In line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, SOS Children’s Villages firmly believes that the family is “the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children.” However, families need the right conditions and support to provide this care. In Ethiopia, poverty, illness, displacement, conflict and limited access to essential services can place significant pressure on parents and caregivers, making it increasingly difficult to meet their children’s needs. Due to this, the risk of child–family separation can sometimes stem not from a lack of love or commitment, but from challenging circumstances that families struggle to overcome without adequate support. When these pressures go unaddressed, families can be pushed into crisis, increasing the risk of separation that might otherwise have been prevented. Limited access to parenting support, mental health services, healthcare, education and economic opportunities, alongside gaps in community-based support and child protection systems, can further leave families without the assistance they need.
Understanding the scale of the issue
Available evidence highlights both the scale of the issue and significant gaps in what is known. According to the 2011 analysis of the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey, around 11% of children aged 0–17 were living with neither biological parent. Of these children, 70% had two living biological parents, a further 19% had one living parent, and only 7% had lost both parents. These findings reinforce that children may live apart from their parents for reasons other than parental death, and that family separation must be understood within a wider social and economic context.
At the continental level, the Continental Study on Children Without Parental Care in Africa estimates that around 35 million children across Africa are without parental care. However, significant gaps in national data make it difficult to establish the full scale of the issue and the different circumstances through which children lose or are at risk of losing parental care. In Ethiopia, reliable and up-to-date national data across different categories of children without parental care, including those in alternative care, remain limited. Strengthening prevention therefore requires not only better evidence, but also early identification of family vulnerabilities and timely support to address the challenges that can place family unity at risk.
From policy commitment to implementation
Ethiopia has made important progress in strengthening its policy and legal framework for children’s rights, protection and well-being. Key milestones include the adoption of the National Children’s Policy in 2017 and its Implementation Strategy in 2025. These are complemented by the National Social Protection Policy of Ethiopia 2014, which addresses household vulnerability, poverty and access to essential services, and the Early Childhood Development, Care and Education Policy Framework 2010, which promotes a holistic, multisectoral approach to children’s development and caregiver support. More recently, at the regional level, Ethiopia also joined other IGAD Member States in endorsing the IGAD Child Policy Framework in 2024, which outlines priorities across child protection, health, education, social protection and justice.
Together, these frameworks establish an important foundation for strengthening families and advancing children’s rights. Realizing their objectives, however, depends on translating policy commitments into practical, accessible, and sustained support for children and families. This includes addressing the underlying social and economic pressures that can undermine family well-being, strengthening coordination across services, and ensuring that families receive timely support before challenges escalate and place children at risk of separation.
SOS Children’s Villages contributes to these efforts through its international Programme Services Regulation 2023 and, in Ethiopia, through SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia’s refreshed 2023–2027 strategy. While the regulation provides the international framework for programme services, the Ethiopia strategy sets out the national priorities and approach, aligning with the broader emphasis on family strengthening, prevention, and the empowerment of families and communities. The regulation establishes family strengthening as an integral programme service, focusing on children and young people at risk of child–family separation, addressing underlying risk factors, and promoting family self-reliance and community sustainability. In line with this international framework, SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia’s refreshed 2023–2027 strategy places family care at the center of its approach, with a strong focus on preventing family separation, transforming alternative care, and supporting reintegration and family resilience.
From responding to separation to preventing it
With decades of experience working with children, young people, families and communities, SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia recognizes that the challenges families face can affect their ability to provide consistent care for their children. Poverty, illness, displacement, conflict, and limited access to essential services can place families under considerable pressure, but addressing these challenges can help them strengthen their capacity to care for their children. This has called for a shift from responding to family crises after they occur to identifying vulnerabilities early and providing support before difficulties escalate and threaten family unity.
This approach underpins SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia’s family and community strengthening programme, the organization’s largest programme in the country. The programme works through two complementary approaches: direct family empowerment and community empowerment for family empowerment. Direct family empowerment focuses on working with individual families to identify their needs, address vulnerabilities, and strengthen their capacity to care for their children. Community empowerment for family empowerment focuses on strengthening the local structures, organizations, and networks that support families. These approaches work hand in hand, recognizing that families need both the capacity to address their own challenges and access to reliable support within their communities.
A family-centered approach
In working directly with families, support begins with an assessment of each family’s needs, strengths, resources, and circumstances. Families and programme staff work together to develop a family development plan, setting priorities and identifying the support needed to achieve agreed goals. Rather than applying a standard package of assistance, interventions are tailored to each family’s situation, building on existing strengths while addressing the challenges affecting their well-being. Depending on their needs, families may receive support with positive parenting, childcare, early childhood development, mental health and psychosocial well-being, education, health care and vital registration.
Strengthening household livelihoods is another important part of this work. Through entrepreneurship and financial literacy training, vocational skills development, and access to employment and income-generating opportunities, caregivers are supported to build their economic resilience and improve their ability to provide for their children. Families may also be linked to Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations (SACCOs), which can help them build savings, access credit and invest in livelihood activities.
Recognizing that families cannot address every challenge alone, the programme also works with Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), Community Care Coalitions (CCCs), and other local structures. These partnerships help connect families to services and resources, strengthen local support networks, and promote shared responsibility for children’s care and protection. In this way, community-level action complements direct family support, helping create an environment in which families are better equipped to withstand adversity and children can grow up in safe and supportive communities.
From support to self-reliance
Family and community strengthening programmes aim to help families achieve greater self-reliance rather than depend indefinitely on programme assistance. Progress is reviewed against the objectives established in each family development plan, with the general expectation that families can work towards self-reliance over a period of up to five years, depending on their circumstances. When a family has achieved its agreed objectives and is assessed as no longer requiring programme support, it formally graduates from the programme. Graduation marks an important step towards families’ ability to sustain their progress, meet their children’s needs, and manage future challenges. It reflects the programme’s emphasis on building lasting capacities and resilience, rather than providing assistance without a clear pathway towards greater independence.
In 2025 alone, family and community strengthening programmes in Ethiopia have directly reached 71,856 children and their families, with a further 186,312 people reached indirectly through community-based interventions and support systems. In 2026, sixteen family and community strengthening related projects continue to be implemented across Sidama, Central Ethiopia, Tigray, South Ethiopia, Oromia, Amhara, Somali and Addis Ababa to reach a greater number of children and families with need-based support.
Together, these efforts demonstrate how family and community strengthening moves beyond responding to crises to address the circumstances that can put family unity at risk. By supporting caregivers, improving access to essential services, strengthening household livelihoods and mobilizing community support, SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia works to help families overcome adversity and enable children to grow up in safe, stable and nurturing family environments.