Residential Care

Residential care refers to any group living arrangement where children are looked after by paid staff in a specially designated facility. It covers a wide variety of settings ranging from emergency shelters and small group homes, to larger-scale institutions such as orphanages or children’s homes. As a general rule, residential care should only be provided on a temporary basis, for example while efforts are made to promote family reintegration or to identify family based care options for children. In some cases however, certain forms of residential care can operate as a longer-term care solution for children.

Residential care can be a positive alternative for some girls and boys when it is used appropriately and meets certain standards. For example, small group home living arrangements or supported independent living can work well in cases where children (often older teenagers) don’t feel comfortable in a family setting, or where large groups of siblings want to stay together. Similarly in cases where children have suffered trauma, severe abuse or neglect, have a severe disability or require specialised support, small group settings where trained staff can provide therapeutic care may be an appropriate care option. As much as possible, residential facilities should be small, community-based, organised to resemble a family-type or small-group situation and allow for sufficient staff to provide individualised attention to children.

It is important to distinguish between residential care and institutional care, which should only be used as a last and temporary resort for children. Institutional care refers to large-scale group care within big institutional facilities and has been associated with a wide range of problems for children including physical, social and emotional under-development - with babies and infants under the age of three especially vulnerable to lasting harm. Long periods in an institution can deprive children of positive individual attention from consistent caregivers, make it difficult for them to assimilate back into a family and community, and are often linked to increased risk of sexual and physical abuse, a lack of stimulation, and harsh discipline.

In recent years, deinstitutionalisation has been at the heart of national care reform efforts, which seek to reduce reliance on institutional care and to promote family and community based care options for children instead. This includes efforts to promote ethical volunteerism within residential care centres, educate donors and to avoid proliferation of orphanages and children’s homes after humanitarian emergencies.

The documents in this section outline residential care options for children, examine the damaging impact of institutions, explore family and community-based care alternatives and describe care reform efforts including initiatives around ethical volunteerism.

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Country Care Review: Cuba

Better Care Network, 09 Apr 2019

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Country Care Review: Saudi Arabia

Better Care Network, 09 Apr 2019

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Who Am I and Where Am I From? Substitute Residential Home Children’s Insights into Their Lives and Individual Identities

Ingrid Sindi & Judit Strömpl - Child & Youth Services , 06 Apr 2019

In this article, the authors provide children’s insights into their own life experiences and individual identities. The data was collected during an ethnographic research in one of Estonia’s SOS Children’s Villages (SOS CV).

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Looked After Children: The Reluctant State and Moral Salvation

Mark Cronin - Genealogy, 06 Apr 2019

The main argument in this article is that the rationale for the state’s growing interest in children (in particular those children who are considered a social problem) and the emerging social policy solutions, i.e., foster care, are driven by particular political and economic agendas which have historically paid little attention to the needs of these children and young people.

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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How Family Reunification Works

1MillionHome, 01 Apr 2019

This video from 1MillionHome shares the story of one children's home in Kenya, Agape, that transitioned from a "traditional orphanage" to a family reunification center.

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Intergenerational Trauma: The Relationship Between Residential Schools and the Child Welfare System Among Young People Who Use Drugs in Vancouver, Canada

Brittany Barker, Kali Sedgemore, Malcolm Tourangeau, Louise Lagimodiere, John Milloy, Huiru Dong, Kanna Hayashi, Jean Shoveller, Thomas Kerr, Kora DeBeck - Journal of Adolescent Health, 01 Apr 2019

This study investigated the relationship between familial residential school system (RSS) exposure and personal child welfare system (CWS) involvement among young people who use drugs (PWUD).

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Exploring the relationship between interparental conflict and emotional security: What happens with adolescents in residential care compared to those living with their families?

Silvia López-Larrosa, Paula Mendiri, Vanesa Sánchez-Souto - Children and Youth Services Review, 30 Mar 2019

In this study, the authors examined adolescents' emotional security and insecurity (preoccupation and disengagement) determined by dimensions of interparental conflict (IPC). These results have implications for researchers and for practitioners when addressing family reunification for adolescents in residential care (RC) or risks in community samples.

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Social care common inspection framework (SCCIF): children’s homes

Ofsted, 29 Mar 2019

This inspection framework, developed by the UK's Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted), provides guidance about how children’s homes are inspected, for use from April 2019.

Part 1: Forced Child–Family Separations in the Southwestern U.S. Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy: Preventing Human Rights Violations and Child Abduction into Adoption

Carmen Monico, Karen S. Rotabi, Justin Lee - Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, 26 Mar 2019

This article focuses on the “zero-tolerance” policy adopted in spring, 2018, in the USA. The implementation of this policy resulted in the forced separation of children from their families and the violation of human rights of those detained in authorized facilities and foster care.

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