Re-Operationalizing the “Best Interest” Standard for Children without Parental Care: Toward Permanent Environmental Reassignment for Residential Childcare Institutions

Abstract

Procreation confers no legal right to interminable parentage, nor should society presume that biological parents are or can be optimal caregivers. When parents fail at their obligations, state intervention may lead to placement in a residential childcare institution (RCI). Although institutionalization has historically been excoriated as contrary to a child’s best interests, this conclusion is based on antiquated research that belies the contemporary RCI. While warehousing children in attenuated environments is disruptive, reflexively advocating for the closure of all RCI, and returning unwanted children to the same impoverished environments from which they were previously removed, is equally perilous. Rather than invigorate RCI with a philosophy that encourages childhood experienced and facilitates education, safety, and mutual respect, stakeholders continually default to the “family” because of a genetic relationship. This is the very definition of child neglect. Recent research in Armenia suggests that RCI provides vulnerable children with a safe haven during times of crisis, nurturing relationships with staff and peers, emotional stability during formative years, and an improved standard of living. Moreover, Armenia’s “transitional centers”, which house older teenager girls who have graduated high school and outgrown the traditional RCI, afford a continuum of care that facilitates higher learning and encourages emotional and fiscal independence. The evolution of the modern RCI suggests that any rational “best interest determination” must eschew intrafamilial deference and instead embrace permanent environmental reassignment when a biological family’s ability to offer even marginal care and supervision is compromised.