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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Nutritional Status of Under-five Children living in Orphanages compared with their Counterparts living with their Families in Host Communities in Lagos State

Izuka MO, Olatona FA, Adeniyi OF, Onajole AT - Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care, 01 Mar 2021

This study was conducted to determine and compare the nutritional status of children living in orphanages and children living in the host communities in Nigeria.

Young Teenagers’ Views Regarding Residential Care in Portugal and Spain: A Qualitative Study

Carme Montserrat, Paulo Delgado, Marta Garcia-Molsosa, João M. S. Carvalho and Joan Llosada-Gistau - Social Sciences, 10 Feb 2021

A qualitative study was designed highlighting the voices of children, analysing their fostering experience, interpersonal relationships, their participation in daily decisions, and future aspirations.

Postmarital Life Challenges After Foster Care Discharge: A Qualitative Study

Fardin Alipour, Negin Khoramdel, Maliheh Arshi, Mohammad Sabzi Khoshnami - Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 03 Feb 2021

This research explored the experiences of the postmarital life of women with a history of residence in foster care centers. It was conducted using a qualitative content analysis.

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Analytical report: Consultation on unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers

Professor David Greatbatch and Sue Tate - Department for Education, 01 Feb 2021

The Department launched a consultation on the use of independent and semi-independent children's care settings that are not required to register with Ofsted (unregulated provision) as a matter of urgency, ahead of the Government’s anticipated wider care review. This report presents the key findings from an independent analysis of responses to the consultation.

The Haitian orphanage crisis: Exporting neoliberal family ideals in the debate on vulnerable childhoods in Haiti

Diane M. Hoffman - Children & Society, 01 Feb 2021

This article offers a critical cultural reading of narratives on family reunification in Haiti in social media and advocacy discourse, revealing how this approach privileges Northern assumptions about proper parenting and family life.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Institutionalization of Children and Alternative Family-Based Care Options for Children in Kenya

Association for Alternative Family Care of Children, in collaboration with the National Council for Children Services and Department of Children’s Services, 01 Feb 2021

This booklet emphasizes the importance of family based care for the care of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) in Kenya, provides answers to regularly asked questions, and lists current government efforts to support OVC, including the policy and legal frameworks and existing forms of family and community-based care.

Children Living in Residential Care in Ghana: Findings from a survey of well-being

Ghana Department of Social Welfare and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 01 Feb 2021

This report, produced by the Department of Social Welfare and Ghana Statistical Service with UNICEF support, provides an overview of the main findings from a census of residential care facilities in Ghana, an enumeration of the child population in these facilities, and a survey on a representative sample of such population.

The UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty: The Role of Academia in ‘Making the Invisible and Forgotten Visible’

Manfred Nowak and Manu Krishan - Crime Prevention and Justice in 2030, 30 Jan 2021

This chapter summarises the detailed findings of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty and exemplifies the significant leading role of academia in ‘making the invisible and forgotten visible’ throughout the world.

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Psychosocial Dynamics in Attachment Styles Among Runaway Children

Srishti Kapoor, Kailash Panwar, Kshitija Wason - Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, 29 Jan 2021

The present research study is an exploratory study to examine factors like lack of communication and attachment to parents, abuse, poverty and peer influence with a sample size of 100 runaway children (50 girls, 50 boys) residing in a non-governmental organisation in NCR, Delhi.

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Vulnerability and Well-Being Decades After Leaving Care

Thomas Gabriel, Samuel Keller and Clara Bombach - Frontiers in Psychology, 27 Jan 2021

This article hermeneutically reconstructs biographies decades after leaving-care to understand the impact of residential care experiences on selected dimensions of care-leavers’ well-being, that were discovered in the data material.