"Keeping families together"
Our work
Alternative Care
Our Alternative Care work helps to prevent family separation, instead promoting family and community based solutions for children who are unable to live with their parents.
What is 'alternative care'?
‘Alternative care’ describes any arrangement where a child lives away from his or her biological parents.
UN Guidelines
According to United Nations guidelines, alternative care should be based on:
1. Necessity – Children should only live away from their parents if it is really necessary.
2. Appropriateness – Children who live away from their parents should be placed in an arrangement that suits their individual needs and situation.
What we do
In One Sky’s Alternative Care project:
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We try to avoid the need for children to live away from their parents by keeping families together: through food support, welfare support, education support, healthcare support, family counseling and income generation opportunities. In 2015 we worked with 124 family support cases, including 259 children and 157 adults.
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For cases where it is truly necessary for children to live away from their parents, we uphold international good practices for alternative care. For example, we pursue options such as placing children with members of their extended family. We will only place children in children's homes in true emergencies and when no other appropriate family-based solution is possible.
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We pursue family reunification and reintegration, for children who have been unnecessarily removed from their families and placed in alternative care. We believe that many of the children in Sangkhlaburi's children's homes could be returned to their families in this way, if they were given adequate support to do so.
