The Global Coalition on Deinstitutionalization adopts a Joint Position on the use of large foster care as a form of institutionalization of children. This position concerns the use of large foster care on a broad scale as a matter of public policy and aims to promote an understanding of the right to family life for children that is in line with the UN CRPD and the UN Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization, Including in Emergencies.

Disability Rights International (DRI) and our affiliate Disability Rights Ukraine (DRU) have, over a ten-year period¹, documented the human rights concerns of more than 100,000 Ukrainian children – with and without disabilities – placed in congregate settings and left to grow up segregated from families and society in orphanages, boarding schools, psychiatric facilities, and other institutions.

In late April 2022, Disability Rights International (DRI) brought a team of people with disabilities and family activists, including medical and disability service experts, to visit Ukraine’s institutions for children with disabilities.  DRI visited three facilities for children aged six to adult, and one “baby” home for children from birth to age six.  DRI finds that Ukraine’s children with disabilities with the greatest support needs are living in atrocious conditions – entirely overlooked by major international relief agencies and receiving little support from abroad.