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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Care of the State: Relationships, Kinship and the State in Children’s Homes in Late Socialist Hungary

Jennifer Rasell, 29 Aug 2020

Care of the State blends archival, oral history, interview and ethnographic data to study the changing relationships and kinship ties of children who lived in state residential care in socialist Hungary.

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The Continuing Family Relations of Children in Care

Jennifer Rasell - Care of the State, 29 Aug 2020

The various examples in this chapter from Care of the State: Relationships, Kinship and the State in Children’s Homes in Late Socialist Hungary show that children in care continued to have relations with their parents either figuratively or actually.

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Care as a Frame for Understanding the Mutual Constitution of State and Kinship

Jennifer Rasell - Care of the State, 29 Aug 2020

This introductory chapter presents the conceptual framework for the book 'Care of the State: Relationships, Kinship and the State in Children’s Homes in Late Socialist Hungary.'

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Strategies used by child and youth care workers to develop belonging and foster healthy attachments with young people in care in child and youth care centers in Tshwane, South Africa

Mizeck Chimange & Sue Bond - Children and Youth Services Review, 19 Aug 2020

This qualitative study, conducted in four child and youth care centres in the Tshwane region of South Africa, presents some techniques used by child and youth care workers to develop belonging.

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Attitudes towards trauma-informed care in residential out-of-home care

Emma Galvin, Renee O'Donnell, Aya Mousa, Nick Halfpenny, Helen Skouteris - Children and Youth Services Review, 09 Aug 2020

The attitudes of staff working in residential care towards trauma-informed care were measured prior to the implementation of The Sanctuary Model, an organisation-wide model and 6- months post implementation.

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Prioritizing nutrition and feeding in alternative care: An introduction and recommendations for programs

SPOON, 01 Aug 2020

This paper draws upon lessons from SPOON Foundation's work in 17 countries since 2008, summarizing the main nutrition considerations for children in alternative care and offering recommendations on integrating nutrition and feeding practices into alternative care programs. This paper also explores ways that nutrition can support the global movement to ensure every child has family-based care, while meeting the immediate needs of the millions of children currently in all types of alternative care.

The school experience of children in residential care: A multiple case study

Marta Garcia‐Molsosa, Jordi Collet‐Sabé, Carme Montserrat - Child & Family Social Work, 30 Jul 2020

Qualitative research based on a multiple‐case study was designed and carried out in Spain with the aim of deepening the understanding of the individual school experiences of three children in residential care.

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Behaviour management or institutionalised repression? Children’s experiences of physical restraint in custody

Felicity Shenton & Roger Smith - Children & Society, 21 Jul 2020

This article reports on a study of children's experiences of being physically restrained by staff in a range of custodial settings, including Local Authority Secure Children's Homes, in the UK.

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Family Partnering in Australian Therapeutic Residential Care: A Scoping Study

Patricia M McNamara - Residential Treatment for Children & Youth , 19 Jul 2020

This preliminary scoping study aimed to explore approaches to family partnering within Australian therapeutic residential care (TRC), along with elements of best practice.

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Maltreatment and youth self-representations in residential care: The moderating role of individual and placement variables

Maria Manuela Calheiros, Carla Silva, Joana Nunes Patrício - Children and Youth Services Review, 10 Jul 2020

The objective of this study was to explore the effects of previous maltreatment on current self-representations (i.e., the attributes used to describe oneself) of youth in residential care and the moderating role of gender, age, number of previous placements and length of placement in residential care.

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