designed based on children’ s proposals and in close cooperation with them, the staff and the local community. In the Netherlands, IDCI and Stichting De Vrolijkheid involve children as partners in the design and implementation of activities in the Happy Nest programme.
• By promoting diversity as an important resource in the provision of family and community-based care to unaccompanied and separated children. SOS Children’ s Villages Hungary did this by prioritising the recruitment of Hungarian foster parents who share similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds with the children 3 to help children’ s integration into society.
• By providing information and legal assistance. The experience of SOS Children’ s Villages Greece and the Immigrant Council of Ireland shows that this yields good results in getting children to pursue legal and safe channels to seek protection, reunite with their families, apply for citizenship as well as engage in voluntary return procedures to the country of origin when this is in their best interests. Information should be ageappropriate and provided consistently, orally and in written form, by trained professionals in a language the children can understand, and with periodic follow-ups with the children to ensure that they have understood the information provided.
• By implementing child protection standards and child safeguarding policies, in line with international frameworks 4, to ensure that staff, operations and programmes do no harm to children and do not expose them to risk of harm and abuse; ensuring that appropriate responses and effective management of child safeguarding concerns are in place and that any concerns about the safety of children are reported to the appropriate authorities. Children and young people should also be made aware of the child protection policy and of their right to safe care provision.
3. ENSURE THAT GUARDIANS ARE EQUIPPED TO SAFEGUARD THE BEST INTERESTS OF UNACCOMPANIED AND SEPARATED CHILDREN
Despite the critical role of guardians in ensuring that the rights of unaccompanied and separated children are protected and that their best interests are safeguarded, practice in several of the countries examined in this compendium shows that guardians are often assigned an excessive number of unaccompanied children to support, which prevents them from carrying out their responsibilities as they should.
Appropriate funding should be allocated to initiatives that ensure children have strong supporting networks, in addition to their families of origin and stable care person, including, professional guardians adequately equipped to perform their duties.
3 _ In the Netherlands, where around 47 % of all unaccompanied children are accommodated with foster families, the guardianship institution for unaccompanied children, Nidos, aims at placing children as much as possible in families from their own culture or a related culture in order to ensure children remain connected to their roots, while the family serves as a good bridge to society. See“ To Become a Foster Family”, Nidos, n. d., https:// www. nidos. nl / en / voor-opvangouders / opvangouder-worden /;“ Netherlands”, ENGI, n. d., https:// engi. eu / projects / reception-andliving-in-families / the-netherlands /.
4 _ See Keeping Children Safe, https:// www. keepingchildrensafe. org. uk /, and specifically https:// www. keepingchildrensafe. org. uk / how-we-keep-children-safe / capacity-building / resources.
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