The Waiting Children: Pathways (and Future) of Children in Long-Term Residential Care

There is an international consensus about the need to avoid prolonged stays in residential care and a preference for family-based interventions for those children who have been separated from their families. Nevertheless, Spanish statistics show a high number of children entering residential placements and little development of non-kinship family foster programmes. This article analyses the factors which influence the intensive use of residential placements and the reasons which lead to many children spending long periods of their lives in residential facilities. These questions are investigated through a study of 238 children aged twelve and under in residential foster-care, who had spent at least a third of their lives in that situation. The case information was obtained through collaboration with social workers who supplied data about the profile of the children, their families, their care histories and prospective outcomes. Certain characteristics of the children (age, physical and psychological problems) and the family of origin (serious psycho-social problems) seem to explain the long stays of these children in residential care. The article concludes with a discussion of the practical implications these results have for the improvement of child protection systems' response to these challenges.