The EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child and the European Child Guarantee—Evidence-Based Recommendations for Alternative Care

Protection and promotion of child rights are referred to as a central purpose of the European Union (EU). Therefore in 2021, the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child and the European Child Guarantee were published to enable children to have the best possible life in the EU and worldwide. Member states were invited to implement the directions of both documents into practice. The present study analyses and showcases the evidence on how to progress implementation of the Strategy and the Guarantee regarding alternative care in Portugal. A literature review was conducted based on international literature. Evidence-based recommendations for the Portuguese transition process towards quality, family and community-based care are stated. De-institutionalisation and strengthening specific services—kinship care, special guardianship, and foster care—are advocated, namely specialising the workforce, and promoting training for kinship carers and prospective special guardians. To conclude, the revision and monitoring of the measures for children in need of alternative care are suggested as well as integrating and publishing data from the diverse services of the alternative care system.

Urinary metabolic biomarkers of diet quality in European children are associated with metabolic health

Urinary metabolic profiling is a promising powerful tool to reflect dietary intake and can help understand metabolic alterations in response to diet quality. Here, we used 1HNMR spectroscopy in a multi-country study in European children (1147 children from 6 different cohorts) and identified a common panel of 4 urinary metabolites (hippurate, N-methylnicotinic acid, urea and sucrose) that was predictive of Mediterranean diet adherence (KIDMED) and ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption and also had higher capacity in discriminating children’s diet quality than that of established sociodemographic determinants. Further, we showed that the identified metabolite panel also reflected the associations of these diet quality indicators with C-peptide, a stable and accurate marker of insulin resistance and future risk of metabolic disease. This methodology enables objective assessment of dietary patterns in European child populations, complementary to traditional questionary methods, and can be used in future studies to evaluate diet quality. Moreover, this knowledge can provide mechanistic evidence of common biological pathways that characterize healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns, and diet-related molecular alterations that could associate to metabolic disease.

Study of environmental factors and quality of life in children with cerebral palsy based on international classification of functioning, disability and health

Introduction Identification of environmental barriers is an important factor for improving quality of life. The aim was to investigate the relationship between environmental factors and quality of life of children with cerebral palsy and to prioritize environmental factors affecting the quality of life. Method In this cross-sectional study, participants were children with cerebral palsy ( n = 67) 8–12 years. The European Child Environment Questionnaire and cerebral palsy quality of life questionnaire were used. In order to prioritize environmental codes, each of the items in the European Child Environment Questionnaire was linked to environmental codes of the cerebral palsy ICF Core Set. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Pearson correlation and regression tests. Results There was a significant negative relationship between quality of life and environmental barriers ( p < 0.05, r = −0.36). The European Child Environment Questionnaire covered 75% of the environmental codes of cerebral palsy ICF Core Set. Also, e5 (services, systems and policies) was identified as the main priority of environmental factors affecting the quality of life. Conclusion Occupational Therapists should devote part of the interventional plan to reduce environmental barriers. On the other hand, decision-making organizations have to make supportive laws to improve the physical environment of the home, community, school, and work.

Child Migrants in 20th-Century America

Child migration has garnered widespread media coverage in the 21st century, becoming a central topic of national political discourse and immigration policymaking. Contemporary surges of child migrants are part of a much longer history of migration to the United States. In the first half of the 20th century, millions of European and Asian child migrants passed through immigration inspection stations in the New York harbor and San Francisco Bay. Even though some accompanied and unaccompanied European child migrants experienced detention at Ellis Island, most were processed and admitted into the United States fairly quickly in the early 20th century. Few of the European child migrants were deported from Ellis Island. Predominantly accompanied Chinese and Japanese child migrants, however, like Latin American and Caribbean migrants in recent years, were more frequently subjected to family separation, abuse, detention, and deportation at Angel Island. Once inside the United States, both European and Asian children struggled to overcome poverty, labor exploitation, educational inequity, the attitudes of hostile officials, and public health problems. After World War II, Korean refugee “orphans” came to the United States under the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 and the Immigration and Nationality Act. European, Cuban, and Indochinese refugee children were admitted into the United States through a series of ad hoc programs and temporary legislation until the 1980 Refugee Act created a permanent mechanism for the admission of refugee and unaccompanied children. Exclusionary immigration laws, the hardening of US international boundaries, and the United States preference for refugees who fled Communist regimes made unlawful entry the only option for thousands of accompanied and unaccompanied Mexican, Central American, and Haitian children in the second half of the 20th century. Black and brown migrant and asylum-seeking children were forced to endure educational deprivation, labor trafficking, mandatory detention, deportation, and deadly abuse by US authorities and employers at US borders and inside the country.

How Well Do European Child-Related Leave Policies Support the Caring Role of Fathers?

Our chapter analyses the extent to which European countries (1) recognize the caring responsibilities of fathers toward their children and (2) value fathers’ caring role. To do so, we analyze the designs of individual leave policies and reflect on them by assessing available data on leave uptake by fathers in 13 European countries. Our results show that there is great variation in child-related leave designs across Europe. Our findings, in line with previous work, underscore the importance of generous individual non-transferable leave entitlements. Moreover, our findings bring forward aspects of leave designs that are rarely discussed when considering fathers’ leave uptake. Our results indicate that generous non-transferable leave rights should be paired with (a) clearly defined leave periods for fathers, (b) individual entitlement to benefits, and (c) greater scope for flexibility to increase the attractiveness of child-related leave and to strengthen fathers’ position when negotiating their childcare leave.

Colonising the Play World

In German children’s literature around 1900, the representation of childhood in pseudo-colonial realms participates in a construction of racial identities based on transcultural play. Acts of reading and scenes of instruction intersect with material objects to convey a pedagogy of race dominated by learned whiteness. This article asks: How does German children’s fiction around 1900 reconfigure national identity as imperialexperience? An analysis of a noncanonical though exemplary fictional text about a jungle adventure demonstrates strategies used to include the child in the colonial experience. Imagining this ›play world‹ replicates for the child reader a sense of agency and citizenship through encounters with an indigenous mediator, an impish primate and imaginary landscapes – each represented through the lens of European epistemologies. These tropes produce tension between historical fact and imaginative fiction, working together to map a colonial geography of German identity on to a model transatlantic German childhood. Framed by theories of material objects and toys, and supported by the work of literary scholars and cultural historians, I examine the brief story »Die kleine Urwälderin« [The Little Jungle Girl] from Auerbachs Deutscher Kinder-Kalender auf das Jahr 1902 [Auerbach’s Almanac for German Children, 1902]. In it, the Amazonian setting aspires to historically factual representation, which, however, cedes considerable territory to the realm of fantasy. The projection of a German forest adventure on to a Brazilian geography elides historical truths, such as centuries of the transatlantic slave trade, and instead inserts imperial signifiers into an established syntax of the European child at play. The resulting national ideology of childhood identity in this German language story imposes colonial order on a reimagined play world.