Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Providing child-sensitive and adequate reception and care for the large and growing number of children on the move around the world, particularly those who are unaccompanied or separated from their parents or primary caregivers, is a global concern and an important priority for UNICEF. In January 2020, UNICEF and UNICEF USA (a U.S.-based entity) joined forces to launch the Building Bridges Initiative to bring together the worlds of international child rights and protection, immigration, and domestic child welfare in the United States. The initiative combines UNICEF’s global expertise with UNICEF USA’s unique experience in advocating and raising awareness on global child protection needs in the U.S. context.

The United States has a long history of offering refuge to children in need as well as advocating for children to be in protective family care. UNICEF’s report, "Building Bridges for Every Child: Reception, Care and Services to Support Unaccompanied Children in the United States," offers encouragement for U.S. policymakers and practitioners to build on that tradition by extending the same levels of care and protection to migrant and asylum-seeking children. It also urges governments to end child immigration detention and scale up family- and community-based reception, care, and support services for children, both in the United States and across the region. The report presents recommendations for the care and support of every migrant child, no matter their story, where they were born, or why they arrived unaccompanied.

With a focus on practical solutions and promising practices in the United States. and from around the world, Building Bridges seeks to bridge the worlds of international child rights and protection, immigration, and domestic child welfare. It illustrates how reception, care, and services for unaccompanied migrant children in the United States. and across the region can be built around the best interests of each child.

UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) works in over 190 countries and territories to save children's lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.