Reports, guidance & tools
Guidance on Circle on Exploring Transnational Child Protection Cases in Europe (2025)
Transnational child protection is an increasingly important subject, with the growing mobility of persons and children within and into Europe, and the growth of online activity that facilitates child exploitation across borders. The Guidance aims to support child protection and justice systems—including policymakers, professionals, NGOs, lawyers, and guardians—in ensuring children’s rights are upheld in transnational cases.
The Accompanying Tool (2025) serves as a support to both policymakers, child protection and justice services and professionals involved in administrative and justice proceedings when exploring how to better fulfil children’s rights in transnational child protection cases.
The Paper forms part of the knowledge base to underpin the development of the Barnahus Quality Standard developed in Project Soteria, which focuses on the role of the Barnahus in relation to child protection.
Online child sexual violence is affecting a fast-growing number of children of all ages, in all situations, with the potential for very severe and lasting consequences. Promise Elpis project aimed to ensure early identification, adequate assistance, protection and access to child-friendly justice in such cases. The Looking Ahead Paper connects the experience and learning in Promise Elpis with EU legal and policy developments. It shares recommendations for EU and national policy makers to help them take targeted measures for child victims of online sexual violence. It also assists stakeholders and practitioners in connecting their work with the developing EU legal and policy framework.
At a Glance: Promise Elpis resources on online child sexual violence for professionals (2025)
This report investigates how practitioners who are part of multidisciplinary teams experience cases of online child sexual violence.
Promise Elpis: Voices of Children (2025)
The EU funded PROMISE Elpis project had as one of its main objectives to adapt multidisciplinary services for cases of online child sexual abuse. A crucial part of the project has been to listen to and understand children's views on online harm and how they would like to be met by practitioners and service providers. This paper authored by CBSS describes how child participation took place and shaped the resources delivered by Elpis.
Promise Elpis: Voices of Professionals (2025)
This report investigates how practitioners who are part of multidisciplinary teams experience cases of online child sexual violence.
Creating a Cycle of Protection: Guiding principles and key considerations for developing comprehensive, child-centred cooperation to identify, support and assist trafficked children. (2024).
This Guidance aims to encourage States to develop and strengthen comprehensive, child-centred cooperation between anti-trafficking and child protection systems. It focuses on the Member States’ obligations to identify, support, and assist trafficked children during criminal and child protection proceedings, as well as to prevent child trafficking. It builds on the report In Need of Targeted Support, commissioned by CBSS from Child Circle, which focused on whether Barnahus or similar services, could play a role both in enhancing the identification, support and assistance provided to trafficked children and in supporting criminal investigations.
The FOCUS project had as its key objectives (1) to make systematic individual assessment practices a more common application for children involved in criminal proceedings. (2) to build the knowledge, capacities, and skills of youth justice professionals about standards, tools, procedures, and processes in the use of multidisciplinary individual assessments; and (3) to build the knowledge and capacities of children about their rights in the criminal justice system and empower children to be agents of change and advocates for child-centred justice.
In need of targeted support (June 2021)
This report by Child Circle on behalf of the Council of Baltic Sea States focuses on whether Barnahus, or Barnahus like services, currently do or might play a role both in enhancing the identification, support and assistance provided to children who may have been trafficked and in supporting criminal investigations into cases of child trafficking. The orientations and recommendations for future action arise out of findings from a short study and consultations with key experts in six countries in the region.
At the Crossroads: Exploring changes to criminal justice proceedings when they intersect with child protection proceedings in cases involving child victims of violenc.
This legal briefing explores the common questions which different models of criminal justice (and child protection) proceedings across Europe face on how best to fulfill their obligations to victims of violence involved in criminal proceedings.
Reports and tools concerning child suspects or accused in criminal proceedings from the project My Lawyer My Rights, see My Lawyer My Rights Output page
European Barnahus Standards provide a common operational and organisational framework that promotes practices which prevents retraumatisation, while securing valid testimonies for Court, and complies with children’s rights to protection, assistance and child-friendly justice. (June 2017)
The PROMISE Compendium on Law and Guidance: European and International instruments concerning Child Victims and Witnesses of Violence provides a comprehensive view of the legal framework and authoritative guidance concerning the rights of child victims and witnesses across the EU, Council of Europe and United Nations (UN). (June 2017)
The PROMISE Advocacy Guidance aims to help you develop national and regional advocacy strategies to promote progress on Barnahus. (June 2017)
Read more about the PROMISE resources Promoting Barnahus Through Practical Tools
The rights of the child in practice: furthering child-friendly justice in European Law, the Academy of European Law.