Keeping Families Together: Preventing Unnecessary Separation in Khon Kaen
Martin James Foundation is delighted to announce a new partnership with Step Ahead Thailand. This collaboration comes at a critical time for children’s care reform in Thailand, as the country faces one of the highest rates of reliance on institutional care globally, with over 135,000 children living in more than 700 orphanages nationwide (UNICEF, No Child Left Behind, 2023).
About Step Ahead Thailand
Step Ahead Thailand was founded in 2002 as a microfinance organisation serving 1,200 families in Bangkok’s largest informal settlement. Since 2004, following the tsunami, the organisation’s mission has pivoted to supporting families with children to prevent children’s placement in orphanages, leading to the establishment of its ‘Keeping Families Together’ project.
Step Ahead Thailand is led by seven Thai board members, advised by two young adults with lived experience of growing up in residential care. The organisation works to prevent family separation by implementing a comprehensive approach that includes family strengthening, policy advocacy, and community engagement, promoting family-based care as the first and best option for vulnerable children.
Context
Thailand ranks sixth globally in reliance on institutional care, alongside Ukraine, Russia, Haiti, Indonesia, and Morocco. According to UNICEF, one in four Thai children lives outside of parental care. The key challenges leading to family separation include poverty, limited access to education, lack of family support, child abuse and neglect, migration, child protection policies which do not prioritise support to children in families and orphanage trafficking, a practice involving the recruitment or transfer of children into orphanages for exploitation or profit.
In partnership with other organisations and the Thai government, Step Ahead actively supports the reintegration of children from institutional care back into their families. Through this work, Step Ahead observed that orphanages often fill quickly again each time a child leaves. This has strengthened their understanding that prevention, alongside strong gatekeeping systems that stop unnecessary separation before it occurs, is the most sustainable solution. This insight now underpins the theory of change for this new partnership.
Most children in the government orphanage that Step Ahead works with are not separated from their families for protection reasons but are temporarily placed there due to poverty or hardship. Parents often ask the government to care for their children for up to 12 months to stabilise their situation, in the absence of other forms of support. However, due to a lack of coordinated family support, children often remain in care longer, sometimes for years, or are placed for adoption.
About the Partnership
This new collaboration with Step Ahead Thailand will provide 12 months of funding to implement a Family Reintegration and Prevention Pilot. The project brings together one government orphanage and four provincial shelters, which are the key entry points into the care system, to strengthen mechanisms that prevent unnecessary family separation and reduce the number of children entering institutional care.
Step Ahead has been working in partnership with the orphanage for the past three years and has already supported the development of permanency plans, family strengthening interventions, and foster care pathways for the safe reintegration of 30 children into family-based care. Many more children who need support remain in the orphanage.
Through this initiative, Step Ahead will work closely with district-level government partners across four provinces to strengthen family support at the point of entry to the care system, ensuring that children are supported to remain in, or return to, safe and nurturing families whenever possible.
The project will work closely with 10 biological families and 10 families providing short term foster care to implement a family-based alternative to institutionalisation and support timely reintegration where safe and appropriate Foster families will be carefully selected, trained and supported to provide stable, trauma-informed care during periods of family crisis, while biological families will receive targeted support to address the challenges that led to separation and strengthen parenting capacity.
The project places a strong emphasis on maintaining meaningful contact between children and their biological families throughout any period in a shelter or foster care, preserving attachment and family connections while preparing for safe reunification. Funding will support stipends for foster families, family support, including livelihood and parenting education, and structured family contact and reintegration planning.
Quotes:
“Step Ahead’s experience in Khon Kaen reveals that children are typically separated from their families not for protection reasons, but because their families lack access to essential support. Their success in reintegrating thirty children demonstrates that separation is often preventable when families receive practical support during times of crisis. We are proud to partner with Step Ahead as they strengthen gatekeeping systems and short-term foster care, ensuring children remain in touch with their parents while receiving the support that makes reunification possible.”
“Children in Khon Kaen often enter institutional care due to temporary family hardship, but remain there long term due to gaps in family strengthening services and limited family-based care alternatives. Over the past three years, our work has demonstrated that, with the right support, families can remain together or be safely reunified. Through partnership with the Martin James Foundation, this approach is now being embedded within local government systems, reducing unnecessary admissions into orphanages and increasing safe family reintegration. This investment is transforming lives while strengthening systems so more children grow up in safe and nurturing families.”
