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.
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.
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.
Significant improvements in academic achievements, behavior, psychiatric symptoms, relationship with the parents as well as a decrease in offense rates were found.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Staff members do not expect immediate love as some adoptive parents do and are trained to identify, accept and deal with difficult behavior.
[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.
[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.
[17] 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.
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.