Family for Every Child is very proud to be part of the FCDO's groundbreaking global campaign to ensure children grow up in a safe and loving family environment. Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Barry Keoghan visited our member For Our Children Foundation as part of the campaign launch.
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The UK Foreign Secretary and actor Barry Keoghan visited Bulgaria on Friday, 17 January to advocate for every child worldwide to have the right to a safe and loving family environment.
As part of the campaign, the UK will lead a new global alliance to advocate for sustainable, lasting reform of children’s social care worldwide. Six countries across four continents have already signed up to this alliance and are committed to driving forward progress on this issue. Partners include UNICEF, the UN Special Representative on Violence against Children, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Rwanda.
This includes strengthening families to prevent child separation and championing alternative forms of family-based care, such as kinship care, where a family member, relative or friend cares for a child. The alliance marks the first step in the Foreign Secretary’s campaign to progressively end the institutionalisation of children, which is up to 5 times more costly than family-based care. This will be followed by the launch of a Global Charter later this year.
Children brought up in family-based care are given better starts in life, breaking down the barriers to opportunity and giving them the chance to prosper within their local economies. The Foreign Secretary and Barry Keoghan saw how transformative this support can be at two children's centres in Sofia, which use education and extracurricular activities to accelerate vulnerable children’s development.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said:
"Every child deserves a loving and safe family environment where they can thrive and get the best start in life. Too many children are facing a life of neglect and abuse in harmful institutions such as orphanages, which do not have children’s best interest at heart."
Ambassador Barry Keoghan said:
"The Foreign Secretary is such a wonderful man and together we both can share our stories and upbringing by coming together to do everything we can to make sure all care systems function in the interest of children around the globe and that no child is left behind."
The Foreign Secretary kicked off his push for family-based care in Bulgaria, one of the UK’s most like-minded partners, which has made significant progress in reforming its care system and reducing the number of children in institutions (like large residential care homes and orphanages).
Bulgaria, which has based much of its family policy on the ideas of the 1997 to 2010 Labour government’s Sure Start Programme, is committed to closing all residential institutions for children and has introduced a ban on children under three being admitted into care institutions.
In Bulgaria, the Foreign Secretary and Barry Keoghan attended a working lunch to understand Bulgaria’s experience of care reform with Bulgarian Social and Labour Policy, Health, and Education Ministers alongside UNICEF and civil society experts. They then visited two children's centres, where they heard about efforts to prevent family separation and spoke directly to children and foster parents.
Read the full news at Gov.UK