and energy is invested in fixing the problems that led to the separation. Helping families in this way is called family support. Family based care options such as kinship care and foster care should always be the first choice for children, with children’s homes being the very last resort.