**6. Current and future challenges for the improvement of residential care**

Till now, we have seen the role played by RC within the childhood welfare system. This resource—criticized and questioned for a long time from diverse instances, usually because of erroneous beliefs and ignorance— has an unfair negative image, because it has many strengths to attend childhood, especially certain collectives and in certain cases. In the former section, we briefly mentioned these strengths. But there are also a series of deficiencies, which should become challenges for improvement, and which we cannot ignore or adopt a complacent position in the face of the aforementioned critical current. Without meaning to be exhaustive, these challenges are as follows:

1.- As commented upon above, the problems of adaptation and academic performance of the children and adolescents in RC. In this collective, many of the children reach RC after long periods of truancy, due to the sequelae of maltreatment, or because their parents were uninterested in their children's education. That is, the children already arrive at RC with academic delay. What is really worrisome is that the welfare system does not offset this delay, or it actually impairs its compensation. Firstly, it is not always possible for the children to remain in their original schools, and, moreover, they sometimes change schools several times, as often as the measures adopted for their cases are changed. Thus, sadly enough, some children go to various schools, undergoing changes that do not always coincide with the end and the beginning of the school year. We must find formulas within the welfare system to minimize this harm caused by the welfare system itself. However, there are few experiences of coordination between the welfare and the educational systems, beyond the tutorship visits, which are also attended by the educators who are in charge of the children. Not only the welfare system, but the entire society is responsible for childhood protection. It is necessary for other administrations to take responsibility in order to efficiently deal with the academic problems of children and adolescents in RC. Secondly, the history of RC has made it a context in which therapeutic features have priority over the psychoeducational ones, so that, in many cases, the RC staff does not correctly value the academic aspect. Although therapeutic intervention is necessary, and daily life often makes it impossible to dedicate time to educational goals, a change in this direction is nevertheless necessary. Moreover, from psychology educational, it has been proved that children's motivation for school increases if their parents value it and show interest We must assume

that the same thing would apply for RC educators. A last aspect to underline is determined by the fact that childhood is legally protected until the child comes of age. This means that, in those cases where reunification or foster care are impossible, the children are referred to technical schools so they can learn a trade that will support them when they are of age. For this purpose, their academic trajectory is rerouted, even in youngsters with good academic adjustment and performance, who have expectations of continuing their studies beyond compulsory education. This fact shows that RC is still not completely prepared to fulfill such a basic and necessary need for a good sociocommunity integration as education.

Residential Care as a Resource

of the Childhood Welfare System: Current Strengths and Future Challenges 153

that the legislation only obliges their protection until the age of 18, the problems faced by 18 year-old adolescents were not perceived as a responsibility of the welfare system. However, they are now perceived as such, because this is an indicator of the results of the work carried out while the adolescent lived in RC. Del Valle, Bravo, Álvarez, and Fernanz (2008) found that the situation of emancipated youngsters from RC was better the older they were when the follow-up was performed. This indicates that it is very difficult at such early ages for these youngsters to achieve the personal, social, and economic resources that facilitate a good socio-work integration. The proliferation of homes for youngsters over 18 in which those who are old enough to leave the RC can live together and continue studying and preparing for adult life provides them with opportunities similar to those of youngsters who can count on powerful family support in their transition to adult life. This flexibilizes the time needed to ensure that this process will be successful. Although still scarce, these

Dumaret, Donati, and Crost (2011) analyzed the factors that facilitate a good transition to adult life and found that the above-mentioned factors were essential to guarantee this process. On the one hand, adequately attending the education of the children and adolescents in RC helps them in the sense that higher qualification means a more likely socio-work insertion, without forgetting all the opportunities to strengthen the support social network provided by the educational system. However, efficiently attending the mental health problems while they are still in RC would place them in a better condition to become integrated into society as personally and socially adapted adults. And lastly, the authors emphasize the importance of reinforcing the resources for emancipation, providing these youngsters with emancipation homes and other support resources beyond their majority of age (18 years). Applying pure logic, we cannot demand from these young people more than we ask from the rest of the boys and girls of the same age. It is simply unfair,

In this chapter, we carried out a review of the historical evolution and the current reality of RC, an important resource for the childhood welfare system. The enormous number of children and adolescents who are admitted to this resource worldwide requires us to analyze it from objective, evidence-based criteria contributed by research. Unfortunately, this does not usually occur, because from political, professional, and even academic instances, the discourse is based more on ideological proposals and beliefs than on facts.

As in almost all social topics, we must come to a consensus about what should be done. In childhood protection, we reached the agreement that growing up in a family is not only a right of children, but also a need for their emotional, social, cognitive, and moral development. Therefore, measures are promoted for alternatives to RC, such as foster care and adoption, which are much more important for small children. We all agree about this, but some people, many in the legislative spheres, take advantage of this consensus to

resources are a first step to adequately attend the needs of this collective.

because, having received much less, they should not have to give more.

**7. Conclusions** 

2.- Adopting the principle of normalization, in some cases, led to generating erroneous beliefs, thinking that the children and adolescents in RC were exactly the same as those who live with their families, thus relaxing the mechanisms to detect certain problems, such as academic failure and mental health problems. In the latter case, in Spain, the line of thought that criticized research based on a psychopathological approach because it confused the effects of RC with those of the prior situation of maltreatment did not take into consideration the mental health problems of this collective, whatever their causes. The lack of studies may have contributed to this, as there is only one (Del Valle, Sainero & Bravo, 2011). Nevertheless, international research has contributed contrasted evidence that children and adolescents have more mental health problems than the general population (Clausen, Landsverk, Ganger, Chadwick & Litrownik, 1998; EUROARC, 1998; Ford, Vostanis, Meltzer & Goodman, 2007; Heflinger, Simpkins & Combs-Orme, 2000; Pecora, Jensen, Romanelli, Jackson & Ortiz, 2009; Sempik, Ward & Darker, 2008). The results of these studies show relevant data in this sense: the percentage of children and adolescents with some mental health problem is somewhere between 48 and 89%, depending on the studies. That is, the prevalence of mental health problems in this population is four times higher than in the general childhood and adolescent population.

Therefore, one cannot just look away. As occurred with educational care, the principle of normalization externalized RC children's physical and mental care, to some extent, ignoring these problems. Moreover, health resources are designed, at most, for the prevalence of disorders in the general population, so there are not enough external resources to attend to this problem. Admitting these problems does not mean attributing them to the stay of these children and adolescents in RC, but of adequately attending to the sequelae that their family situation may have caused.

3.- Another challenge of RC is to adequately deal with the processes of transition to adult life of the adolescents who live in these facilities (Stein *et al*., 2011). The youngsters must often face independence at the age of 18, because they have no family or because their family is not able to take charge of them—something that is currently not demanded of the majority of the juvenile population. In other cases, although they return to their families, they must contribute their own economic resources to help out in a precarious family situation. Knowing what RC can contribute to guarantee the success of this process of transition to adult life is a priority of the childhood welfare system. Till now, due to the fact that the legislation only obliges their protection until the age of 18, the problems faced by 18 year-old adolescents were not perceived as a responsibility of the welfare system. However, they are now perceived as such, because this is an indicator of the results of the work carried out while the adolescent lived in RC. Del Valle, Bravo, Álvarez, and Fernanz (2008) found that the situation of emancipated youngsters from RC was better the older they were when the follow-up was performed. This indicates that it is very difficult at such early ages for these youngsters to achieve the personal, social, and economic resources that facilitate a good socio-work integration. The proliferation of homes for youngsters over 18 in which those who are old enough to leave the RC can live together and continue studying and preparing for adult life provides them with opportunities similar to those of youngsters who can count on powerful family support in their transition to adult life. This flexibilizes the time needed to ensure that this process will be successful. Although still scarce, these resources are a first step to adequately attend the needs of this collective.

Dumaret, Donati, and Crost (2011) analyzed the factors that facilitate a good transition to adult life and found that the above-mentioned factors were essential to guarantee this process. On the one hand, adequately attending the education of the children and adolescents in RC helps them in the sense that higher qualification means a more likely socio-work insertion, without forgetting all the opportunities to strengthen the support social network provided by the educational system. However, efficiently attending the mental health problems while they are still in RC would place them in a better condition to become integrated into society as personally and socially adapted adults. And lastly, the authors emphasize the importance of reinforcing the resources for emancipation, providing these youngsters with emancipation homes and other support resources beyond their majority of age (18 years). Applying pure logic, we cannot demand from these young people more than we ask from the rest of the boys and girls of the same age. It is simply unfair, because, having received much less, they should not have to give more.
