EUROPE
Study urges end to residential care for young children
Children under the age of five should not be put
in residential care because of the risk it poses to their mental
development, the authors of a new study said today.
Psychologists at the University of Birmingham demanded the closure
of all such accommodation and said young children should be placed
with families because of the damage caused by the alternative.
Researchers found it was common practice across Europe for babies to
be institutionalised and said 23,000 children under the age of three
were currently being cared for in residential homes.
Professor Kevin Browne, director of the Centre for Forensic and
Family Psychology and lead investigator, said the early years of
life were critical for brain development and that youngsters in care
often suffered developmental delays and problems with attachment.
Previous research, he said, showed that depriving
a child of a parent and the subsequent neglect and damage this
caused was equivalent to violence towards a young child.
Prof Browne said: “While the UK and some other countries have a
policy to provide foster homes and not to institutionalise children
under three, we have discovered that 12 countries including Belgium,
Finland and Spain, have more than two children in every 1,000 under
three in residential care.
“The book raises awareness about the conditions and consequences of
children in residential care because of disability, family poverty,
child abuse, neglect and abandonment.
“Particularly those under three years of age are at risk of harm
because the early years of life are critical for brain development.”
He said one-to-one interaction with a parent was required for normal
development and warned that institutional care should only be used
as an emergency measure to protect or treat children.
“Even then, it is recommended that the length of stay should not be
more than three months.
“Therefore all residential care institutions for
children under five should be closed and the children in them
returned to family-based care,” he concluded.
Researchers found that children in Western Europe were more often
institutionalised for abuse and neglect while in other parts of
Europe children were institutionalised because they had been
abandoned or suffered a disability.
Thirty-three European countries were surveyed for the study which
was carried out in collaboration with the European Commission and
World Health Organisation.
Alex Thompson
21 April 2005
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