The need for family-based and community-based alternative care has been mentioned often in these blogs. Many decades of research has shown that children do much better when they grow up in a family and as part of a community. However, it is important to understand what community-based care really means because too often there is a misunderstanding about this, with harmful effects on the child.
The biggest misunderstanding is about what ‘in the community’ means. This is generally seen as meaning ‘not in a building that stands in an isolated location instead of between other buildings where people live.’ To a certain extent, this is correct. However, just living in a building surrounded by other buildings where people live, a building within the community, does not automatically mean that the children in that building also are given the opportunity to be part of the community.
Too often it happens that small group homes are said to be ‘community-based’ because they are located in houses or apartments within the community. However, in practice, the children living in these small group homes are not encouraged or even allowed to play outside and meet with other children in the neighbourhood. They are not given the opportunity to take part in activities, events, and celebrations that take place in the community. And they are not taken along to shops, markets, banks or on other errands, giving them a chance to learn to negotiate these kinds of situations.
So, while they are technically located within the community, they are not part of the community and do not get to see much more than the inside of their living space and the route to school. This is not community-based care. For care to be community-based, children’s lives have to be intertwined with the community around them.
And for community-based care to be possible, community services need to be available. This means that it has to be possible for children to go to school in their community, to have access to inclusive daycare and recreational activities, to have access to healthcare and mental health and rehabilitative services, all within their community.
In next week’s blog, I will explain why it is so very important for children to grow up as part of the community, how it drastically improves their chances in life.
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