Community oriented residential care: The state of the art

Abstract

Over the last several years there has been an interesting and significant debate over the relative merits of foster home care as opposed to institutional care for children. Recently several writers have argued that institutional group care, when properly facilitated, should be regarded with less negativism than in the past (Wolins & Piliavin, 1964; Ferguson, 1966; Wolins, 1965). Indeed, the rate of breakdown in foster care as well as the difficulties of finding foster family homes for children provide new impetus for the reconsideration of the residential care as a placement alternative (Dinnage & Keller-Pringle, 1967, p. 5). It is important, then, to consider ways in which the programs of institutions can be improved. One of the major trends has been toward community oriented care. As the one group whose work touches every aspect of youngsters' lives in an institution, child care workers are particularly well situated to stimulate, encourage, and monitor movement in this direction.