1 Children’s right to protection and care As noted in the introduction, deprivation of liberty may have significant short- and long-term consequences on a child’s development. It stands in contradiction with the duty to provide care to children, which derives from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (the Charter) and the CRC. Tools and guidance: promoting children’s placement in the community Article  24 of the Charter provides for the right of children to such protection and care as is necessary for their well-being. The CRC imposes a special duty to provide protection and assistance to children deprived of their family environment (Article 20) as well as to children seeking asylum or in need of refugee protection (Article 22). In the context of migration, this means that children should be placed in open facilities at which they can access the necessary support. To promote such an approach, a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has produced a tool to prevent the detention of children. Placement in an open facility alone is not enough to protect a child from the risk of abuse or neglect. Additional protective measures are necessary to support children, including the provision of adequate services, information, legal and linguistic support as well as preventive measures to counter the risk of exploitation and child trafficking. As noted in Section 4.4, the protection risks for children, particularly unaccompanied children, should not be addressed by detaining them – but instead by putting in place a functioning safety net in the locations at which they stay. The International Detention Coalition, a network of over 300 NGOs, has developed the child-sensitive community assessment and placement model (CCAP) to help countries make decisions on the best interest of the child and avoid immigration detention of children. It is based on five elements: (1) prevention, (2) assessment and referral, (3) management and processing, (4) reviewing and safeguarding and (5) case resolution. For more information, see the International Detention Coalition’s website This chapter first discusses the importance of identifying children as a pre-condition to ensuring their protection. It then examines the principle of the child’s best interests in connection with the deprivation of liberty. 19