**7. Conclusions**

152 Child Abuse and Neglect – A Multidimensional Approach

general childhood and adolescent population.

situation may have caused.

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.

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

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

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 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 demonize RC and propose its elimination. Such harassing can even give rise to the error of trying to turn RC into a family. There are examples of homes where children of different ages live together, in many cases, groups of siblings, with two resident educators, a man and a woman, trying to turn a professional resource for living together into a family. A welfare home will never be family, and the educators will never be the parents. Nor should they. The children already have a family, although they cannot live with it.

Residential Care as a Resource

of the Childhood Welfare System: Current Strengths and Future Challenges 155

awareness of such a severe problem as that of the children and adolescents living in RC. Knowledge of a problem is the first step to take on the responsibility of coping with it. Children separated from their families are not perceived as a social problem. Moreover, such ignorance provokes fear and rejection. Thus, when an organization tries to rent or buy a flat to turn it into a welfare home, they usually encounter the neighbors' rejection, because they do not know the difference between a welfare home and a reformatory for adolescents with judicial measures. This produces stigmatization and rejection of a population as vulnerable as this one. In addition, this concealment from the public opinion even deprives

these youngsters, who cannot publicize themselves, of even reclaiming their rights.

evidence contributed by research in this field, not to beliefs and assumptions.

RC.

**Author details** 

Eduardo Martín

**8. References** 

971-991.

Nor can we forget that we should definitely promote prevention programs to avoid separating children from their families. Only the most severe cases should have to go into

Ultimately, RC should be seen from the perspective of its historical evolution, acknowledging the advances produced in this resource. We must value its contribution to children and adolescents who are separated from their families, and realize its limitations and the improvements still pending. And all of this should be considered according to the

Only this way can we have one more adequate and efficient resource within the childhood welfare system, to respond adequately to the needs of the boys and girls who, unfortunately, must be separated from their natural growth setting, which is their family.

*Senior Lecturer of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of La Laguna, Spain* 

Anthonysamy, A. & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2007). Peer status and behaviors of maltreated children and their classmates in the early years of school. *Child Abuse and Neglect, 31*,

Backer, J. A. (2006). Contributions of teacher-child relationship to positive school adjustment

Berridge, D. (2007). Theory and explanation in child welfare: education and looked-after

Bravo, A. & Del Valle, J. F. (2001). Evaluación de la integración social en acogimiento

Bravo, A. & Del Valle, J. F. (2009). Crisis y revisión del acogimiento residencial. Su papel en

during elementary school. *Journal of School Psychology, 44*, 211-229.

children. *Child and Family Social Work, 12*, 1-10.

la protección infantil. *Papeles del Psicólogo, 30*(1), 42-52.

residencial. *Psicothema, 13*(2), 197-204.

A welfare home is a resource that tries to fulfill all the needs of the children and adolescents as normally as possible. And the educators are adults who are responsible for this, and who can become important figures in the social support network of children and adolescents who are separated from their families. In fact, they should not be seen as opposite resources from the families. Living in a welfare home does not imply total separation from the family. There are visits, weekends, working together with the family, the minor, and the technical teams, always depending on the goals to be achieved in each case. When children are separated from their families, it is to protect them from the family situation, not to shut them up in any center. That is, we must dismantle the social consensus that RC is a resource to separate children from their families, and build the idea that RC is a resource of support for the families.

The results of current research must be made visible, as they show that RC can have beneficial effects in certain cases, that the stays should not be too short for fear of negative effects on the children, but instead their duration should depend on the goals aimed at for each child and each family. Day-care centers in which children return to spend the night with their families must be promoted, for those cases in which aspects concerning hygiene, feeding, and academic support are the main needs to be fulfilled. And, particularly, other alternative resources must be promoted, such as foster care, increasing the pool of available families. And we must not only increase their quantity, but also their quality. The scarce number of available families and the satanization of RC frequently leads to the selection of families considered suitable as foster homes (thus, preventing the child from going into RC), when we know that foster care can also fail, producing unnecessary break-ups for the children (López, Del Valle, Montserrat & Bravo, 2011). Foster care is positive, but only when the families are selected adequately for each particular case.

However, collectives like adolescents with emotional or behavioral problems, unaccompanied immigrant minors, or large groups of siblings find in RC the only available resource for living together within the welfare system. For most of these cases, there is no other alternative. The voices that propose the elimination of RC should change their discourse and, in any event, demand its specialization to attend to these special groups. For all these reasons, we must consider RC a flexible resource, compatible with others, which can become specialized and deal with problems that other resources cannot reach.

Another important aspect we should not ignore is the visibilization of protected children in general, and the RC children in particular. With the pretext of protecting the identity and intimacy of this collective, we have sometimes overdone it, and they have been concealed from the public opinion. This has perverse effects, because it does not facilitate the social awareness of such a severe problem as that of the children and adolescents living in RC. Knowledge of a problem is the first step to take on the responsibility of coping with it. Children separated from their families are not perceived as a social problem. Moreover, such ignorance provokes fear and rejection. Thus, when an organization tries to rent or buy a flat to turn it into a welfare home, they usually encounter the neighbors' rejection, because they do not know the difference between a welfare home and a reformatory for adolescents with judicial measures. This produces stigmatization and rejection of a population as vulnerable as this one. In addition, this concealment from the public opinion even deprives these youngsters, who cannot publicize themselves, of even reclaiming their rights.

Nor can we forget that we should definitely promote prevention programs to avoid separating children from their families. Only the most severe cases should have to go into RC.

Ultimately, RC should be seen from the perspective of its historical evolution, acknowledging the advances produced in this resource. We must value its contribution to children and adolescents who are separated from their families, and realize its limitations and the improvements still pending. And all of this should be considered according to the evidence contributed by research in this field, not to beliefs and assumptions.

Only this way can we have one more adequate and efficient resource within the childhood welfare system, to respond adequately to the needs of the boys and girls who, unfortunately, must be separated from their natural growth setting, which is their family.
