From walls to homes: Child care reform and deinstitutionalisation in Ghana

Abstract

In 2006, the Ghanaian government, in partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), began to reform the child welfare system. The main aim of this reform was to provide a sustainable and culturally appropriate system of care for children without parental care by shifting from an institutional‐based model to a family and community‐based one. Drawing on existing peer‐reviewed and grey literature, this article provides an overview of the major components of the reform, including reintegration with the extended family, foster care and adoption. In addition, the article discusses the prospects and challenges involved in achieving the reform's intended component. Key Practitioner Message: ● Use community development techniques to raise the resources needed to provide family support services for vulnerable families; ● Social work practitioners partner with non‐governmental organisations to train community members as para‐social workers; ● Social workers, especially in developing countries, understand the challenges they face when embarking on deinstitutionalisation.

Raising African Voices in the Global Dialogue on Care-Leaving and Emerging Adulthood

“…This bleak “received wisdom” needs to be considered when thinking about care-leaving in Africa, but also must be located geopolitically. While the international literature on care-leaving does include African material (e.g., Frimpong-Manso, 2014; van Breda, 2018; van Breda & Dickens, 2016; van Breda & Hlungwani, 2019), it has overwhelmingly emerged from a limited number of countries in the Global South. With that limitation goes the danger of closed assumptions that block off questioning and dialogue, both within and across national boundaries and geopolitical regions, particularly between the Global North and South.…”

“…By contrast, and bearing in mind the unavailability or inadequacy of data in Africa (Cameron, Hauari, & Arisi, 2018), it seems that most children in Africa enter the care system because of the inability of macro-level systems (clans and communities) to provide adequate care. Frimpong-Manso (2020), for example, mentions that most children in residential care in Ghana are there because of economic difficulties in the family/clan (also Frimpong-Manso, 2014). Given the relatively small numbers of children in care in most African countries, it is likely that the family/clan continues to care for the majority of vulnerable children, but that when the clan’s capacity is exhausted, children are taken up by children’s homes.…”

Talking Back to ‘Family’, ‘Family Troubles’, and ‘the Looked-after Child’

“…Perhaps in response to the UN guidelines, there appears to be a developing trend of de-institutionalisation around the world with a significant growth in foster care and smaller group homes that are said to be more family-like. Examples demonstrating this trend are described by Frimpong-Manso (2014), Ivanova and Bogdanov (2013), Johnson et al (2014), Knuiman et al (2015), Quesney (2011), Samašonok (2015), Sovar (2015), and Walker (2011).…”

The Challenges Facing Children Reunified With Their Families From an Orphanage in Ghana

“…In 2007, the Ghanaian government, with technical and financial support from UNICEF, initiated the Care Reform Initiative to reduce the country's dependence on orphanages for the care of children (Frimpong‐Manso, ). This initiative was in reaction to the exponential growth of orphanages which, between 1996 and 2006, rose from 10 to 148.…”