- 6Family Environment and Alternative Care 6.1 Parental guidance and parental responsibilities (article 20) 150. Article 20 of the ACRWC requires the State to take steps to ensure that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their children and are obliged to ensure the best interests of the child are paramount in all decisions, to secure necessary conditions of living, and to ensure that domestic discipline is administered with humanity. Further, where parents are unable to provide as required, the State must provide material assistance and support programmes, especially with regard to nutrition, health, education, clothing and housing, and must ensure that children of working parents are provided with care and facilities. 151. Historically and traditionally Sierra Leone has long-recognized the family as the most important group in society and the natural environment for the development and protection of children. Moreover, it has recognized that the broader community within which a family lives as a legitimate and critical support mechanism to aid families in fulfilling their responsibilities. 152. In line with its customary law and international and regional commitments, the Child Rights Act recognizes and protects the rights of all children to parental care and to live with their parents and family and grow up in a caring and peaceful environment. It simultaneously recognizes the correlative right and duty of all parents to provide support and guidance to their children to ensure their survival and development to the maximum extent possible, subject to the proviso that they may be assisted by the State in the case of need. 153. Moreover, the Child Rights Act recognizes and protects the right and duty of care towards children by extended family members as well as broader community members who are entitled by custom or tradition to provide guidance, advice and to provide for the needs of the child. 154. In terms of the Child Rights Act, parents are simultaneously entitled and duty-bound to: 154.1 Ensure children are protected from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse, exposure to hazards and oppression; 154.2 Provide good guidance, care, assistance and maintenance for the child and assurance of the child’s survival and development; 6. Family Environment and Alternative Care  45