Residential Care

Residential care refers to any group living arrangement where children are looked after by paid staff in a specially designated facility. It covers a wide variety of settings ranging from emergency shelters and small group homes, to larger-scale institutions such as orphanages or children’s homes. As a general rule, residential care should only be provided on a temporary basis, for example while efforts are made to promote family reintegration or to identify family based care options for children. In some cases however, certain forms of residential care can operate as a longer-term care solution for children.

Residential care can be a positive alternative for some girls and boys when it is used appropriately and meets certain standards. For example, small group home living arrangements or supported independent living can work well in cases where children (often older teenagers) don’t feel comfortable in a family setting, or where large groups of siblings want to stay together. Similarly in cases where children have suffered trauma, severe abuse or neglect, have a severe disability or require specialised support, small group settings where trained staff can provide therapeutic care may be an appropriate care option. As much as possible, residential facilities should be small, community-based, organised to resemble a family-type or small-group situation and allow for sufficient staff to provide individualised attention to children.

It is important to distinguish between residential care and institutional care, which should only be used as a last and temporary resort for children. Institutional care refers to large-scale group care within big institutional facilities and has been associated with a wide range of problems for children including physical, social and emotional under-development - with babies and infants under the age of three especially vulnerable to lasting harm. Long periods in an institution can deprive children of positive individual attention from consistent caregivers, make it difficult for them to assimilate back into a family and community, and are often linked to increased risk of sexual and physical abuse, a lack of stimulation, and harsh discipline.

In recent years, deinstitutionalisation has been at the heart of national care reform efforts, which seek to reduce reliance on institutional care and to promote family and community based care options for children instead. This includes efforts to promote ethical volunteerism within residential care centres, educate donors and to avoid proliferation of orphanages and children’s homes after humanitarian emergencies.

The documents in this section outline residential care options for children, examine the damaging impact of institutions, explore family and community-based care alternatives and describe care reform efforts including initiatives around ethical volunteerism.

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Country Care Review: Timor-Leste

Better Care Network, 29 Oct 2015

This country care review includes the care related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Country Care Review: Bangladesh

Better Care Network, 29 Oct 2015

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Country Care Review: Brazil

Better Care Network, 29 Oct 2015

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Quality of Life of Sri Lankan Children: Participatory Action Research to Address the Governance Issues of Voluntary Children’s Homes

Eshantha Ariyadasa & Janet Mcintyre - Systemic Practice and Action Research, 01 Oct 2015

This paper addresses the issue of human rights of vulnerable children in Sri Lanka in the wake of the civil war, global climatic change and economic recession.

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Opening Doors for Europe's Children: Mapping institutional and residential care for children in Greece

Hope & Homes for Children and EuroChild, 28 Sep 2015

To better understand the situation of children in institutional care in Greece, Roots Research Centre, the national coordinator of Opening Doors for Europe's Children, conducted the first nation-wide mapping of institutional and residential care in Greece. The study revealed "a patchwork" of public and private institutions and residential care facilities with little or no oversight of quality and no monitoring of the numbers of children and what happens to them.

We All Need Families at the End of the Day - Special Care

Better Care Network and UNICEF, 23 Sep 2015

This video gives an inside look at an assisted family setting in Ghana where children with disabilities live with their foster mothers. It highlights the increased risk of family separation faced by children with special needs and advocates for the provision of quality family-based care to children who cannot be with their parents or extended families.

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We All Need Families at the End of the Day

Better Care Network and UNICEF, 22 Sep 2015

This video is presented by Better Care Network and UNICEF. It tells the story of Maureen, a young girl in Kenya who was separated from her family and sent to live in a children's home. It also features interviews with experts, including those who have lived in children's homes, explaining some of the negative impacts of institutionalization and highlights the efforts of Care Reform Initiatives to deinstitutionalize children in Kenya and Ghana.

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We All Need Families at the End of the Day - Maureen

Better Care Network and UNICEF, 22 Sep 2015

This video is presented by Better Care Network and UNICEF. It tells the story of Maureen, a young girl in Kenya who was separated from her family and sent to live in a children's home. The video also features interviews with experts, including those who have lived in children's homes, explaining some of the negative impacts of institutionalization and highlights the efforts of care reform initiatives to deinstitutionalize children in Kenya.

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Changing discourses and changing institutional child substitute care: new terms and processes toward family-like and family based care

Ingrid Sindi - Child Care in Practice , 16 Sep 2015

This article is an attempt to analyse and describe the process of change in child substitute care that has taken place since the re-independence of Estonia in 1991.

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Children Need Families Not Orphanages

Lumos, 04 Sep 2015

This animated video from Lumos, narrated by Lumos founder J.K. Rowling, illustrates the “tragic consequences of orphanage care,” and argues that more can and should be done to support families to care for their children, eliminating the use of institutional care.

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