Effects of Institutional Care

Institutionalising children has been shown to cause a wide range of problems for their development, well-being and longer-term outcomes. Institutional care does not adequately provide the level of positive individual attention from consistent caregivers which is essential for the successful emotional, physical, mental, and social development of children. This is profoundly relevant for children under 3 years of age for whom institutional care has been shown to be especially damaging.

Common issues for children in institutional care are a significantly increased risk of sexual and physical abuse, a lack of stimulation, and harsh discipline. Children in institutions are less likely to attend school, and are frequently isolated from their traditional communities. Long periods in an institution make it harder for a child to assimilate back into a family and community, and deny them access to the life-long attachments and community support systems that family relationships and communities can provide. For funders and implementing bodies, care in the community is a significantly more effective and sustainable use of resources since it avoids the high maintenance costs of institutions, and prevents many of the problems posed by institutional care.

It is widely accepted that institutions should be used as a last resort only. Countries which have traditionally relied on institutional care are now transforming their institutions into small family style group homes and actively pursuing preferences for community-based care options based around small family style units. This policy shift is urgently required in HIV/AIDS affected countries which are taking a backward step in resorting to the use of institutions to care for children orphaned or affected by the disease.

The body of literature contained in this section provides in-depth explanations of the damaging effects of institutionalisation on children and provides recommendations for alterative community care options.

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Coping with Adversity in the Lives of Children in Foster Care

Viola Tamášová and Silvia Barnová - Acta Educationis Generalis, 01 Apr 2019

This theoretical-empirical study is based on two particular case studies of families bringing up children from institutional care in Slovakia.

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Bullying in residential care for children: Qualitative findings from five European countries

Angela Mazzone, Annalaura Nocentini, Ersilia Menesini - Children and Youth Services Review, 14 Mar 2019

The present study addressed institutionalised children and staff members' perspectives about bullying in Residential Care settings (RCs) in five European countries (Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy and Romania.).

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Telomere Length and Psychopathology: Specificity and Direction of Effects Within the Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Mark Wade, Nathan A. Fox, Charles H. Zeanah, Charles A. Nelson, Stacy S. Drury - Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 04 Mar 2019

This study draws upon data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), a longitudinal study exploring the impact of severe psychosocial deprivation on child health and development to examine the relationship between telomere length and psychopathology.

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Child sexual abuse in institutionalized settings

Phillips Adrian, Saxena Ratna, Abraham Ronny Thomas - Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, 26 Feb 2019

To ensure protection of children from institutional abuse, there is an urgent need to review the existing laws in terms of their efficacy to protect children and feasibility in implementation. The present study suggests possible solutions, by trying to understand standardized and effective models of care systems and mechanisms.

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Sheltering is not gathering: A study with groups of siblings in institutional sheltering

Lígia Negrão Costa Taborda & Celina Maria Colino Magalhães - Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal , 25 Feb 2019

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the interactions between children and their siblings in an institutional shelter in Brazil.

Experiences of Young People Early in the Transition From Residential Care in Lagos State, Nigeria

Belema Sekibo - Emerging Adulthood, 27 Jan 2019

This article examines the aftercare experiences of young people who have recently left a residential care institution in Lagos State, Nigeria.

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Comparison of Institutionally Reared and Maltreated Children on Socioemotional and Biological Functioning

Nicole B. Perry, Carrie E. DePasquale, Philip H. Fisher, Megan R. Gunnar - Child Maltreatment, 27 Jan 2019

The current study compared behavioral and adrenocortical functioning of maltreated and comparably aged (1.5–3 years) institutionally-reared children soon after (1.5–2.5 months) placement in foster care or adoptive homes, respectively.

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How Early Experience Shapes Human Development: The Case of Psychosocial Deprivation

Charles A. Nelson III, Charles H. Zeanah, and Nathan A. Fox - Neural Plasticity, 15 Jan 2019

The question addressed in this paper from the Neural Plasticity journal is what happens to brain and behavior when a young child is deprived of key experiences during critical periods of brain development.

Long-term effects of institutional rearing, foster care, and brain activity on memory and executive functioning

Mark Wade, Nathan A. Fox, Charles H. Zeanah, and Charles A. Nelson III - PNAS, 14 Jan 2019

The current study examined longitudinal trajectories of memory and executive functioning (EF) from childhood to adolescence in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children in Romania.

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Effects of early adversity on the brain: Larger-volume anterior cingulate cortex in AIDS orphans

Peiying Zuo , Yinan Wang , Jia Liu, Siyuan Hu, Guoxiang Zhao, Lijie Huang, Danhua Lin - PLoS One, 14 Jan 2019

This study used magnetic resonance imaging to compare adolescent AIDS orphans reared in institutions with a sex- and age-matched group of healthy adolescents reared in families in China using a voxel-based morphometry analysis.

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