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Eight people walking on the horizon, with one farther ahead than the others

Children on the Move

Efforts to respond appropriately to migrant and asylum-seeking children and families require innovative thinking and collaborative action. Young people who have lived the migration experience and those who have helped them navigate risk and find protection along the way must inform and guide the response.

People

Marisa O. Ensor portrait

Marisa O. Ensor

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Adjunct Lecturer

Gillian Huebner portrait

Gillian Huebner

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Executive Director

Joan Lombardi portrait

Joan Lombardi

Center for Child and Human Development; Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Senior Scholar; Senior Fellow

Mara Tissera Luna portrait

Mara Tissera Luna

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

2024-2025 Collaborative Fellow

Gabriella Sanchez portrait

Gabriella Sanchez

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

2022-2025 Collaborative Fellow

People walking on train tracks with their backs to the camera

Read the Innovating Protection for Children on the Move Across the Americas Summary Brief

In spring 2022, Georgetown University's Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the Institute for the Study of International Migration co-convened a series to bring a child-focused and solutions-oriented lens to the dynamic landscape of immigration between countries of origin and return, the U.S.-Mexico border, and within receiving communities across the United States. 

Publications

Building Bridges for Every Child

February 1, 2021

This paper, co-authored by Gillian Huebner, executive director of the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, was published by UNICEF and illustrates how reception, care, and services for unaccompanied migrant children in the United States can be built around the best interests of each child.

Blog Posts

In Our Shoes: Voices of Youth on the Move

December 18, 2023

Bertha, Isaias, Jimmi, Sasha, and Zahra, youth activists; Sweta Shah, Co-founder, ChildArise, and Research Fellow, Georgetown University Collaborative on Children’s Issues; Kelly Yzique-Zea, Assistant Director, Vulnerable Populations and Migration, UNICEF USA.

Have you ever wondered what it feels

Innovating Protection for Migrant and Asylum-Seeking Children in U.S. Communities

April 20, 2022

The number of young people fleeing high levels of violence, crime, natural disasters, food insecurity and poverty and crossing the U.S.-Mexico border reached a 20-year high in the U.S. government’s fiscal year 2021 (October 1, 2020 – September 30, 2021). This included a record number of children who…

Responses

Videos

Localization for Early Childhood Development and Child Protection in Guatemala (Video)

June 13, 2024

Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes

Localización para el Desarrollo Infantil Temprano y la Protección de la Niñez en Guatemala (Video)

June 13, 2024

Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes

Peace Education following Atrocities | Ian Manzi | Rossing Center (Video)

January 31, 2024

Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes

Georgetown Units

Refugees stand at a Hungarian Railway Station

Institute for the Study of International Migration Georgetown Unit

Established in 1998, the Institute for the Study of International Migration is a research institute at the School of Foreign Service applying the best in social science, legal, and policy expertise to the complex and controversial issues raised by international migration.

Essays

Innovating Protection for Children on the Move across the Americas

"How did we manage to get here? We improvised. The safety we found—we created it ourselves." This is how a 16-year-old boy from Honduras summarized his journey across northern Central America and into the United States. "Now that I am here, I am still improvising.”

Hundreds of thousands of children…