A Global Controversy: International Human Rights Implications of Replacing Orphanages with Small Group Homes

Around the world, millions of children grow up without a family in orphanages and residential care. Billions of dollars of charity funds from private US donors every year goes to support those programs. While there is extensive evidence that orphanage placement is dangerous for children, there is now a controversy at the United Nations as to whether small group home placement is an appropriate or necessary form of transition from orphanages to community inclusion. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) now recognizes that children have a right to live and grow up with a family, but older UN standards under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) still allow for institutional or residential care placement.

This webinar will examine the legal and policy issues under discussion, as well as findings from research about the dangers of group care for children.

Presentations:

The lifelong Importance of Family Inclusion 
David Eagan, author of “More Alike Than Different: My Life with Down Syndrome.”

Competing legal standards under the UN disability and children’s rights conventions & findings from human rights investigations 
Eric Rosenthal, JD Executive Director, Disability Rights International

Evidence from research: the potential for all children to live and grow up with a family. 
Dr. Joan Kaufman, PhD Kennedy-Krieger Institute & Johns Hopkins University Department of Psychiatry