This important article reviews some of the language and conceptual issues that need to be addressed to be able to meaningfully compare differential usage of residential childcare services (also referred to here as group-care) across national boundaries. The authors point out that residential care services in the child welfare sector, at least in Western and some ‘transition’ economies, come in a wide range of shapes and sizes and may, alternatively, consist of small children’s homes, campus and community-based family group homes, group homes, residential respite facilities, youth hostels and refuges, and various types of supported living accommodation. They report wide variations in group-care usage in different jurisdictions.
The authors discuss some of the challenges in comparing the data across jurisdictions due to the use of different terminology, ways of calculating residential care population, including which forms of group care are included, as well as the different variables that must be considered, including the over-representation of particular population of children in some contexts, such as children from minority groups, but also children from different age groups. They also explore the influence of historical and social contexts on the approach taken by different child welfare systems on the use of group care and the need to understand this in order to make meaningful comparisons. Finally the authors argue for more systematic ways of describing and analyzing the aims and characteristics of residential settings, in order to enable meaningful comparisons to be made between outcomes from group-care regimes in different jurisdictions.