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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Guidelines for Residential Institutions: Keeping Children Nourished During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Spoon Foundation, 27 Apr 2020

This document from the Spoon Foundation provides guidelines for residential institution administrators to keep children nourished and their immune systems strong during the pandemic through diverse, nutrient-dense foods.

COVID-19 Guidance for Interim Care Centres

Save the Children, 24 Apr 2020

This guidance is for Save the Children staff and partners already running Interim Care Centres (ICCs) during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kenya’s Over-Reliance on Institutionalization as a Child Care and Child Protection Model: A Root-Cause Approach

Njeri Chege and Stephen Ucembe - Social Sciences, 22 Apr 2020

This paper teases out the range of factors reinforcing Kenya’s over-reliance on live-in institutions as a child care and child protection model.

Inequalities in educational outcomes in individuals with childhood experience of out-of-home care: What are driving the differences?

Lars Brännström, Hilma Forsman, Bo Vinnerljung, Ylva B. Almquist - PLoS ONE, 20 Apr 2020

In order to be better equipped to design interventions aimed at improving the educational outcomes of children for whom society has assumed responsibility, this study seeks to further our understanding about which factors that contribute to the educational disparities throughout the life course.

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Institutionalization of Children with Disabilities in Croatia: Social Workers' Perspectives

Maja Laklija, Marina Milić Babić & Leah P. Cheatham -Child & Youth Services , 20 Apr 2020

This study aims to advance understanding of social workers’ perceptions of the circumstances necessitating and preventing the placement of children with disabilities (CwDs) in institutions.

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Institutionalization of Children with Disabilities in Croatia: Social Workers' Perspectives

Maja Laklija, Marina Milić Babić, & Leah P. Cheatham - Child & Youth Services , 20 Apr 2020

This study aims to advance understanding of social workers’ perceptions of the circumstances necessitating and preventing the placement of children with disabilities (CwDs) in institutions.

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Victimization and substance use among adolescents in residential child care

Sergio Fernández-Artamendi, Alba Águila-Otero, Jorge F. Del Valle, Amaia Bravo - Child Abuse & Neglect, 16 Apr 2020

The present study aimed to evaluate the specific impact of different forms of victimization on alcohol and cannabis use problems among adolescents in Residential Child Care (RCC) in Spain, attending to sex differences.

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Disrupting the disruption cycle - a longitudinal analysis of aggression trajectories, quality of life, psychopathology and self-efficacy in closed youth residential care

Nina Kind, David Bürgin, Vera Clements, Marc Schmid - Children and Youth Services Review, 13 Apr 2020

This study investigated if changes in quality of life (QoL), psychopathological symptoms and perceived self-efficacy predict aggressive behavior trajectories in youths with clinical aggression levels living in closed youth residential care in Germany.

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Alternative Care Thailand, 12 Apr 2020

This animated video from Alternative Care Thailand tells the story of a boy in Thailand who is sent to live in an orphanage because his mother feels she is unable to care for him at home, his experiences with volunteers once he arrives at the orphanage, and how the orphanage transitioned to supporting children to live in families.

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Annexe à la Fiche Technique Interorganisations sur la Protection des Enfants Durant la Pandémie de Covid-19: Les Enfants et la Protection de Remplacement

Better Care Network, The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, and UNICEF and Inter-agency Task Force, 09 Apr 2020

Ce document qui accompagne la Fiche Technique interorganisations sur la Protection des enfants durant la pandémie de COVID-19 : les enfants et la protection de remplacement fournit des conseils utiles pour promouvoir l’implication et la participation de toutes les parties prenantes, qui sont indispensables pour maintenir la continuité des services pour les enfants.