Building Resilient Futures: Participatory Research on Climate Change, Family Separation, and Children on the Move in South Asia
Martin James Foundation (MJF) is pleased to announce a new partnership with Family for Every Child (Family), a global network of child protection organisations working to strengthen families and transform the systems for children to grow and thrive in resilient and strong families and communities. This collaboration marks an important step in MJF’s commitment to evidence-led care reform, investing in participatory research that centres the voices of children and communities across South Asia.
Climate change is increasingly recognised as a driver of weakening families, their ability to care and protect children leading to unnecessary family separation. Across South Asia, rising floods, droughts, and heatwaves are pushing families to the edge, forcing parents to migrate, disrupting schooling and livelihoods, and leaving children vulnerable to harm and adversity. Yet the intersection of climate change and child protection remains poorly understood, acknowledged and rarely reflected in policy or practice.
About Family for Every Child
Family for Every Child is a global network of nearly 60 local child protection organisations operating in more than 40 countries. Their work spans direct support to children and families through locally embedded solutions, research, knowledge exchange, response to emergencies, advocacy and campaigning, all driven by locally informed evidence and the local leadership of their members.
Family’s model is built on the principle that the best solutions come from within communities. They connect local civil society organisations with the resources, evidence, and peer learning they need to influence the policies and systems that cause harm to children and families.
Context
South Asia is facing converging crises. Climate shocks are driving migration and displacement and fragmenting families. Children displaced by climate events face risks of exploitation, trafficking, early marriage, and loss of family connections. Children with disabilities, girls, and those already living in poverty face disproportionate harm.
At the same time, the care and child protection responses to climate change are lagging. Policies rarely address family care systems, and kinship networks, often the first line of protection, are under-researched and under-resourced. Too many children end up in harmful situations, unnecessarily separated from their families when, with the right support, they could remain safely within families and communities.
This child-centred research aims to understand how climate change affects family structures and children’s mobility and close that gap by generating context-specific, participatory evidence that can inform stronger family support systems and prevent unnecessary separation.
About the Partnership
MJF is co-funding an 18-month, multi-country participatory research study led by Family for Every Child.
The research will be carried out by local civil society members of the Family network across South Asia. Local researchers will lead data collection and analysis, ensuring findings are grounded in community experience.
The study uses Phot
oVoice as its primary method – a participatory visual approach in which participants document their own experiences through photography and group dialogue. This ensures children and caregivers shape the evidence, not just appear in it.
The research will explore:
- How climate change exacerbates the drivers of family separation in study locations
- The mental health and wellbeing impacts on children and caregivers experiencing climate-related movement
- How kinship care systems are responding and what support they need
- How girls, boys, and children with disabilities experience and perceive the risks of separation during climate crises
- What actions governments, civil society organisations, and communities can take to strengthen families and prevent harmful child migration
The research aims to co-create recommendations with children, families, and other stakeholders to integrate family-strengthening strategies into climate adaptation and child protection policies. The research findings will be shared through webinars, practice exchange workshops, and a synthesis report, designed to reach practitioners, policymakers, and global networks working on care reform.
Quotes:
“The impacts of climate change are placing growing pressure on families, with serious consequences for children. Families across South Asia are being pushed to breaking point, and children are the ones most affected. This research will give communities the tools to document their own experiences and make the case for the support they need. We are proud to work alongside Family for Every Child to ensure that evidence on climate change and family separation reaches the people and systems that can act on it.”
“Children and families in South Asia are among those most directly affected by climate change, yet their voices are largely absent from both the research and policy responses. This study will change that. Through the leadership of our local CSO members, and by co-creating evidence with children and families, we will generate evidence that is not only rigorous but genuinely reflective of those closest to the context and that can be used to strengthen the systems that keep families together.”
