‘Everybody’s Child’ but ‘Nobody’s Child’: Strengthening Alternative Family and Community Based Care Options for Abandoned Children Placed in Ugandan Institutions.

The study examined alternative family and community care options and how they can be strengthened; cultural attitudes and perceptions of the communities and experiences of prospective foster and adoptive parents as regards reunification, kinship care, fostering and adoption; the study examined Government’s position and policies in place to support family reunification with institutionalized children, and sought views about how hindrances to family care can be dealt with. Children as young as one day continue to be abandoned due to problems facing Ugandan households and affecting children such as, HIV/AIDS, food insecurity (JLICA 2009), exclusion of girls and women thereby little access by to health services resulting into unwanted pregnancies; conflict as shown by (MGLSD 2006). The result is teenage births combined with fear to look after babies; young parents on streets of Kampala; mother’s anger due to abandon-ment by the responsible fathers (Rowbottom (2007); fear of looking after HIV positive children and parents relinquishing their responsibilities to babies homes due to poverty (Ssendi & Giadono).Abandoned children, therefore, find themselves in care institutions. Through a three pronged methodology with use of peer reviewed literature, grey-literature, and qualitative interviews and observation, data generated indicated that indeed care institutions are not the best places for children to grow, they deserve and thrive better within family and community environments (JLICA 2009). Findings have indicated that Government of Uganda has written an ECD policy (MGLSD 2013b) and also drafted an Alternative Care Framework (MGLSD 2013a) outlining guidelines for care institution; they should keep a child for only three months and resettle them with their families or another permanent solution like fostering, local adoption, inter-country adoption, or specialised residential care for children(ibid). Tension was however, realised between care institutions and Government threatening their closure if they do not comply to set rules; but they reiterate complaining that Government left all child activities to them without any financial support. Extended families should be provided financial support; public should be educated on fostering and adoption; government-led programmes to empower people out of poverty scourge; counselling and support to the families that have abandoned their children and those likely to abandon them; suspension of inter-country adoption to give room to national adoption (MGLSD 2013c suspension of inter-country adoption). If alternative family and community care options are to help children, social exclusion of their mothers should be eliminated in the first place, so that we have a country free of ‘nobody’s children’.