It is often called an ‘orphanage’, even though most of the children living in it are not orphans. Or it is called a children’s home, while it cannot really be called a true home to the children, when their essential basic needs are not met. The most accurate word to use is residential childcare institution, but this is quite a mouthful. And as it turns out, even when you use the most accurate description, there is still a lot of room for confusion, because this term is used for a large variety of things.
Many different set ups are referred to as residential childcare institutions. For example, while in Western Europe orphanages no longer exist, when you look at the alternative care statistics or when you read the reports submitted to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, you see that there are references to ‘residential care’ for children. In Western Europe, residential care refers to small group homes. It is a form of alternative care used for children with complicated special needs or behavioural difficulties, who are unable to live with their own family or a foster family. Because these small group homes are not real family settings, they are categorised as residential care. However, an attempt is made to make these group homes as family-like as possible. By having no more than – usually – 8 children in one group, more often teenagers than younger children, cared for by dedicated caregivers (so not different people all the time), and usually the children live in a regular house in the community, so that they are able to take part in regular, everyday life.
This is in stark contrast to what is referred to as residential institutions in for example former-Soviet countries. There a residential institution may have a capacity of 100-500 children. These children often live in large buildings away from the community, without the freedom to leave the grounds. The life inside these residential institutions is usually strictly regimented, with very little room for individual choice or identity. And while these institutions often employ quite a large staff, very few of that staff are actually involved in the care of the children. Meaning that the children get little or no attention, stimulation, affectionate physical contact or opportunity to form attachments.
These are the two extremes of the wide range of institutions called residential childcare institutions. And in between can be found pretty much any conceivable nuance, under the same name. And that is not even taking into account the institutions that call themselves something else, but really are the same thing. Just to create more confusion for those who are trying to get an overview.
In various countries there are boarding schools, which when you look closer turns out to be an enormous grey area, when it comes to institutional care. To a certain extend all boarding schools provide institutional care, in that the children are not cared for by their parents much of the time. However, children who go home every weekend or at all school holidays still have a strong connection to their families and have the essential basic needs that are not met in an institution met at home, for the most part.
However, there are also boarding schools, in some countries, where children only go home once a year, or not even that. So, while they call themselves boarding schools, they are in fact residential childcare institutions, because the child has no other caregivers than the ones at the boarding school. Especially boarding schools where some children do go home and others do not, make it very hard to get accurate figures on how many children are in fact without parental care.
While the scale and the quality of care of residential childcare institutions (under whatever name) varies enormously, there is one constant: children who grow up in residential childcare institutions do not do as well as children who grow up in a family situation. Children who grow up in small group homes do much, much better than children who grow up in a large-scale institution, however, they still do worse than children who grow up in foster care.
So, while ‘residential childcare institution’ can mean a wide range of things, the priority should always be to avoid putting children in them. Children need family-based solutions!
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