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. 

Displaying 1 - 10 of 744

Andrew Burns, Maximilian Schäfer,

In this paper, two researchers with backgrounds in ethnography describe and reflect on their experiences from a qualitative, transnational study called 'Back to the Future: Archiving in Residential Children's Homes (ARCH) in Scotland and Germany. Important goals of the study are the investigation and development of digital community archives for young people, care workers and care leavers from residential homes in order to support their memories of shared everyday life.

Nofar Mazursky,

This study aims to explore the experiences of gender expressions among transgender youth who aged out of out-of-home care in Israel.

Patricia Lannen,

This is a recording of a presentation Dr. Patricia Lannen, the principal investigator of the “LifeStories project”, delivered during a meeting of the Evidence for Impact Working Group of the Transforming Children's Care Collaborative on 2 October 2024. LifeStories is a 60-year longitudinal study of individuals placed in infant care institutions.

Heather Askew, Justin Rogers,

This article seeks to learn more about the experiences and perspectives of those who spent their childhoods in institutional care in Thailand and how they compare with international research on this topic.

Viviane S. Straatmann,

This global study explores the intricate web of disadvantages preceding children’s entry into social care, shedding light on the complex interplay between early-life adversity, cumulative disadvantage, and long-term health outcomes and the ways in which intergenerational studies can inform strategies for breaking the cycle of disadvantage.

This study aimed to analyze the narratives of social educators regarding their practices within a foster care institution for children and adolescents in South Brazil.

Linda-Jeanne M. Mack, Corey S. Shdaimah, Danielle R. Phillips,

This article provides a unique comparison of four non-professional stakeholder groups involved with dependency courts overseeing child protective services cases in the state of Maryland in the United States.

Hannah Sand, Fabio Sticca, Flavia M. Wehrle, Dominique A. Eichelberger, Heidi Simoni, Oskar G. Jenni, Patricia Lannen,

The purpose of this longitudinal study conducted on institutionalized infants and toddlers in Switzerland from 1958 to 1961 and then 60 years later on the same group, is to investigate the effects of psychosocial deprivation on cognitive functioning in late adulthood.

Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marinus H. van IJzendoorn,

This article reviews a study conducted about child development in residential care, foster/kafalah care, and adoptive families. The authors of the study demonstrated that institutions cannot provide safe, stable, and shared care for children, and lead to substantial delays in their development, not only for physical health but also for mental health and neurocognitive growth.

Hannah Sand, Fabio Sticca, Dominique A. Eichelberger, Flavia M. Wehrle, Heidi Simoni, Oskar G. Jenni, Patricia Lannen,

This study aimed to investigate developmental outcomes of children raised in institutions in Switzerland in conditions of psychosocial deprivation and to identify possible risk and protective factors at institutional and child levels.