At Care for Children, we believe that strong communities are key to successful family placements. Since launching our project in Cambodia in 2022, we have focused on building solid foundations by working closely with the government on policy, training, and systems to ensure family placements are safe, sustainable, and child centred. In the past six months, placements have really ramped up, with more children moving from institutions into loving local families than ever before.
A powerful example of what makes these placements last is happening right now in a small village in Siem Reap. Three foster families in the same village are caring for four children, all living close to one another. The close proximity creates something special: a natural support network where the families can help each other every day. They share advice on health concerns, organise outings together, look after each other’s children when needed, and celebrate birthdays and everyday moments as one extended family.
"I don’t feel isolated when we communicate with the other foster families."
This kind of mutual support is vital for the sustainability of placements. When families live close together, they reduce isolation and burnout and they can consult each other on challenges, offer practical help, and provide emotional encouragement. Children benefit enormously too: they build friendships with peers in similar situations, which strengthens their emotional resilience, social skills, and sense of belonging. They attend the same school, play together, and experience the kind of everyday warmth and one-on-one attention that institutions simply cannot provide. Local authorities have observed faster progress in the children’s physical growth, health, learning, and emotional development compared to life in residential care.
The model also helps overcome stigma, a huge barrier in some cultural settings. In many communities, there is still hesitation about caring for children who are not blood relatives. But when people see foster families thriving right next door where children are happy, healthy, and growing up with love, perceptions begin to change. Being able to stand together, not alone, makes a huge difference and their bigger presence quietly challenges the norm. It's extremely powerful.
Hearing directly from the families themselves, seeing the positive impact with their own eyes, makes foster care feel real, possible, and good for the whole village. After the first family in the village took in a child from the local Residential Care Institution, two other families followed soon after.
One foster carer shared: "I love my foster child as much as my own children and care and love for him the same. It is not different from raising my own children." Another said: "Meeting with other families; it’s a benefit, I don’t feel isolated when we communicate with the other foster families."
This echoes our experience in China, where an entire village stepped forward to foster children, many with disabilities. Close proximity allowed families to share resources, advice, and encouragement, creating a supportive network that helped the children thrive and changed the community’s view of foster care. The same dynamic is unfolding in Cambodia and it shows why building clusters of foster families in the same community is so important for long-term success and expansion.
When families support each other, placements are more stable, stigma is reduced, and more people become willing to open their homes. That’s how we grow the movement, one village and one family at a time. Strong communities make family-based care possible, and that is the heart of everything we do at Care for Children.
