Childout

ChildOut

2007-09-20

Childout is a website dedicated to the issue of out of family children and children in institutions. It was made possible by a grant of the European Commission in the frame of a Community action programme to combat poverty and social exclusion in Europe. Its ambition is to become a portal on child abandonment.

Our definition of abandonment is wide : for us, a child is abandoned when his fundamental right to live in a family that he can call his own is not being fulfilled. A child living for years in institution or in placement, a child living in the streets, is an abandoned child : he has been abandoned by his parents, by the State or by civil society.

Children in institutions, children for which a definitive family solution has not been found are being abandoned by the State : much more, we are convinced that institutionalisation is a form of abuse, as it does not allow the creation of a relationship – the bond between a child and his parents – that is now recognised as fundamental for the construction of a child’s personality. It is now widely accepted that such a practice can contribute to the arising of serious psychological and, in the end, social consequences

We would like this site to be a resource for professionals, families and policy makers alike, of diffusion of the issues relating to permanency of children out of the protection of a family, either in institutions, in the streets, in families at risk of disruption, or other.