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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Congregate Care Settings in the United States

Rebecca D. Webster, Jeremy Wente, Sheri R. Parris, and Adrian V. Rus - Child Maltreatment in Residential Care, 03 Aug 2017

This chapter in Child Maltreatment in Residential Care provides a brief history of congregate care in the United States and the experiences of maltreatment of children and youth within congregate care settings as they shifted over time.

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Why Institutions Matter: Empirical Data from Five Low- and Middle-Income Countries Indicate the Critical Role of Institutions for Orphans

Christine L. Gray, Sumedha Ariely, Brian W. Pence, and Kathryn Whetten - Child Maltreatment in Residential Care, 03 Aug 2017

This chapter of Child Maltreatment in Residential Care discusses the findings from a multi-country study comparing the incidence of maltreatment in institution-based and family-based care and offers recommendations based on the findings.

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Child Maltreatment and Prevention Practices in Chinese Orphanages

Xiaoyuan Shang & Karen R. Fisher - Child Maltreatment in Residential Care, 03 Aug 2017

This chapter of Child Maltreatment in Residential Care describes the progression of changes in China's child care and protection policies to reduce the use of institutional care for children and increase efforts toward family strengthening and family-based models of alternative care.

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Young People’s Voice: The First Visiting Advocacy Project in Italian Residential Care for Children

Valentina Calcaterra & Maria Luisa Raineri - Department of Sociology, Catholic University of Milan, 01 Aug 2017

This article presents the research of the project "Giving Young People a Voice: Advocacy in Children’s Homes," which evaluated the implementation of a visiting advocacy project and services provided by an independent advocate working in children's homes in Italy.

Finding Common Ground with Orphanage Supporters

Philip Goldman, Maestral International - MacArthur Foundation , 27 Jul 2017

In this video, Philip Goldman, President of Maestral International, discusses how donors, faith communities, advocates and other committed actors can be brought together under the common belief that all children belong in families.

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EEG Correlation during Social Decision-making in Institutionalized Adolescents

Jorge Hevia-Orozco, Araceli Sanz-Martin, Miguel Angel Guevara and Marisela Hernández-Gonzalez - Abnormal & Behavioral Psychology, 26 Jul 2017

This study investigated and compared electroencephalogram (EEG) functioning between a group of institutionalized adolescents and a never institutionalized group of adolescents during a social decision making task.

Effectiveness of life skills education and psychoeducation on emotional and behavioral problems among adolescents in institutional care in Kenya: a longitudinal study

Victoria Mutiso, Albert Tele, Christine Musyimi, Isaiah Gitonga, Abednego Musau, David Ndetei - Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 25 Jul 2017

This study aimed to test the effectiveness of life skills education (LSE) and psychoeducation in the reduction of Youth Self Report (YSR) scores on institutionalized children in Kenya, using structured activities supported by trained facilitators.

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Africa Expert Consultation on Violence against Children in All Care Settings

Better Care Network & African Child Policy Forum, with support from CRS, Family for Every Child, Hope and Homes for Children and Save the Children , 21 Jul 2017

On 21-22 June 2017, the African Child Policy Forum and Better Care Network - with the support of Catholic Relief Services, Family for Every Child, Hope and Homes for Children and Save the Children - convened 40 leaders representing child rights bodies, regional economic communities, national governments and civil society in Nairobi, Kenya for the Africa Expert Consultation: Violence Against Children in All Care Settings.

Country Care Review: Romania

Better Care Network , 13 Jul 2017

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child during the seventy-fifth session (15 May 2017 - 02 Jun 2017) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Ending the criminalisation of children in residential care: Briefing one

The Howard League, 10 Jul 2017

This briefing the first in a series describing a programme of the Howard League for Penal Reform, which is intended to clarify why so many children in residential care in England and Wales are being criminalised at higher rates than their peers and identify examples of best practice to prevent their unnecessary criminalisation.