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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Understanding the experience and outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care during the Twentieth Century

Elizabeth Fernandez, Jung-Sook Lee and Patricia McNamara - UNSW Sydney, 2018

This report details a component of the UNSW national Long-term Outcomes of Forgotten Australians Study reported in No child should grow up like this which explored the in-care and after-care experiences of adults who spent their childhoods in institutions and foster care during the period 1930 to 1989. In this report, the focus is on Stolen Generations survivors and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals who participated in the research.

Integration of Children from Institutional Care into Society

Veronika Blažková & Daniela Nováková - Street Children: An International Perspective, 2018

This article describes the changes in institutional care in the Czech Republic that were ushered in with the acceptance of the law on the execution of institutional or protective upbringing in 2002.

National Standards for Residential Homes for Children in Ghana

UNICEF Ghana, Department of Social Welfare of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, 2018

The revised Standards outlined in this document are aimed at strengthening the first National Standards for Residential Homes for Children (RHC) in Ghana, developed in 2010.

Enhancing Alternative Care Opportunities for Children with Disabilities in the Kingdom of Cambodia

ISS Australia, UNICEF, ISS, 2018

This report presents a needs assessment which provides a summary of the situation of children with disabilities who are living in residential care institutions and in communities in Cambodia and proposes seven key recommendations and relevant concrete actions for the short, medium and long term to improve the quality of care of children with disabilities living in institutions and to ensure that they have better access to basic services and are living in a protective environment.

Promoting Successful Transitions Beyond Institutional Care: A Programme-based Service Delivery Model Linked to a Case Management System

Pamhidzayi Berejena Mhongera, Antoinette Lombard - Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 2018

This paper reports on findings from an evaluation study of two institutions providing transition programmes to adolescent girls transitioning from institutional care in Zimbabwe.

Intervention Strategies Used by Social Workers in Emergency Child Protection

Jackie Hope, Carlien van Wyk - Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 2018

This research provides insight into the current intervention strategies used by social workers in emergency child protection, whereby children are removed from their caregivers as a result of abuse and are placed at child and youth care centres.

The Impact on Education of Children Admitted into Care after Experiencing Abuse

Neil Zammit & Charlotte Moore - MCAST Journal of Applied Research & Practice, 2018

This study focuses on the impact of abuse on the child’s education while it explores how these children are being supported in care institutions to minimize and overcome the effects of abuse on their educational journey.

Localising De-institutionalistion: The Potentials of Article 20 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Context of Rajasthan, India

Therese Boje Mortensen - Asia in Focus, 2018

This study contributes to a body of scholarship on ‘localising children’s rights’ by presenting findings from an ethnographic case study of an institution for HIV-infected/affected children in Rajasthan, India.

The prevalence of mental disorders among children and youth staying in residential institutions, children’s homes – a review of epidemiological studies

Witold Pawliczuk, Anna Kaźmierczak-Mytkowska, Tomasz Srebnicki, Tomasz Wolańczyk - Psychiatria Polska, 2018

This article presents an overview of the few studies carried out so far in the European residential institutions, including children’s homes, over the years 1940–2011 in the UK, Germany, Romania, and Poland.

Discussion Paper: Children in out-of-home care: What do medical students learn about them?

Katherine Thornton - Focus on Health Professional Education, 2018

This small pilot study to explores what is currently taught to future doctors about children in out-of-home care (OOHC) and found that there is no formal teaching about these children in the University of Melbourne Doctor of Medicine course.

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