This special issue of the BCN newsletter is published today to coincide with the launch of a series of papers by The Lancet Group Commission on Institutionalisation and Deinstitutionalisation, providing an evidence-based policy-focused review addressing the issue of institutional care across the globe. The Commission features a set of papers that present both a systematic review of the evidence on the negative effects of institutional care and the benefits of deinstitutionalisation, as well as a comprehensive framework of recommendations for policy and care reform.
The newsletter also highlights a critical new global enumeration study of the number of children in institutional care, also published in The Lancet, as well as other recent resources that add to the growing body of literature on the need for deinstitutionalisation and how it can be carried out globally.
The issue is introduced by brief commentaries from several of those involved in the Lancet Group Commission, including the Editors-in-Chief of The Lancet Psychiatry and The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, Niall Boyce and Jane Godsland, who explain why the Lancet chose to focus on the topic of deinstitutionalisation, Chair of the Lancet Commission, Edmund J S Sonuga-Barke, who provides an overview of the history of the Commission and its significance, and two of the Commissions’ authors and members, Chris Cuthbert of Lumos and Philip Goldman of Maestral, who discuss the scale and harms of institutionalization of children and the policy and practice recommendations for global, national, and local actors, respectively.
