Throughout the past year, we’ve seen a significant upscaling of our strategy as we strive to extend our reach and provide more children with the opportunity to grow up in nurturing family environments. Our strategy is centred around the recognition of the pivotal role families play in children’s lives, which has since been echoed by the UN General Assembly’s mandate in 2019 to phase out institutional care in favour of community-based family placements.
Building upon the success of our work in China, we are now embarking on a mission to share our model globally. This ambitious undertaking meant we had to reassess how best to go about aiming to reform childcare services and prioritize family-based care. A key part of our new expansion strategy has been setting our sights on establishing regional hubs to expand our capacity to serve more countries, more efÏciently.
In January, we ventured to Yerevan, Armenia, at the invitation of Minister Narek Mkrtchyan, laying the groundwork for potential collaborations across the Middle East. Our journey continued
with a momentous signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in July at Kensington Palace, followed by a successful international Family Placement Conference in Yerevan in September to serve the South Caucasus and Middle East regions.
March saw us in Thailand, preparing for a national family placement media campaign where we set about raising awareness about the importance of family care. Our efforts culminated in a highly impactful press conference in April, garnering significant attention and support.
Similarly, our visit to Hanoi, Vietnam, reinvigorated our project there, leading to the establishment of a joint ofÏce with the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA). This progress has culminated in the selection of a new project site in Hu ́ê, a region with a particularly pressing need that we can begin to address in 2024.
September brought us to Hong Kong and Singapore, where we
had the opportunity to screen the documentary ‘Children of Shanghai’ and make new connections. I’m pleased to announce that we have now established both a board of trustees as well as an ofÏce in Singapore, to serve the Singaporean community and bolster our fundraising efforts. I also had the privilege to return to the Ministry
of Social and Family Development to discuss and give advice on family placement services.
Strategic planning meetings in Atlanta, USA, cemented our roadmap for the future, guiding our efforts to expand and innovate. This includes the use of ‘My Family’, our new digital and online training and resource tool that has the potential to scale up our project work globally in a much more efÏcient and effective way.
Looking ahead, our goal is to make ‘My Family’ a self-sustaining project
in Singapore, that we can deliver
to the Ministry of Social and Family Development to support their family care services. It can then be a model of best practice for new regional training and resource hubs that we intend to establish around the world. To achieve this, we must scale up our operations, human resources, funding capacity and develop new pilot projects in
our hub countries. As I hope you can
gather, this is an exciting and dynamic time for Care for Children!
Thank you for all those who support this work, especially those who go un-noticed but give sacrificially. Together, I like to think of us a global family of our own, who appreciate the difference a warm loving family has on a child. We understand children that grow up outside of a family often develop attachment disorders relating to identity, self-esteem and the ability to form relationships. We can make
a difference by establishing that the family unit is a pillar to society, crucial to the wellbeing of communities,
and more importantly, necessary for giving a child everything they need to develop into who they’re meant to be.
Best wishes,
Dr Robert Glover OBE Founder & Executive Director
https://www.careforchildren.com/documents/CFC_ANNUAL_REPORT_2023.pdf
