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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Unsafe and Uneducated: Indifference to Dangers in Pennsylvania’s Residential Child Welfare Facilities

Elissa Glucksman Hyne, Christina Wilson Remlin, Maura McInerney, Isabel Skilton, Genevieve Caffrey - Children’s Rights, 01 Dec 2018

This report is divided into two parts. Part A focuses on the dangers that occur at Pennsylvania’s residential facilities when the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (“PA-DHS”) fails to provide meaningful oversight. Part B provides background on child residents’ educational rights, details the inferior education that children at these residential facilities receive, especially those children with disabilities, and the devastating consequences.

Systematic review of staff training in residential childcare; and a grounded theory study of how residential childcare staff make sense of, and use, attachment theory in practice

Ailsa Morison - Edinburgh Research Archive, 30 Nov 2018

This thesis aimed to systematically review literature on the types, measurement and effectiveness of residential staff training, focussed upon psychosocial outcomes.

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Building a positive group climate together: How monitoring instruments are part of an improvement process in residential care for children

E. L. L. Strijbosch, I. B. Wissink, G. H. P. van der Helm, G. J. J. M. Stams - Children and Youth Services Review, 28 Nov 2018

The present study describes how two youth care organizations in the Netherlands implemented group climate monitoring instruments for children as part of the broader ‘You Matter!’ project, and aims to answer the question how these monitoring instruments can help to improve group climate when routinely embedded in daily care.

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Kristen Cheney 'Combatting the Orphan Industrial Complex'

Kristen Cheney | HagueTalks, 25 Nov 2018

In this video, Dr. Kristen Cheney discusses how her work led her to study the growth of the Orphan Industrial Complex and its adverse effects on children, families, communities, and child protection systems.

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Signs of attachment disorders and social functioning among early adolescents with a history of institutional care

Katherine L. Guyon-Harris, Kathryn L. Humphreys, Nathan A. Fox, Charles A. Nelson, Charles H. Zeanah - Child Abuse & Neglect, 20 Nov 2018

The aim of this study is to examine associations between signs of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED) and social functioning in children with a history of institutional rearing in early adolescence.

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The Love You Give

Better Care Network and ReThink Orphanages, 19 Nov 2018

This film tells the untold stories of orphanages, a system that's harming the very children we believe it protects, and how you can choose to be part of the solution.

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Grandparental support and life satisfaction among adolescents in residential care

Shalhevet Attar-Schwartz & Yisca Huri - Children and Youth Services Review, 17 Nov 2018

The current study, based on the reports of a random cluster sample of 1236 adolescents in grades 8 to 12 residing in Israeli educational RCSs for youth from underprivileged backgrounds, examined the contribution of informal grandparental support to the life satisfaction of adolescents in residential care settings (RCSs).

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Youngsters’ Perspectives on Continuity in Their Contacts with Youth-Care Services

Jan Naert, Griet Roets, Rudi Roose, Wouter Vanderplasschen - The British Journal of Social Work, 16 Nov 2018

This paper focuses on youngsters’ experiences of continuity in relation to youth-care services.

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Uncertain Living: Challenges of Orphans in the Philippines

John Mark Vergara, Ladee Abigail Angeles, Ashley Angel Pagkalinawan, Maurice Villafranca - JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research, 13 Nov 2018

This phenomenological study focused on the experiences, aspirations, and fears of orphaned children living in and outside the orphanage in the Philippines.

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Comparison of public mother–baby psychiatric units in Australia: similarities, strengths and recommendations

M Galbally, A Sved-Williams, D Kristianopulos, K Mercuri, P Brown, A Buist - Australasian Psychiatry, 08 Nov 2018

The objective of this article was to report data across five public mother–baby units in Australia in order to explore similarities and distinguishing features of each model.

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