Residential child care community

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Residential child care communities or children's homes are a type of residential care, which refers to long-term care given to children who cannot stay in their birth family home. There are two different approaches towards residential care: The family model (using married couples who live with a certain number of children) and the shift care model.

Contents

It is part of the foster care system and combine several aspects of ways and means to raise a child.

A community (origin: Latin communis, "shared in common") is a social unit of people who share e.g. norms, religion, values or identity. It is often tied to a specific geographic or virtual area. Residential child care communities operate on one or more than one campus, which connects the different units within the program. House parents/ social workers, therapists, caseworkers, teachers, management staff members as well as other staff members that contribute to the program of the specific organization cooperate to ensure a positive environment for every single child. By sharing a campus, additional aspects such as work programs, leisure activities, therapy and tutoring can be offered, which is not possible for foster parents due to a lack of resources. These communities are also well connected with their environment, their donors and other residential child care communities and keep in touch with and support their alumni.

A residential child care community might also be referred to as a group home or a form of congregate care. When using these terms one has to be careful not to confuse this concept with that of a residential treatment center (which is highly restrictive and established for children with severe behavioral issues) or an orphanage.

In the United States

In the United States, residential child care communities originate from almshouses and orphanages. These institutions were established due to increasing poverty by Dutch and British churches around 1500, and taken to North America when emigration began. The Dutch opened their first almshouses on American soil in the 1650s, in what is known today as New York City and Albany. [1]

By the early 1900s, about 150,000 American children were accommodated by 1,150 child care institutions, which fulfilled their purpose at that time, but were not always the best and safest environments for a child to grow up in. Still it has to be considered that a child's life back than was, even when living with their biological family, dominated by poor health conditions, child labor, delinquency, poverty and failed families. However, the 20th century brought a stop to these developments. As industrialization proceeded, children were suddenly seen as what they are instead of “short adults”, reformers started to participate in “child saving movements”, education was recognized to be the key to social change and policies regarding the welfare of Americans were established. In 1909 the first white house conference dealing with “The Care of Dependent Children” took place under President Theodore Roosevelt, throughout which the government came up with the solution of establishing a foster care and adoption program as well as creating a federal Children's Bureau. [2] It was not until 1990 that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child came into effect. [3]

These positive developments regarding child welfare allowed residential child care communities to thrive and develop in the early and mid-1900s (see positive examples). Throughout the past decades thousands of children could be served by several organizations that have managed to develop a loving environment, created by motivated staff members, trying to make a difference in children's lives. They keep children who are too broken to “function” in a foster or adoptive family environment, but yet not mentally instable enough to necessarily be labeled by a treatment facility, from falling through the gap as well as help keeping siblings together. In cooperation with the foster care and adoption system, residential child care communities today can add to a high-quality out-of-home care and child welfare system. [4]

Changes do take their time and there are certainly organizations that still do not operate perfectly ethical today. A means of identifying whether an organization is qualified for taking care of children or not can be to look at their accreditation (e.g. offered by the Council Of Accreditation), which due to high costs and effort, strict regulations as well as on-site assessments ensures the quality of a program.

Types of care

When talking about residential child care programs, two types of care must be considered: The Family Model and the Shift Model. Both types of organizations can vary in size, number of children per unit, number of staff per unit, number of units and educational/therapeutic services. [5]

The outcome goal depends on the child in care and can be unification with the child's family and therefore preparation of the child for life at home, preparation for living with a new family or long-term care. [5]

Family model

Related literature refers to the Teaching Family Model which was originally implemented in 1967 and used in juvenile justice. [6] Several organizations had been using an advanced version of this model before (see positive examples).

Organizations using this model employ married couples, also referred to as house parents or cottage parents, who are living in a dwelling on campus, together with a certain number of children. These couples must go through in depth and continued training each year. The goal is to model a positive family life and thereby teach children life, communication and interaction skills. [6]

Several studies show the positive outcomes of this type of care. Significant improvements in academic achievements, behavior, psychiatric symptoms, relationship with the parents as well as a decrease in offense rates were found. [7] [8] [9]

Shift model

Organizations using the shift model usually consist of four to five units with four to five staff members rotating care in shifts for six to eight children (these numbers can vary). [5]

They may do so by utilizing different models, such as: [10]

The Sanctuary Model (USA) – This model highlights trauma and the fact that change has to be implemented at a systems level. It focuses on SELF (safety, emotion management, loss, future).

Care (USA) – This model focuses on the development of a curriculum to improve the support provided by leadership as well as consistency among the way direct-care staff members deal with the children in care.

Social Pedagogy (Europe) – This model focuses on values, the diversity of cultures and a good relationship between direct-care staff and child by using the opportunities everyday tasks and events offer to encourage development.

ARC (USA) – This model provides a flexible framework for direct-care staff, allowing them to choose from several intervention methods addressing three key areas: attachment, self-regulation and competency.

MAP (NI, Canada) – This model helps direct-care staff understand children's behaviour by consideration of attachment theory and neurodevelopment. Staff should act, not observe, recognize the importance of authoritative parenting as well as the emotional demands they have to deal with themselves by doing this job.

Examples

OrganizationFounded inWhere?Current PresidentWebpage
The Methodist Home1872Macon (Georgia)Alison Evans www.themethodisthome.org
Boys Town1917California, Florida Louisiana, Nebraska, Iowa, New England, New York, Nevada, Texas, Washington, D.C.Rev. Steven E. Boes www.boystown.org
SOS Children's Villages1949InternationalSiddhartha Kaul www.sos-childrensvillages.org
Baptist Children's Home1955United States, India, Southeast Asia and LiberiaBill Brittain baptistchildrenshome.org
Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches, Inc.1957FloridaWilliam A. Frye www.youthranches.org

Benefits

In the early 2000s, Florida tried to preserve families by providing wrap-around services and not taking children away from their parents. This resulted in the death of 477 children, as social workers cannot possibly provide a 24h-service to all the families they are responsible for. [11] Additionally, the child maltreatment report of 2016 states a number of 1,539 children that have been maltreated by their foster parents that year, within 51 reporting states. [12]

Within a residential child care community, it is more likely for things like that to be noticed. As the word “community” indicates, there are always multiple people around, ranging from other house parents, teachers, office employees, therapists and caregivers to peer foster children. Frequent internal as well as external audits and quality controls aim at identifying and eliminating deficits of any kind. As soon as word spreads out about the abuse of a child, the staff member concerned will be removed immediately and no further harm will be made.

The required hours for foster parents vary between the states, ranging from 4 to 30 hours. Still, there are holes regarding documentation as well as several means of “waiving and modifying” training requirements. This is the case, even though a vast majority of foster children come from places of neglect and maltreatment, showing a variety of behavioral problems and (mental) health issues. [13]

Qualitative residential child care communities have established their own quality standards including a training plan for their staff members, whose extent depends on their position. The adherence of this plan is monitored which makes waiving and modifying impossible and ensures that staff members stay up to date.

Studies show that sibling relationships are crucial, especially in foster care, when family relationships are damaged and a child has only his/her siblings to rely on. [14] Still, studies estimate that more than half of US children in foster care have one or more siblings in the system, but between 60 and 73 percent of sibling groups are not accommodated together. [15] This can be due to too many siblings (no foster family that is willing to accommodate all of them available), different entry dates in foster care, a case worker that did not care to or could not find a placement that would allow the siblings to stay together (entering the foster system together often means staying together and vice versa), different (medical) needs as well as foster parents only taking in a certain age group or sex. [16]

Some residential child care communities have identified the need of sibling placements and made room for sibling groups. As these communities have more room available than a foster family does and employ well-trained staff as well as offer more opportunities for adapting to the needs of each individual child, these facilities have the chance to keep siblings together.

Many children have difficulties with adapting to their foster or adoptive families, which is due to their experiences (multiple movements, abuse, neglect, etc.), but their behavioral issues are not severe enough to necessarily put them into restrictive placements, labeling them for the rest of their life. [4]

Residential child care communities are not restrictive placements in any way. Staff members do not expect immediate love as some adoptive parents do and are trained to identify, accept and deal with difficult behavior. This makes coping with the new environment easier for many children that are not used to a “normal” family life.

Residential child care communities often have a big network of donors and supporters as well as the possibility to build up a variety of facilities and opportunities, as there is not one single family, but several “families” and staff members cooperating to achieve their goal. This can provide the children in their care with unique opportunities, such as a work program (including learning how to apply), special events and leisure activities sponsored and/or provided by supporters, scholarships, mentoring programs and many other opportunities. This ensures that “lives are turned around”, increasing the probability of these foster children to succeed and teach their own children how to succeed in life.

Criticism

There is a number of negative voices regarding residential child care, as well.

One part of this debate is due to negative examples of residential child care programs. Throughout the past decades, several cases of abuse within residential child care have been detected all over the world, putting this type of care into a bad light. [17] Horror stories of abuse and neglect have been published, as well as articles describing “lock-away” facilities, “staff that cannot control the children”, runaways and regular police visits. [18] Additionally, residential child care is often confused with treatment facilities, making the term look very restrictive, like every child is mentally ill and locked away. [17]

The other part of the debate is more financially motivated, as residential child care facilities are more costly than foster care, adoption, wrap-around services and kinship care. [17] Studies show that the foster system can cause and enforce mental issues, as every additional movement a child has to go through increases the probability of these. Thereby, the financial burden grows too, as medical dispenses increase. [19] The vast majority of organizations providing residential child care services are nonprofit-organizations and therefore donor-funded, meaning that the state does not invest a lot of money in that kind of care. [17]

Australia

Australia is the best example for a country that let itself be driven by the horror of abuse stories and costs, resulting in the closure of residential child care facilities in the 1980s and 1990s. This development brought about that many of these children ended up in the homeless program SAAP (Supported Accommodation Assistance Program) as well as in juvenile justice. [20]

Then, in 2004, the Crime and Misconduct Commission published a report with the title “Protecting Children: An Inquiry into Abuse of Children in Foster Care (the CMC Report)”. In response to the findings of this report, the government decided to reverse and reestablish residential child care facilities, this time focusing on quality standards. Queensland has found that closing residential child care programs is not the best idea, as there is a need for such organizations. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foster care</span> System of non-parental temporary child-care

Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family member approved by the state. The placement of a "foster child" is normally arranged through the government or a social service agency. The institution, group home, or foster parent is compensated for expenses unless with a family member. In some states, relative or "Kinship" caregivers of children who are wards of the state are provided with a financial stipend.

A behavior modification facility is a residential educational and treatment institution enrolling adolescents who are perceived as displaying antisocial behavior, in an attempt to alter their conduct.

The United States Children's Bureau is a federal agency organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. Today, the bureau's operations involve improving child abuse prevention, foster care, and adoption. Historically, its work was much broader, as shown by the 1912 act which created and funded it:

The said bureau shall investigate and report to [the Department of Commerce and Labor] upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people, and shall especially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth-rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children, employment, legislation affecting children in the several states and territories.

Foster children in Canada are known as permanent wards. A ward is someone, in this case a child, placed under protection of a legal guardian and are the legal responsibility of the government. Census data from 2011 counted children in foster care for the first time, counting 47,885 children in care. The majority of foster children – 29,590, or about 62% – were aged 14 and under. The wards remain under the care of the government until they "age out of care." This age is different depending on the province.

Kinship care is a term used in the United States and Great Britain for the raising of children by grandparents, other extended family members, and unrelated adults with whom they have a close family-like relationship such as godparents and close family friends because biological parents are unable to do so for whatever reason. Legal custody of a child may or may not be involved, and the child may be related by blood, marriage, or adoption. This arrangement is also known as "kincare" or "relative care." Kinship placement may reduce the number of home placements children experience; allow children to maintain connections to communities, schools, and family members; and increase the likelihood of eventual reunification with birth parents. It is less costly to taxpayers than formal foster care and keeps many children out of the foster care system. "Grandfamily" is a recently coined term in the United States that refers to families engaged in kinship care.

Child protective services (CPS) is the name of an agency in many states of the United States responsible for providing child protection, which includes responding to reports of child abuse or neglect. Some states use other names, often attempting to reflect more family-centered practices, such as department of children and family services (DCFS). CPS is also sometimes known by the name of department of social services, though these terms more often have a broader meaning.

A group home, congregate living facility, care home, adult family home, etc., is a structured and supervised residence model that provides assisted living and medical care for those with complex health needs. Traditionally, the model has been used for children or young people who cannot live with their families or afford their own homes, people with chronic disabilities who may be adults or seniors, or people with dementia and related aged illnesses. Typically, there are no more than six residents, and there is at least one trained caregiver there 24 hours a day. In some early "model programs", a house manager, night manager, weekend activity coordinator, and four part-time skill teachers were reported. Originally, the term group home referred to homes of 8 to 16 individuals, which was a state-mandated size during deinstitutionalization. Residential nursing facilities, also included in this article, may be as large as 100 individuals in 2015, which is no longer the case in fields such as intellectual and developmental disabilities. Depending on the severity of the condition requiring one to need to live in a group home, some clients are able to attend day programs and most clients are able to live normal lifestyles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Residential treatment center</span> Live-in healthcare facility

A residential treatment center (RTC), sometimes called a rehab, is a live-in health care facility providing therapy for substance use disorders, mental illness, or other behavioral problems. Residential treatment may be considered the "last-ditch" approach to treating abnormal psychology or psychopathology.

The wraparound process is an intensive, individualized care management process for youths with serious or complex needs. Wraparound was initially developed in the 1980s as a means for maintaining youth with the most serious emotional and behavioral problems in their home and community. During the wraparound process, a team of individuals who are relevant to the well-being of the child or youth collaboratively develop an individualized plan of care, implement this plan, and evaluate success over time. The wraparound plan typically includes formal services and interventions, together with community services and interpersonal support and assistance provided by friends, kin, and other people drawn from the family's social networks. The team convenes frequently to measure the plan's components against relevant indicators of success. Plan components and strategies are revised when outcomes are not being achieved.

Child and family services (CFS) is a government or non-profit organisation designed to better the well being of individuals who come from unfortunate situations, environmental or biological. People who seek or are sought after to participate in these homes have no other resource to turn to. Children might come from abusive or neglectful homes, or live in very poor and dangerous communities. There are also agencies that cater to people who have biological deficiencies. Families that are trying to live in stable lives come to non-profit organisations for hope of a better future. Child and family services cater to many different types of people who are all in different situations. These services might be mandated through the courts via a governmental child protection agency or they might be voluntary. Child and family services may be mandated if:

In the United States, Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) are conducted by the federal Children's Bureau, within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, to help states improve safety, permanency and well-being outcomes for children and families who receive services through the child welfare system. The Bureau conducts the reviews to ensure conformity with federal child welfare requirements, to determine what is actually happening to children and families in child welfare services, and to assist states in helping children and families achieve positive outcomes. The CFSRs monitor States' conformity with the requirements of title IV-B of the Social Security Act. The first round of reviews took place between 2000 and 2004 and the second round took place between 2007 and 2010. In both rounds, all States were required to implement Program Improvement Plans (PIPs) as part of the review process. The third round of CFSRs took place between 2015 and 2018; a complete aggregate report of those findings has yet to be released.

Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster carers. Although attachment theory has become a major scientific theory of socioemotional development with one of the broadest, deepest research lines in modern psychology, attachment theory has, until recently, been less clinically applied than theories with far less empirical support. This may be partly due to lack of attention paid to clinical application by Bowlby himself and partly due to broader meanings of the word 'attachment' used amongst practitioners. It may also be partly due to the mistaken association of attachment theory with the pseudo-scientific interventions misleadingly known as attachment therapy. The approaches set out below are examples of recent clinical applications of attachment theory by mainstream attachment theorists and clinicians and are aimed at infants or children who have developed or are at risk of developing less desirable, insecure attachment styles or an attachment disorder.

Institutional abuse is the maltreatment of a person from a system of power. This can range from acts similar to home-based child abuse, such as neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and hunger, to the effects of assistance programs working below acceptable service standards, or relying on harsh or unfair ways to modify behavior. Institutional abuse occurs within emergency care facilities such as foster homes, group homes, kinship care homes, and pre-adoptive homes. Children who are placed in this type of out of home care are typically in the custody of the state. The maltreatment is usually caused by an employee of the facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arkansas Department of Human Services</span> Government agency in Arkansas, United States

The Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) is a state agency of Arkansas, headquartered in Donaghey Plaza South of the Donaghey Complex, a five-story building on the southwest corner of Main Street and 7th Street, in Little Rock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foster care in the United States</span> System of non-parental care in America

Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in an institution, group home, relative placement, or private home of a state certified caregiver. The placement of the child is usually arranged through the government or a social-service agency. The institution, group home, or foster parent is paid. The state via the family court and child protection agency stand in loco parentis to the minor, making all legal decisions, while the foster parent is responsible for the day-to-day care of the minor. The foster parent is remunerated by the state for their services.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York City Administration for Children's Services</span> New York City government agency

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Cottage homes are used in residential child care communities and other Group homes.

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is a policy research institution at the University of Chicago that focuses on child welfare and family well-being. Chapin Hall is funded through social service systems, foundations, and non-profit organizations. The organization's focus areas include child welfare and foster care systems, youth homelessness, and community capacity to support children, youth, and families. Chapin Hall is an affiliated research center of the University of Chicago.

Out-of-home placements are an alternative form of care when children must be removed from their homes. Children who are placed out of the home differ in the types and severity of maltreatment experienced compared to children who remain in the home. One-half to two-thirds of youth have experienced a traumatic event leading to increased awareness and growing literature on the impact of trauma on youth. The most common reasons for out-of-home placements are due to physical or sexual abuse, violence, and neglect. Youth who are at risk in their own homes for abuse, neglect, or maltreatment, as well as youth with severe emotional and behavior issues, are placed out of the home with extended family and friends, foster care, or in residential facilities. Out-of-home placements aim to provide children with safety and stability. This temporary, safe environment allows youth to have their physical, mental, moral, and social needs met. However, these youth are in a vulnerable position for experiencing repeated abuse and neglect.

References

  1. ↑ Huey, P.R. International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2001) 5: 123. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011395325889 (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/a:1011395325889#citeas)
  2. ↑ Yarrow, A. L. (2009). History of U.S. Children’s Policy: 1900-Present.
  3. ↑ Blanchfield, L. (2013). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Washington.
  4. 1 2 Little, M., Kohm, A., & Thompson, R. (2005). The impact of residential placement on child development: Research and policy implications. International Journal of Social Welfare, 14(3), 200-209.
  5. 1 2 3 Babic, B., & Pluto, L. (2007). Participation in residential child care in Germany. Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, 6(2), 32.
  6. 1 2 James, S. (2011). What works in group care?—A structured review of treatment models for group homes and residential care. Children and youth services review, 33(2), 308-321.
  7. ↑ Thompson RW, Smith GL, Osgood DW, Dowd TP, Friman PC, Daly DL. Residential care: A study of short- and long-term educational effects. Children and Youth Services Review. 1996;18(3):221–242.
  8. ↑ Larzelere RE, Daly EL, Davis JL, Chmelka MB, Handwerk ML. Outcome evaluation of Girls and Boys Town s Family Home Program. Education and Treatment of Children. 2004;27(2):130–149.
  9. ↑ Slot NW, Jagers HD, Dangel RF. Cross-cultural replication and evaluation of the Teaching Family Model of community-based residential treatment. Behavioral Residential Treatment. 1992;7(5):341–354.
  10. ↑ Millen, Sharon (2012). "Therapeutic approaches to social work in residential child care settings". doi:10.13140/RG.2.1.3690.4483.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ Miami Herald (2014). Innocents Lost. Preserving Families but losing children. Accessed at http://media.miamiherald.com/static/media/projects/2014/innocents-lost/.
  12. ↑ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2016). Child Maltreatment 2016 (No. 27). Washington.
  13. ↑ Dorsey, S., Farmer, E. M., Barth, R. P., Greene, K. M., Reid, J., & Landsverk, J. (2008). Current status and evidence base of training for foster and treatment foster parents. Children and youth services review, 30(12), 1403-1416.
  14. ↑ Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2013). Sibling issues in foster care and adoption. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children's Bureau.
  15. ↑ Children’s Rights, article about the success of their campaign on keeping siblings together, found on 2/26/2018, http://www.childrensrights.org/newsletter-article/in-focus-struggling-for-sibling-connections/
  16. ↑ Shlonsky, A., Webster, D., & Needell, B. (2003). The Ties That Bind: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Siblings in Foster Care. Journal of Social Service Research. (29(3)), 27-52.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Smith, M. (2009). Rethinking residential child care: Positive perspectives. Policy Press.
  18. ↑ Sergeant, H. (2006). Handle with Care: An investigation into the care system. London.
  19. ↑ Rubin, D. M., Alessandrini, E. M., Feudtner, C., Mandell, D. S., Localio, A. R., & Hadley, T. (2004). Placement Stability and Mental Health Costs for Children in Foster Care. Pediatrics.
  20. ↑ Ainsworth, F., & Hansen, P. (2005). A dream come true–no more residential care. A corrective note. International Journal of Social Welfare, 14(3), 195-199.
  21. ↑ Department of Communities (2010). A Contemporary Model of Residential Care for Children and Young People in Care. Queensland.
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