Transforming Institutional Care

The detrimental effects of institutional care on a child’s well-being are widely documented. Community care alternatives such as kinship or foster care, are much more effective in providing care and protection for a child, and are sustainable options until family reunification can take place. Institutional care should only be used as a short-term last resort for children over the age of 3, when all other options have been exhausted.

Countries which have traditionally relied on institutional care are now undergoing major transformations to their child care and social welfare policies, in order to move towards community care options. Such transformations are rooted in the research-based evidence of the impact of institutions on a child’s development, vulnerability to abuse within institutional settings, and the institution's high operational costs. It is therefore of great concern that the use of institutions is increasing in developing countries with high rates of HIV/AIDS. Such projects are typically funded by foreign donors to the detriment of the local population, and pressure should be placed on the host governments to pursue policies of community rather than institutional care.

Institutions should be divided into small group homes in order to provide care which more closely resembles a family structure, with the close supervision of consistent adult caretakers, and with siblings, cousins and friends kept together. Adolescents, who may find integration into a new family difficult, may benefit from small group home care or supported independent living arrangements. Such homes should be fully integrated in the community to which the children belong, with a comparable standard of living. Any group home must adhere to stringent standards of documentation and care and be regularly monitored by protection workers to ensure the children have their safety, health, psychosocial, and educational needs met.

Any child in an institution must have their needs assessed and planned for, to enable them to return to their families as soon as possible. If a child has become separated from her family in an emergency, documentation, tracing and reunification activities should begin urgently. If a child has been removed from parental care for her safety, support services should be provided to the parents in order to facilitate the return of the child. Children must be kept fully informed and involved in any plans for their care, and encouraged to maintain contact with known relatives where possible.

The literature in this section deals with examples of countries which are working to develop their child care policies away from using large scale institutions to alternative community care options such as kinship care, fostering, and small group homes.

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Recording: India Alternative Care Network (IACN) Website Launch Event

India Alternative Care Network (IACN), 21 Oct 2020

The India Alternative Care Network (IACN) held a website launch event on 21 October 2020.

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Kenya Practitioner Learning Video Series

Better Care Network, 30 Sep 2020

Comprised of videos and accompanying discussion guides, this video series features the learning from practitioners working across a range of care-related programs and practices in Kenya.

Engaging Directors of Charitable Children’s Institutions

Better Care Network, 30 Sep 2020

In this video, Peter Kamau from Child in Family Focus discusses his organisation’s approach to engaging with the directors of privately-run charitable children’s institutions (CCI’s) to secure their buy-in for transition and the reintegration of children into families, in line with government policy.

Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space: Institutional Change in Russia

Meri Kulmala, Maija Jäppinen, Anna Tarasenko, Anna Pivovarova, 24 Sep 2020

This book provides new and empirically grounded research-based knowledge and insights into the current transformation of the Russian child welfare system. It focuses on the major shift in Russia’s child welfare policy: deinstitutionalisation of the system of children’s homes inherited from the Soviet era and an increase in fostering and adoption.

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Modernisation of Childcare Workforce in India: A Way to Deinstitutionalisation

C. Raneesh and A. K. Mohan - Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, 10 Sep 2020

In this study on childcare staff in children’s homes of Kasaragod district of Kerala, the researcher adopted a descriptive design and selected all registered children’s homes for the study purpose.

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The LPI as an Effective Ground-level Strategy for the Deinstitutionalisation and Quality Alternative Care of Children

G. A. Wasana Sudesh - Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, 10 Sep 2020

This article offers a Local Process Initiative (LPI) process in the Devinuwara Divisional Secretariat Division (DSD) in the Matara District of Sri Lanka as an effective strategy for the deinstitutionalisation and quality alternative care of children in South Asia.

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Issues Of Improving The Institution Of Placing Children Deprived Of Parental Care In Uzbekistan

Dinara Babajanova - The American Journal of Social Science and Education Innovations, 28 Aug 2020

This article discusses the issues of adoption, foster care and the appointment of guardians and trustees, as well as issues related to the upbringing of children deprived of parental care, innovations in family law and the placement of children deprived of parental care in Uzbekistan.

Transitioning Models of Care Assessment Tool

Rebecca Nhep and Hannah Won - Better Care Network & Kinnected, an intitiative of ACC International Relief, with support from Changing the Way We Care, 06 Aug 2020

This tool is designed as an assessment framework that assists practitioners to identify and analyze the key starting point dynamics and determine implications for strategy in their work to transition an organization's model of care of children from institutional to a non-institutional model.

Webinar Recording: Introduction to the Transitioning Care Assessment Tool

Better Care Network and ACC International Relief, 06 Aug 2020

This launch webinar provided an introduction to the Transitioning Models of Care Assessment Tool, an assessment framework that assists practitioners to identify and analyze key starting point dynamics and determine the implications for strategy in supporting organisations to transition from an institutional to non-institutional model of care.

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Is the deinstitutionalisation of alternative care a ‘wicked problem’? A qualitative study exploring the perceptions of child welfare practitioners and policy actors in Thailand

Justin M Rogers, Victor Karunan - International Social Work, 23 Jul 2020

This study examined deinstitutionalisation in Thailand. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a total of 27 child welfare practitioners and policy actors to explore their perceptions of Thai alternative care provision.

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