The United Nations has proclaimed and agreed that everyone is entitled to ail the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

The United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance.

The United Nations is convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community.

The United Nations recognizes that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.

The United Nations considers that the child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society, and brought up in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.

Most of the offences committed by children are of a minor nature. Such petty crimes rarely, if ever, feature in media coverage as it is more concerned with the most extreme cases. The awful death of two-year-old James Bulger, killed by two ten-year-old boys, appears to have been used as an excuse in the UK to ‘get tough’ with all young offenders and change their treatment before the courts. Most children who come to the attention of the police and social workers were victims before they became villains. The need to exact retribution should not be used to obscure the lack of care extended to them early in their lives, nor used as an excuse to treat them as adults or, in some cases, more harshly than adults.

Young people leaving care are expected to become independent at a far earlier age than are young people who are fortunate enough to have supportive families. High rates of unstable accommodation, unemployment, poverty and early parenthood, have been found in research studies into the outcomes for young people leaving care. Governments have a duty of care to provide resources and support to ensure that young people leaving care experience a safe and sustainable transition to independence. Key elements of best practice framework are outlined in this article for this to be achieved.

The Filipino family, the fundamental unit of Philippine society, is confronted with pressures of a rapidly changing society. Over the past decades, there have been significant changes in its composition, size, structure, support systems and organization arising from demographic, social and economic changes. Poverty and rapid social change have created stress situations that affect the family’s ability to perform its function of caring and nurturing of children. Of particular concern is the displacement of families arising from rural-urban migration, high unemployment and underemployment and overseas employment. Such displacement has contributed to family instability and disorganization as manifested in reported increases in child abandonment, abuse and neglect, street children, prostitution and family violence involving children as victims.

The International Foster Care Organisation (IFCO) has been a significant vehicle of change within the steadily evolving field of foster care. In two decades of international transfer of knowledge, the organization has examined critical and controversial issues such as the colonization of indigenous people, the insensitivity of ‘Westernized’ systems of care to the kinship networks of children of color, and the needs of families stricken by poverty, dysfunction or oppression. Concurrently, the exchange of knowledge and skill on case planning, dynamics of change, legal issues, foster parent training; and systems of administration led to greater understanding between people working in foster care systems of different countries. IFCO became a moving and reconstituting global village of committed individuals, families, groups and organizations that transcended national boundaries.

British social workers at the sharp end of foster care and social work practice have experienced a flood of official reports in recent years (Association of Directors of Social Services, 1997; Utting, 1997; Warren, 1997), mostly, though not exclusively, highlighting the problems of too few placements for an increasingly challenging number of children and young people. In addition, British and North American foster care research over the past twenty years has shown how children in public, including foster, care have been:

The purpose of this paper is to provide a view and understanding of the nature of the Internet, and the possible benefits in assisting foster caregivers, foster care agencies and persons in out-of-home care.

The Internet has been with us for most of this decade. Its original role was to ensure that computer-to-computer communication proceeded in a decentralised fashion, in the event of catastrophes. Such computer-to-computer communication has become so widespread and we now refer to it as the Internet. Alongside the technological development, has been the development of means of placing information on the web for all to view and its access by anyone connected to the Internet, anywhere. Further, communication between people through the use of e-mail has also developed.