War, poverty and climate change have created a perfect storm for vulnerable children around the world. The UN estimates that there are 42 million children displaced from their homes and separated from their families globally, leaving them vulnerable to criminal violence and exploitation.

We’ve already seen the effects of this on our work. Over the past year, we’ve helped to support almost 3,000 children who have been separated from family members living in 131 different countries. We’ve supported children arriving in the UK from Ukraine, assisted with the asylum applications of unaccompanied children trapped in the war zone in Sudan, and we’ve reunited children in local authority care with family in Pakistan, Australia and Romania to name but a few.

However, with increasing requests for our help, we need your support.

Can you make a donation to support our work?

With your help, we can:

Answer more calls on our Advice Line

CFAB runs the UK’s only national Advice Line offering guidance on issues of international child protection. Calls are increasing and in the last year, we answered almost 1,800 calls related to 131 countries.

Accept more cross-border children and family cases

We are the only charity in the UK with an international child protection team, specialising in family reunification. Nobody else does what we do. With almost 70 years’ experience, we are experts in international child protection and international family reunification. Last year we helped over 400 children through our casework by bridging the gap between child protection systems in the UK and abroad.

Support more asylum-seeking and refugee children

We support children fleeing conflict and war zones to reunite with family members in the UK. Once they have arrived in this country, our team support children and their families to access education and health care and to settle into their new lives.

Offer more specialist legal advice

From our work on thousands of cases, we know that when social workers don’t understand foreign legislation relating to child protection, the children with whom they work are at risk. Our Legal Advice Service works with local authorities across England and Wales to ensure the safe and lawful placement of children who go to live with family members abroad.

CFAB is a small charity where every donation has a huge impact. By supporting us, you will be keeping children safe and allowing them to grow up with their families, but it doesn’t stop there. Children who grow up with family rather than in institutional care or with unrelated carers, are found to be happier, healthier and better off in the long-term, and this extends to their own children too.

For every £1 you give, 85p will be spent on making change happen – long lasting change. It will enable us to support children and families, to train child protection professionals and to advocate for a child’s right to family, no matter where they are from. The remainder will help us to generate more income, ensuring CFAB’s work will continue in the days and years ahead.

Sanaya’s Story

9-year-old Sanaya was neglected and sometimes beaten by her parents. Her teacher contacted Social Services and, when it was discovered that both parents were addicts, she was taken into care. Her local authority social worker knew that Sanaya had family in Pakistan but had no idea how to go about contacting them, whether they would be willing or able to care for her, nor how to make this happen. The social worker turned to CFAB for help and after an initial conversation, referred the case to our specialist team. We worked with our International Social Service partner, a charity in Pakistan and were able to locate Sanaya’s relatives. From there, we arranged a meeting with her grandparents and carried out an assessment as to whether it would be in Sanaya’s best interests to go and live with them. This went well and her case was presented in the Family Court. There it was agreed that the placement should go ahead, the appropriate legal process was followed, and Sanaya is now safe, growing up in the loving care of her grandparents in Pakistan.

Please make a donation today and help us to help children like Sanaya.

Thank you for your support.

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