About BCN
Better Care Network (BCN) is an international network of organizations committed to supporting children without adequate family care around the world. BCN works by fostering collaboration, research and information sharing on family strengthening and alternative care, and advocating for changes to national, regional, and global policies to improve children's care situations. BCN is a fiscally sponsored project of Tides Center, the USA's largest fiscal sponsor.
Mission Statement
The mission of the BCN is to facilitate active information exchange and collaboration on the issue of children without adequate family care and advocate for technically sound policy and programmatic action on global, regional, and national levels in order to:
- Reduce instances of separation and abandonment of children;
- Reunite children outside family care with their families, wherever possible and appropriate;
- Increase, strengthen, and support family and community-based care options for children;
- Establish international and national standards for all forms of care for children without adequate family care and mechanisms for ensuring compliance; and
- Ensure that residential institutions are used in a very limited manner and only when appropriate.
The BCN is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children (welcomed by the UN General Assembly in 2009) and the 2003 Stockholm Declaration on Children and Residential Care.
Through our Steering Committee, Secretariat, and Advisory Group, the BCN strives to reach the above mentioned objectives.
