Your support helps thousands of vulnerable children each year, providing them with access to life-saving services and helping them to realise their rights.
OUR VISION
A Thailand where all children grow up in a safe and loving family.
OUR MISSION
We will work with families and communities to ensure that children grow up in a safe and nurturing environment.
Our vision for children is one where they can lead healthy, successful lives, living with a family which offers a loving home. Currently, this is not the case for thousands of children living in Thailand. We aim to strengthen families and community support services to enable children to reach their potential.
For those children living in residential care, we want to ensure the best possible provision offering the best of outcomes. Residential care facilities play a vital part in the transition of the care system in Thailand and we will continue to work with our residential care partners to support them in being part of the reform movement. We support the articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Thailand in 1992. Whilst all children should be protected and benefit from the 54 articles, we consider it our mission to focus on helping the most at risk and vulnerable children.
Every child has rights, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status. Safe Child Thailand recognises that vulnerable children need additional support in reaching their rights and our work will be aimed at these children, their families and communities.
Children living in care homes
Over the next decade we will continue to work with our Thai partners, helping build their capacity and to give them a voice to represent children in their care. Our vision for the future is less children living in residential care facilities and greater numbers of children re-connected with their families or living with alternative families. We will support the Thai Government and NGOs in extending support for lower income households and to strengthen communities to keep families together.
For the smaller number of children who have no option but to live in residential care, we will work with partners to provide small, well managed homes situated within communities and staffed by trained social workers. Safeguarding and Child Protection will be central to this and we aim to build the capacity of Thai partners to ensure they can offer children and young people the best care and continue working with the community to offer children alternative care within families.
Education
All children have the right to education. In particular, we consider educational opportunities for the early years and those children who have disabilities to be essential in keeping families together. Supporting parents enables them to continue in employment and feel confident in providing the best care for their children.
Those children with disabilities must be given equal access to education, public services and recreational facilities. We will continue to support these services and work with the Thai Government and other NGOs to strive towards an equal and accessible Thai society.
Health
Healthy children need healthy communities. We will continue to provide access to healthcare professionals and support projects raising awareness about the importance of keeping healthy. By providing educational and prevention projects we empower families to stay together.
OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES
CHILDREN ARE RIGHTS HOLDERS
The way we help children is informed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the United Nations Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children (2009). We follow the four guiding principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, basing our strategies and activities in the beliefs that:
- Children have the right to have their views heard in all matters affecting them
- All actions concerning children should take the child’s best interests into account
- All children are entitled to the same rights without discrimination
- Children have the right to survival and to develop to their full potential
WE DO NOT TOLERATE ANY FORM OF CHILD ABUSE
We do not tolerate child abuse. We are committed to improving the practices of our partners and ourselves to prevent child abuse, including but not limited to physical, emotional, sexual, or online abuse, and neglect.
OUR ACTIONS ARE BASED ON EVIDENCE
As an organisation, our projects and decisions are based on research and evidence, in the fields of child development and social work. We understand that an appreciation of the local context is vital, and act to ensure that academic understandings are applied in a contextually appropriate and culturally respectful way. We are dedicated to proper monitoring and evaluating practices, to ensure that we make decisions based on proven evidence and lessons learned.
OUR WORK IS LED BY LOCAL EXPERTS
We recognise our position as a capacity building organisation, with involvement in projects to support in-country partners and change the understandings on care. This comes from a belief that the best people placed to affect change in local communities are the community members themselves. All of our work is informed by the knowledge, experience, and guidance of local experts, practitioners and community members.
