The Infant Mental Health Journal has published an important Special Issue on Global Research, Practice, and Policy Issues in the Care of Infants and Young Children at Risk. The Journal makes an important contribution to research on children’s care, particularly in relation to younger children, featuring evidence from at least 12 countries.
Over the last 2 decades and especially recently, national and international governments and nongovernment organizations have increased efforts to help such children, especially those in low-resource countries. Two types of efforts have been made: one to improve the quality of care provided by institutions and the other to minimize the use of institutions and promote family residential care alternatives. The latter effort includes preventing family separations in the first place, reunification of children with birth families, and developing systems of kinship care, foster care, and adoption.
The Special Issue begins with this introductory article that provides a useful overview, placing the articles in the broader contexts of research on institutionalized children and different initiatives to prevent inappropriate care, either through addressing the quality of the care provided or ensuring the appropriateness of the type of care environment provided. The article argues that although institutions vary in their quality of care, some fall into what the authors term “globally deficient category” (do not provide basic physical essentials of adequate food, water, sanitation, safety and medical care), whilst most institutions are found to be “socioemotionally deficient” (they do not support adequate caregiver-child interactions and relationships).
The authors draw from the articles to identify some of the characteristics of successful attempts to improve programs and systems that might guide future efforts in other countries. They conclude that although not all localities will have the conditions to accomplish broad-based child welfare evolution, these interventions can demonstrate that individual institutions and organizations can implement change and perhaps become models for expanded activities in their countries.
Infant Mental Health Journal Volume 35, Issue 2, March/April 2014, Pages 87–191