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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A Child’s Right to a Family: Deinstitutionalization – In the Best Interest of the Child

Asha Bajpai - Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, 2017

Using national and international law, court observations, and field experiences, this paper argues a case for deinstitutionalization of children in India, by empowering the families, thereby protecting children's right to a family and preventing abuse and exploitation.

Institutional Violence against Children: How to Cope with the Inevitable and the Unconquerable

Victoria Schmidt - Ending Violence in Childhood Global Report 2017, Know Violence in Childhood, 2017

This paper, produced for the Know Violence global learning initiative, looks at the violence children experience in closed institutions in the Central Asian countries, specifically the former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Ending the criminalisation of children in residential care: Briefing one

The Howard League for Penal Reform, 2017

This is the first in a series of briefings to be published alongside a programme of research and campaign work to end the criminalisation of children living in residential care. The project builds on from research published in March 2016, which found that children living in children’s homes in the UK were being criminalised at much higher rates than other children, including those in other types of care.

Action Plan for improving child care with the target of safely returning 30 per cent of children in residential care to their families 2016-2018 (Khmer)

Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation - Kingdom of Cambodia, 2017

This Action Plan for improving child care, with the target of safely returning 30 per cent of children in residential care to their families 2016 - 2018, was developed to support the implementation of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY) Work Platform 2014–2018 and the Sub-Decree 119 on the Management of Residential Care Institutions, which was endorsed on 11 September 2015.

The development of possible selves and resilience in youth transitioning out of care

Bond, Susan Jane; Van Breda, A.D., Prof. - University of Johannesburg, 2017

This study contributes to the emerging body of South African literature on care leaving, as it explores the future selves and resilience factors of young people who are still in residential care and who are about to exit the statutory system.

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Hurdles impeding the provision of holistic services to children in need of care and protection : a study of selected child and youth care centres in Soweto, South Africa

Leonard M. Agere, Pius T. Tanga, and Simon Kang’ethe - Child Abuse Research in South Africa, 2017

The aim of the paper is to explore selected pertinent challenges that impede child and youth care centres (CYCCs) from providing holistic support and care to children found in need of care as stated in the Children’s Act No. 38/2005.

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Children Out of Parental Care in Russia: What We Can Learn from the Statistics

Biryukova Svetlana & Sinyavskaya Oxana - Journal of Social Policy Studies, 2017

The paper presents a detailed analysis of the Russian official statistics for orphans and children placed out of parental care.

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Towards the Right Care for Children: Orientations for reforming alternative care systems in Africa, Asia, Latin America

Samantha Chaitkin, Nigel Cantwell, Dr Chrissie Gale, Dr Ian Milligan, Catherine Flagothier, Claire O’Kane, Dr Graham Connelly - European Union, SOS Children's Villages, CELCIS, 2017

The general objective of this study was to conduct a research on the possible issue of institutionalisation in six South and Central American, Asian and African countries in order to strengthen the knowledge of the European Commission on the nature, the extent and scope of institutionalisation and feasibility of de-institutionalisation (alternative care for children).

Placement instability among young people removed from their original family and the likely mental health implications

Simon Rice, Sue Cotton, Kristen Moeller-Saxone, Cathrine Mihalopoulus, Anne Magnus, Carol Harvey, Cathy Humphreys, Stephen Halperin, Angela Scheppokat, Patrick McGorry, Helen Herrman - Shanghai Archives of Psychiatry, 2017

The objective of this study was to undertake the first systematic census of background, care type and placement stability characteristics of young people living in the out-of-home care sector in Australia.

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Voluntourism Information Sheet – Support families, not orphanages

Linda Reynolds, Senator for Western Australia & Kate van Doore, 2017

This newsletter issue from Senator Linda Reynolds of Western Australia, written in conjunction with Kate van Doore of Griffith Law School, was written in preparation for the Australian Parliamentary inquiry on modern slavery and describes the ways in which orphanage trafficking constitutes modern-day slavery.

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