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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Ukraine's Forgotten Children

Kate Blewett - BBC Four, 21 Jun 2012

In this video, film-maker Kate Blewett finds out what a lifetime in the care of the state really means for Ukraine's forgotten children.

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Children Living with and Affected by HIV in Residential Care: Desk-based research

Gillian Mann, Siân Long, Emily Delap and Lucy Connell, 08 Jun 2012

Desk review of existing literature and research to track the extent to which the HIV pandemic has been a driver of growth in children’s residential care and the situation of HIV affected children in care.

Family Based Care in Indonesia - Save The Children

Save the Children, 06 Jun 2012

This video showcases the Family-based care program of Save the Children and its partners in Indonesia.

Families First | EN - Save The Children

Better Care Network, 06 Jun 2012

The People’s Republic of China issued its third and fourth combined report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in June 2012. This extract of the report focuses on sections relevant to children's care and in particular those addressing Family Environment and Alternative Care

Baseline Study: The state of Institutional Care in Uganda

Mark Riley and Ministry of Gender, Labour & Social Development, 01 Jun 2012

This document summarises the key findings of the project to-date and the current status of the child care and alternative care directory. It also outlines some key activities that need to be undertaken for the MoGLSD to start to address the issues outlined within the report. The MoGLSD has carefully evaluated the baseline study and after a number of consultations wish to put forward this document as a proposal to address the serious issues of children without parental care and the growing number of children’s homes.

Explaining the Continued Presence of Orphanages in Battambang Province, Cambodia

KCD-Hart Fellows Program Collaboration , 01 Apr 2012

This qualitative research study seeks to better understand some of the reasons for residential care expansion in the province of Battambang, Cambodia. The study aims to identify why children are sent to orphanages and understand the attitudes of those stakeholders who are influencing the rise in institutions in the province.

Retrak Report: De-institutionalization of street children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Zahara Legesse Kauffman & Kelley McCreery Bunkers, 01 Mar 2012

The study was carried out in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The purpose of this research is to utilise information collated from literature review as well as informant interviews and focus group discussions to identify good practices or help inform the development of such practices aimed at assisting street children currently residing in institutional care to return to a family-based environment.

National Council on Disability: Deinstitutionalization Toolkit

National Council on Disability, 2012

The Deinstitutionalization Toolkit is designed to provide all those interested in institutional closures and expanded community living opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities (ID/DD) with information, strategies, state data, and case studies that can facilitate closure and build community capacity to serve more people with ID/DD in the community. It covers topics such as building a broad-based coalition, understanding and working within the political environment, creating a community system of care, and relevant laws, policies, and court decisions.

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Children Orphaned by AIDS Who Live in Orphanages in Uganda. What Enables Them to Thrive?

Priscillah Rukundo - University of Bergen, 2012

This study aimed at finding out what enables children orphaned by AIDS who live in orphanages to thrive.

Forgotten children? An update on young children in institutions across Europe

Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis, Kevin Browne , 2012

This article provides an update on a series of projects that have highlighted the issue of institutionalization of children in Europe, arguing that babies and small children aged less than 3 years old, with or without disability, should not be placed in residential care without a parent or primary caregiver.

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