Caring About Poverty from the Journal of Childhood and Poverty is now available on our website. Entry to institutional care is being used as an ineffective and expensive response to child and family poverty in a number of countries. In this paper, the practice of using institutional care for children in poverty is examined, drawing on case studies from three countries-the Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria, and Sri Lanka. Research findings reveal that poverty is a major underlying cause of children being received into institutional care and that such reception into care is a costly, inappropriate, and often harmful response to adverse economic circumstances. The report finds that alternatives to care may be funded from resources currently committed to institutions by developing a policy of gatekeeping.
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