Real care reform depends on building systems that work for every child, especially those most often overlooked. Our Child Protection Specialist Sachin Kumar explores why children with disabilities must be central to that change, and what it will take to create truly inclusive care systems.
Across the world, children with disabilities remain among the most invisible and excluded groups within child care and protection systems. Despite strong global commitments – including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) – far too many children with disabilities continue to be overlooked in policy, planning, and service delivery. The global care reform movement, which seeks to shift from institutional to family-based care, cannot succeed unless it fully includes children with disabilities. Their experiences reveal both the gaps in our current systems and the opportunities for building more equitable, resilient, and compassionate responses for every child.
Below are some of the most critical global challenges – and the steps needed to transform them – based on learning from programmes, families, communities, and practitioners working across diverse contexts.
1. Tackling the Invisibility of Children with Disabilities
A major challenge worldwide is the lack of reliable data. Stigma, fear of discrimination, and weak reporting systems mean that children with disabilities are often missing from national statistics and local records. Without visibility, they remain excluded from essential services, budgets, and protection mechanisms.
Countries must strengthen early identification systems and integrate disability data into all child protection and social welfare planning. When children are counted, they can be supported, protected, and empowered.
2. Bridging the Gap between Disability Services and Child Protection Sectors
Although children with disabilities face higher risks of separation, neglect, and institutionalisation, disability services and child protection systems often operate separately. This siloed approach results in fragmented care and leaves families navigating multiple systems with little coordination.
It’s also essential that, when considering children with disabilities – particularly in the context of deinstitutionalisation – policy and practice adhere not only to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) but also to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Policymakers should ensure that national child protection and disability legislation are fully harmonised, reflecting the standards and guidance set out in both UNCRC and UNCRPD. This alignment is crucial for safeguarding the rights, dignity and inclusion of children with disabilities across all care reform processes.
Global care reform efforts must prioritise collaboration – shared case management, cross-sector training, and integrated service delivery. When disability specialists, social workers, community workers, and caregivers work together, children receive holistic support that strengthens families and prevents unnecessary institutionalisation.
3. Harmonising Laws and Policy Frameworks
Many countries have strong legislation, yet child protection, disability rights, education, and social protection laws often lack alignment. This fragmentation muddles accountability, widens service gaps, and limits access to entitlements.
Governments should harmonise laws in line with UNCRC and UNCRPD principles, ensuring that disability inclusion is embedded across all care reform policies. Clear linkages create stronger, more coherent systems that uphold every child’s rights.
4. Elevating Lived Experience Leadership
Globally, the voices of children with disabilities, care leavers, and parents remain largely absent in decision-making spaces. Their experiences are essential for shaping policies that reflect real needs and solutions.
Care reform must intentionally create platforms for lived experience leadership – through consultation forums, advisory groups, and community advocacy structures. Their perspectives humanise data, challenge stereotypes, and drive more grounded, practical policy change.
5. Embedding Inclusion in Local, Community-Level Planning
Real inclusion begins in communities. Without local ownership and localised planning, national policies fail to reach the children they aim to serve.
Local governments and community structures must embed disability inclusion into everyday development planning – from inclusive education and accessible infrastructure to caregiver support and community-based services. Inclusion should not be treated as an add-on but as a core part of community development.
6. Additional Support for Families Raising a Child with Disabilities
It’s widely recognised that children with disabilities and their families require enhanced support, both financially and socially, to ensure their full inclusion and participation in society. A human-rights-based approach to disability emphasises that children with disabilities must enjoy the same rights and opportunities as all other children.
However, current provisions often do not reflect the additional needs these families face. For example, flagship child protection schemes, sponsorship and foster care benefits are provided at a uniform rate for all children. This does not acknowledge the significantly higher costs associated with raising a child with disabilities. Without supplemental financial assistance, families may experience increased economic strain, which can further heighten their vulnerability.
7. Moving from a Charity Mindset to a Rights-Based Approach
Globally, disability is still too often framed as a matter of charity – something that evokes sympathy rather than a commitment to rights and dignity. This mindset perpetuates dependency and reinforces harmful stereotypes.
The care reform sector must champion a rights-based narrative: children with disabilities are not to be pitied, but respected, supported, and included. This shift strengthens families, empowers communities, and fosters more sustainable and just care systems.
A more inclusive future for care reform
Building inclusive systems isn’t about providing extra support for a select group – it’s about ensuring that every child can grow in a safe, nurturing, and loving family environment. When children with disabilities are seen, counted, and supported, the entire ecosystem of care becomes stronger. Globally, we now have the tools, frameworks, and evidence. What we need is commitment – across governments, civil society, families, and communities – to build care systems where no child is left behind.
Inclusion isn’t a distant ideal. It’s both necessary and achievable – and essential for the future of global care reform.
