Every year on 12 July, the United Nations marks the International Day of Hope — a day dedicated to hope as a force that bridges divides and drives progress. This year, we’re marking it with a story about what hope looks like when it moves from feeling to policy: a European Parliament round table where governments, EU institutions and UNICEF turned decades of evidence into concrete commitments for children still separated from their families.
What did the testimony at the round table reveal?
“Almost five decades ago, the woman who gave me life took me by the hand and told me we were going for a walk.” So begins the testimony that opened our round table Advancing Care Reform in Europe: From Good Practice to Global Commitment at the European Parliament on 2 June — the words of a child left at the gates of an institution at the age of five, who cried through that first night among children he called “my brothers and sisters in suffering.”
“We were all orphans with parents,” the testimony says.
That single sentence holds the truth at the heart of our work.
THE FACTS
- 5.4 million children are locked away in orphanages around the world.
- 80% of children in orphanages are not orphans.
- Orphanages expose children to abuse and trafficking, and physical and psychological trauma that can last a lifetime.
- The Global Charter on Children’s Care Reform now has 36 government signatories.
But the testimony doesn’t end at the gates. It ends with adoption, with love, with a person who grew up to work inside the very system that once held them — and who now tells the world how much family matters. It is a story of separation, and of being back to family. Which is to say: it is a story about hope.
On 12 July, the world marks the International Day of Hope — a day the United Nations dedicates to hope as a force that bridges divides and drives progress. We can think of no better way to mark it than to share what hope looked like on 2 June, when European Parliament Vice-President Victor Negrescu hosted representatives of the European Commission, the Cyprus and incoming Irish Presidencies of the Council, EU member states, Moldova, UNICEF, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and civil society for a round table on advancing care reform in Europe.
Hope, with evidence behind it: what has care reform achieved so far?
Hope, at its strongest, is not a feeling. It is a track record.
Romania once had more than 100,000 children in institutions. Today, its National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption reports that over 70% of children in the care system live in family-type services, with around 8,000 remaining in residential services — and the country is working to bring that number down further. Moldova has reduced the number of children in institutions from over 13,000 in the early 2000s to approximately 350 today — a reduction of around 97%. Austria closed essentially all of its large institutions, replacing them with small, attachment-focused settings, foster care, and — crucially — support for families of origin, so that out-of-home care remains a genuine last resort. Approximately 86% of Ireland’s 5,982 children in alternative care reside in foster care.
None of this happened by accident. It happened because governments, communities and civil society decided that children belong in families, and built the services to make that possible: family strengthening, foster care, social workers, community support. As Austria’s Ambassador to the EU, H.E. Gregor Schusterschitz, put it: reform must be gradual but determined, with a clear direction.
Hope, tested by war: what does institutionalisation cost children in conflict?
Our CEO, Mark Waddington, joined the round table from Ukraine — where the cost of institutions is measured in its starkest terms. Children in institutions were among those most exposed to abduction and forcible transfer by Russian forces. New longitudinal research shows that children growing up even in well-resourced institutions are 50% more likely to die than their peers in family care. In conflict, every vulnerability of the institutional model is amplified.
That is why we say deinstitutionalisation is not simply a social reform. It is a life-saving intervention.
Hope, going global: what is the Global Charter on Children’s Care Reform?
The round table also carried a message far beyond Europe. The Global Charter on Children’s Care Reform, launched at the UN General Assembly in September 2025, now counts 36 state signatories — including several EU member states — each committing to strengthen families, ensure family-based alternative care, and progressively end the use of institutions for children. The ambition is to more than double that number. Every new signature is hope, formalised.
And Europe has choices of its own to make. Negotiations on the EU’s next long-term budget will decide whether funding for children flows to families and communities — or drifts back towards bricks and mortar. The European Child Guarantee, the enlargement process and the new EU Anti-Poverty Strategy give policymakers the tools. What is needed now is the will to use them.
Because hope is a plan: how does hope actually become policy?
The person whose testimony opened our round table sent a strong message: “about chance, love, rebirth, forgiveness, and never giving up on dreams that, one day, will become reality.”
No child’s future should depend on chance. Our job — as advocates, policymakers, donors — is to replace chance with systems: families supported before crisis, foster carers trained and valued, institutions closed for good.
Germany intends to spend €45 million on 67 model projects by 2028, creating family-centred prevention chains based on parental guidance, implementing local education and counselling services, and supporting families as children start day care and transition to primary school.
That is what hope looks like when it becomes policy. This International Day of Hope, we invite every government that has not yet endorsed the Global Charter to do so, and every one that has to bring forward concrete national commitments — so that every child, everywhere, can find their way Back to Family.
Read the full round table report.
Frequently asked questions
What is the International Day of Hope?
The International Day of Hope is a United Nations observance held every year on 12 July, established by a UN General Assembly resolution in March 2025 to promote hope as a force for peace, dignity and progress.
Why are 80% of children in orphanages not orphans?
Most children in orphanages have at least one living parent. They are separated because of poverty, disability, lack of family support services, or crisis — not because their families no longer exist.
What is the Global Charter on Children's Care Reform?
Launched at the UN General Assembly in September 2025, the Global Charter is a commitment by signatory governments to strengthen families, ensure family-based alternative care, and progressively end the use of institutions for children. It now has 36 state signatories.
How can governments help children get Back to Family?
By endorsing the Global Charter, ring-fencing EU funding for family- and community-based care in the next Multiannual Financial Framework, and building the services — foster care, social work, family support — that make institutions unnecessary.
