Residential Child Research Articles

Finding traces of everyday life in unusual places: looking beyond case files in German and Scottish residential child care

ABSTRACT Case records hold life-long significance for those who spent their childhoods in looked after care. Across Europe, public inquiries into the care and treatment of children in care have examined the content of records and have highlighted their limitations. This paper presents data from phase one of a wider study; ‘Archiving Residential Children’s Homes in Scotland and Germany (ARCH)’, which undertook content analysis of the archives of two residential settings, Aberlour and Freistatt. Findings highlight that records were kept and maintained not only by the institution but also for the institution. Despite this, children’s everyday lives were noticed and captured, albeit it often accidentally and incidentally. The ways in which these every day encounters were narrated and constructed suggest the power of the overarching ethos in place in the two settings and the adults’ orientations towards their role and purpose. Although different in tone and remit, both archives capture traces of daily life and tell us something about what a childhood in Freistatt or Aberlour might have been like. By examining the case recording practices in the past, we raise questions about what this means for contemporary social work and its responsibilities in relation to archiving children’s everyday childhoods.

Green Cities, Healthier Children: The Effect of Expanding Urban Green Space on Body Weight for Primary School Starters.

The discussion on tackling childhood obesity is often centered around fostering physical activity. A potential relationship yet overlooked could run from providing the proper environment for healthy lifestyles to reduced weight problems. A unique quasi-experimental setting of transforming former airport grounds to a large urban green space allows me to apply a difference-in-differences approach within an intention-to-treat framework, comparing several weight outcomes of residential children to children living further away before and after park opening. I use new administrative data on the Berlin district level from mandatory school entrance examinations and provide robust evidence of a lower probability by 4.3% points for treated children to be overweight (BMI>90 P.), driven entirely by girls, mainly by children from foreign cultural backgrounds and children with less childcare exposure. My results are robust to corrective methods of inference, including synthetic controls, and may open a new perspective for obesity policy action and prevention.

Institutional escapes, breaks, and continuities: Reframing running away from residential child care institutions

Abstract This article offers a novel approach to understand the phenomenon of running away from residential care institutions, challenging prevailing views that pathologize these incidents as individual deviance. Drawing on insights from the sociology of escape and Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of rhizome and lines of escape, we examine spatial, temporal, and relational dimensions of institutions, revealing the porous nature of institutional boundaries and non-linear characteristics of runaways. By reframing runaways as integral to institutional life rather than isolated events, we argue against reducing them to individual traits. Running away serves as pivotal moments that disrupt and shape institutional norms, highlighting inherent limitations in care. Conceptualizing running away as running-around within the institutional assemblage, we challenge binary inside/outside distinctions and argue that they oversimplify institutional complexity. Our analysis underscores how institutions exert totalizing control through surveillance, while being transformed through acts of running away. Examining the employees’ experiences though five focus group interviews, we critique the conventional perception of institutions as places of care, emphasizing their unbounded and multifaceted social configurations. We discuss how institutional powers shape semiotic systems that govern young people’s behaviour, advocating for a nuanced understanding of residential institutions as rhizomatic formations, where individual actions continually reshape institutional practices and perceptions.

Working With Traumatised Children During Traumatic Times: Residential Child Care Educators' Compassion Fatigue and Work Engagement

ABSTRACTDrawing from an Italian study conducted in residential care for children and guided by the postulates of the Job Demands and Resources Model, our aims are to investigate residential childcare educators' levels of compassion fatigue and work engagement, and to focus on the individual, work and organisational conditions associated. The survey involved 215 educators who were on duty during the summer of 2023. Data analysis employed descriptive statistics, bivariate and non‐parametric analysis. Results concerning compassion fatigue indicate that while burnout globally registers low to medium scores, more than one‐third of the sample fell in the ‘high’ category for personal burnout, more than one quarter scored high in work burnout and another one quarter have high client burnout scores. One into two suffer from moderate to severe manifestations of secondary traumatic stress, together with relatively high levels of work engagement. Based on individual, work and organisational variables, substantial differences were identified. In the final sections, we discuss job resources and demands and contribute to the development of targeted strategies for preventing compassion fatigue in residential childcare, while addressing strategies for enhancing better well‐being levels for those working in alternative care, impacting children's well‐being as well. Please refer to the Supporting Information section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Digital group archives in residential childcare: an investigation into memory responsibility

This article discusses phase two of the ARCH project (Archiving Residential Children’s Homes), and in particular, the development of a co-designed ‘digital archive’ that stores everyday, shared events and experiences for care experienced young people who live in residential children’s homes. We present research with young people living in residential care, care workers and care experienced adults about the types of everyday information or records they would like to be able to store, share and access in the future. There was a desire for the digital archive to have a different feel and purpose to content recorded in individual case files, with easy access to the archive deemed important. There were mixed views about the representation of events and experiences and whether these should contain mainly ‘light-hearted’ events and experiences. Our research gives an insight into memory-keeping practices within a residential children’s home and invites questions about whose responsibility it is for gathering, filtering and treasuring childhood experiences.

The nutritional and feeding status of children living in selected residential child care facilities in Zambia: implications for programs and policies.

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of undernutrition and risk of feeding difficulties and describe common feeding practices for children from birth to 10 years of age living in residential care in Zambia. This was a secondary analysis of de-identified cross-sectional data on 397 children living in 22 residential care facilities in four provinces. Child demographics, anthropometrics, hemoglobin levels, risk for feeding difficulties, and facility-level feeding practices were collected by a trained study team using Count Me In, a digital health app. Interviews with staff were conducted at 15 residential care facilities. Around half of the study sample were boys (53.4%) and <5 years old (55.4%). Special healthcare needs were reported in 10.3% of the children, with cerebral palsy being the most common (3.5%). Underweight, stunting, wasting (using weight-for-length/height), and anemia were found in 22.4, 28.0, 7.1 and 54.7% of children, respectively, with higher rates in children with special healthcare needs and children <24 months old. Duration of residential care was positively associated with length/height-for-age but not weight-for-age or weight-for-length/height z-scores. A risk for feeding difficulties was found in 41.4 and 26.0% of children with and without special healthcare needs, respectively. Suboptimal bottle-feeding practices, including the use of altered nipples and poor caregiver-infant interactions, were observed for infants <12 months old. Residential care staff reported suboptimal diets in their facilities and gaps in knowledge and resources to meet children's nutritional needs. These results demonstrate that a large proportion of children living in residential care in Zambia are at high risk for undernutrition and feeding difficulties and contribute to the small body of literature on children living in residential care, both in Zambia and globally. In the context of Zambia's efforts to improve child nutrition and reform its alternative care, these findings can inform programming and policies for children living in residential care to fulfill their rights to health and family care.

Everyday records or living archives? An analysis of record-keeping in residential children’s homes in Scotland

ABSTRACT This article presents research and experience gathered during a practice-based study to look at how group experience is captured and preserved in care records of children and young people. It discusses the work of the Archiving Residential Children’s Homes project (ARCH), a joint Scottish-German research project with teams at the Universities of Stirling and Osnabruck. The article focuses on the Scottish side of the project, examining the steps recently taken in Scotland towards recognizing the value and importance of care records and challenging current recording practices in the care sector. It reflects on the interdisciplinary nature of the project, examining the differing positions taken by key professionals and their approach to record keeping. The article looks beyond the individual case file examining how everyday, group life was historically captured and recorded, drawing out the parallels and differences with contemporary practice and proposing a new reframing of record keeping responsibilities to include the wider responsibility of memory keeping.

Navigating the vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms of children in residential child care institutions: A qualitative exploration

Residential child care institutions around the globe play a significant role in protecting children in need of care and protection. While these facilities facilitate hope and rehabilitation, the displacement of children from their families introduces a variety of psychosocial stressors. This qualitative study aims to elucidate children’s vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms in residential child care institutions in Kerala, India. We conducted in-depth interviews with 21 children aged 8-16 living in institutional care within Ernakulam District, Kerala, India, registered under the Juvenile Justice (JJ) (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015. Semi-structured interviews covered various domains, including demographics, emotional well-being, social interactions, behavioral issues, academics, and coping mechanisms. Attride-Stirling’s thematic network analysis was used in the data analysis to identify significant themes. The themes identified include (a) emotional well-being and self-perception, (b) behavioral problems, (c) social networking and interaction patterns, (d) educational and career aspirations, and (e) strengths and coping mechanisms. Our study presents the multifaceted challenges encountered by children in Kerala’s residential child care institutions, highlighting the need to create a nurturing environment that fosters child-centric practices that are essential to ensure their well-being and better prospects for their future.

아동양육시설 초등학생들의 기초문해력 실태 조사

The purpose of this study was to examine the level of basic literacy skills among elementary school students in residential child care institution based on their reading development. A total of 118 students participated in the reading screening test. According to the results of the screening test, students with severe reading difficulties were classified as ‘at risk’, students with reading difficulties were classified as ‘some risk’, and students with average and above average reading levels were classified as ‘typical’. The ‘at risk’ students were administered the Korean language acquisition and word recognition tests, while students in the ‘some risk’, and ‘typical’, were administered the reading fluency and comprehension tests. The main research findings are as follows. First, elementary school students in residential child care institution generally showed low levels of basic literacy skills. Second, almost students in the ‘at risk’ group were found to have difficulty in word recognition. Third, students in the ‘some risk’ and ‘typical’ groups were found to have greater difficulty in reading comprehension than reading fluency. Based on these research results, implications for enhancing basic literacy skills of elementary school students in residential child care institution were proposed.

Resilience in Residential Child Care - Results of a Survey Among Professionals

ABSTRACT The high turnover among professionals in residential child care is a problematic development. One attempt to explain the departure of professionals from residential child care is the concept of resilience. The authors surveyed former and current professionals (n = 1158) using a standardized resilience questionnaire. The paper addresses the questions of how resilient professionals in residential child care are (compared to the general population) and whether lower resilience is responsible for professionals leaving residential child care. We examine the extent to which the resilience facets (individual, organizational resilience, and team resilience) individually impact the decision to leave residential child care. The results show that particularly high team resilience counteracts the departure of professionals from residential child care, while individual and organizational resilience do not exert a significant influence on the decision to stay in residential child care. Initial implications for innovation management in residential child care with regard to strengthening team resilience and organizational resilience will be discussed in conclusion.

Identifying Deficiencies in Children's Residential Care in Finland: Inspectors' Views on Working With Information

ABSTRACTAbusive and illegal practices in residential care are a recognised issue in child welfare internationally; thus, the question of how these institutions are supervised is important. However, children's residential care is complex by nature, making its supervision a challenging task. This article examines residential care supervision by looking at the ‘knowledge work’ that two central legality supervisors in Finland—the Parliamentary Ombudsman and Regional State Administrative Agencies—conduct when inspecting children's residential homes. Here, ‘knowledge work’ refers to the process of working with information to identify deficiencies in care. Eleven interviews and 16 inspection reports are analysed with a focus on the nature of the information that these supervisors gather when inspecting residential units and how they evaluate the significance and reliability of the information. The results show that to complete their institutional task, the inspectors gather information from various sources, including documents and interviews with children. The significance of the information is then assessed by comparing it with legislation and the supervisory mandate, and its reliability is verified by considering the diverse information sources as a whole collection of information. The results suggest that how well ‘knowledge work’ is conducted highly affects the impact of supervision.

Encounters with Care in a Scottish Residential School in the 1980s

The meaning of care in residential child care is under-developed. It can often be represented through its absence, seen as offering at best basic physical tending but lacking emotional connection or warmth. At worst, residential care settings said to be institutionally abusive can be characterised as being antithetical to what we might imagine care should be. Residential schools and especially those run by religious orders attract particular opprobrium in this regard. In this article, I adopt a broadly autoethnographic approach to reflect on how boys (now men in their late 40s and early 50s) brought up in the 1980s in a Scottish residential school recall being cared for. The article uses Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition and its three pillars of love, rights and solidarity to group themes from how former pupils speak about their experiences of care. These accounts challenge the received narrative of such settings failing to offer care. The discussion reflects some ideas around care and about how we understand public care historically.

Charting the 21st Century Rise of For-Profit Residential Child Care

This article explores the increasing prevalence of for-profit residential care, with a particular focus on Great Britain, while also drawing on the international evidence from the Global North. Comprising a critical review of the published evidence (both academic and grey literature), the article seeks to examine what might explain the rising prevalence of and the possible associated impacts of the increase in for-profit provision. The findings indicate that the rise of for profit-companies among residential child care providers appears to have occurred by default, rather than explicit policy design. Our analysis also highlights gaps in the knowledge base about the quality of care and whether better quality is associated with the type of provider. Furthermore, the relationships between provider, quality, cost and outcomes are unclear. There are inconsistencies in the evidence base, with different conclusions being reached. However, available evidence tends to suggest the increased prevalence of for-profit residential child care providers has had an overall negative, rather than positive, effect. The best case in favour of the continued use of for-profit residential care is currently a non-moral pragmatic one: that in countries with medium and high prevalence of the use of residential child care, it would be hard to sustain care systems if for-profit providers were to suddenly withdraw or be withdrawn.

Children's Residential Proximity, Spousal Presence and Dementia Risk

Children's Residential Proximity, Spousal Presence and Dementia Risk

Young people leaving care and institutionalised vulnerability in the Russian Federation

Care leavers are often considered to constitute some of the most disadvantaged young people in society, and there exists a significant body of research that seeks to understand why some young people ‘succeed’, whereas others struggle due to accumulated ‘vulnerabilities’. Despite this extensive research base, policy and practice aiming to support young people leaving care remain diverse, indicating a lack of consensus on why some experience ‘poor outcomes’ and what might be done better to support them. This article focusses on the experiences of young people leaving care in the Russian Federation and makes two contributions; firstly, it provides theoretical insights through a critical discussion of the notion of vulnerability. We argue for attention to institutional vulnerabilities, which heavily structure the potential outcome of transitions available to young people leaving care in Russia. We note discourses and practices of dependency-related victim-blaming, which indicate the operation of ‘attribution errors’ in the Russian care and post-care systems, erroneously positioning individuals as responsible for their vulnerability rather than the dysfunction of systems of care. To fully understand the reasons for many young people’s ‘poorer outcomes’, we suggest refocussing attention towards the combined operation of discourses, systems and structures through the conceptual approach of ‘institutionalised vulnerability’. Secondly, the paper provides an empirical contribution in shedding light on the experiences of young people transitioning out of the care system as well as practitioners working in both the state and third sector in Russia, as the country experiences an ongoing process of deinstitutionalisation. This is important for other contexts given global efforts to deinstitutionalise residential child care settings.

Adolescents with intellectual disability in residential child care: Double vulnerability

ABSTRACT Background Adolescents with intellectual disability in residential child care are a highly vulnerable population. The main goal of this study is to explore the characteristics of young people with intellectual disability in therapeutic residential care (TRC) in Spain and to identify the key variables associated with their referral to these services. Method The total sample consisted of 473 young people in residential child care in Spain (63.8% boys), aged between 12 and 17 years (M = 15.32), divided into three different groups for comparison. An ad hoc questionnaire and the Youth Self-Report were used to collect information. Results Participants with intellectual disability in TRC presented a higher frequency of externalising problems and risk behaviours than adolescents with disability in general residential programmes. However, it was lower than that of their peers without disability in TRC. Conclusions Needs of adolescents with intellectual disability should be assessed before a referral to these facilities, in order to adapt the interventions provided.

The project “Colour Made Inclusive” as an example of creative education for youths

The purpose of this study is to present the programme of working with socially maladjusted youngsters, which is tailored to special needs of youths in one of the residential child care institutions. The theoretical background of the programme under discussion is based on cognitive–behavioral theory. The example in question consisted of several different types of classes including art classes and psychological support. Using the qualitative methods, the semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data as this study analyzed the participants’ changes in their behaviour. The most significant results of this study are the following conclusions: 1. the new programmes of working with youths based on cognitive behavioral theory (CBT) concept are necessary for the effective social rehabilitation process and restore these young people to the society, 2. social rehabilitation institutions for young people should provide them with the possibilities of changing their behaviour in the society as in the example presented in this paper.

Transition from care

Councils need to develop a more flexible leaving care process, says Danny Wilson, head of children's residential at Bedspace

A Creative and Movement-Based Blended Intervention for Children in Outpatient Residential Care: A Mixed-Method, Multi-Center, Single-Arm Feasibility Trial.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to psychological distress among children and adolescents. Due to multiple psychosocial burdens, the youth in residential care were especially exposed to an increased risk of mental health problems during the pandemic. In a multi-center, single-arm feasibility trial, N = 45 children and adolescents aged 7-14 years were allocated to a 6-week blended care intervention, conducted in six outpatient residential child welfare facilities. The intervention covered a once weekly face-to-face group session for guided creative (art therapy, drama therapy) and movement-oriented (children's yoga, nature therapy) activities. This was accompanied by a resilience-oriented mental-health app. Feasibility and acceptance analyses covered app usage data and qualitative data. Effectiveness was determined by pre-post comparisons in quantitative data on psychological symptoms and resources. Further, subgroups for poorer treatment outcome were explored. The intervention and app were considered to be feasible and were accepted by residential staff and the children. No significant pre-post changes were found across quantitative outcomes. However, being female, being in current psychosocial crisis, a migration background, or a mentally ill parent were correlated with change in score of outcomes from baseline. These preliminary findings pave the way for future research on blended care interventions among at-risk children and adolescents.

Changes in Mental Health of Children and Young People in Residential Care: Outcomes and Associated Factors.

Several studies have evidenced that children in out-of-home care (OOHC), including foster family care and residential care, reveal high levels of mental health disorders (ranging from 40% to 88%). This study examines the outcomes in mental health reported by key residential workers in a group of children and youth (N = 492) between 8-17 years old who were in residential child care (RCC) in Spain. The research also aims to explore the relationship between mental health outcomes and the provision of mental health services (i.e., receiving any mental health treatment) as well as the influence of child, family, and placement factors. The design of this study includes two measures: a baseline (T1) and a follow-up two years later (T2). The results indicated that 29.9% of young people enjoyed sustained mental health; 26% meaningful improvement in their mental health; 23.5% meaningful deterioration; and the remaining 20.5% showed no meaningful change. One of the main findings was that receiving mental health treatment had a significant impact on mental health outcomes. It is crucial to establish protocols and systematic detection tools to assess mental health and ensure detection and referral to proper treatment.