Catalysing Social Development through Care Reform for Children
Virtual Solutions Session – 3rd November 2025
On 3 November 2025, Hope and Homes for Children and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) co-hosted the Virtual Solutions Session ‘Catalysing Social Development through Care Reform for Children’,an official side event to the Second World Summit for Social Development (World Social Summit). The session convened ministers, ambassadors, civil society, and care-experienced speakers to reinforce the newly launched Global Charter on Children’s Care Reform and to position care reform as central to social development and the SDGs.
Speakers and testimonies
The session featured government ministers and officials (including representatives from Zambia, Moldova, Paraguay, Sierra Leone and the UK), civil society leaders, and care‑experienced advocates who provided lived‑experience testimony and practical recommendations.
Main highlights and commitments from the event
- Political leadership and national action: Speakers called for time-bound national plans, measurable targets and strengthened inter‑ministerial coordination to prevent family separation and phase out institutional care. Moldova, Paraguay and Zambia were highlighted for national leadership and concrete progress.
- Rechannel funding: Panellists urged that substantial resources currently tied to institutional care be redirected to family‑ and community‑based services, including foster and kinship care and parenting support.
- Systems strengthening and data: Governments and partners committed to expand monitoring, data systems and coordination.
- Care‑experienced leadership: Care leavers were emphasised as central to reform design and delivery. The FCDO is committed to supporting a Children’s Taskforce (ages 14 to 25) to bring lived experience into campaign co‑creation.
- Prevention priorities: Practical prevention measures were promoted: social protection, school food programmes and supports that reduce poverty‑driven family separation.
- Scaling and innovative finance: Participants endorsed exploring innovative financing and experience‑sharing to make family‑based care scalable for in resource constrained settings.
Hope and Homes for Children Key Messages to world leaders
Ahead of the World Social Summit and the side event, Hope and Homes for Children developed key messages UN bodies and Member States to prioritise child care reform as a foundation for sustainable social development. In the statement, we called for family-supportive care policies to be embedded across health, education and social protection frameworks, for funding to be redirected from institutions to prevention and family support, and for strengthened child protection systems, data collection and capacity building for the social workforce. Finally, we urged UN bodies to integrate care reform into policy and humanitarian responses, to tackle stigma affecting marginalised children, and to establish long-term monitoring and accountability to secure inclusive, resilient societies and better outcomes for all children.
Hope and Homes for Children Key recommendations: click here
Video of the event: click here
