It was rewarding to attend 3rd Biennial International Conference (“Evolving Trends in Alternative Care for Children in South Asia”), which was organized by Udayan Care at Amity University (Noida, India) during 16-17 March, 2018. I had the opportunity to chair the first plenary session on “Overview, concepts, and strategies”. It was also good to attend other plenary and breakaway sessions as well as view the posters on family strengthening, deinstitutionalization, and standards of care in foster care, aftercare, adoption, child care institutions etc. The paper that I had written on family and community reintegration of children of sex workers in Bangladesh was presented by one of my team members. As always, listening to the voice of children was truly enriching, and I appreciated the creativity in their presentations. There is a long way to go before establishing a functional alternative care system for children in South Asia, but the conference re-energized me in strengthening the work that we do.
