Family-centred residential care: the new reality?

ABSTRACT This paper considers therapeutic approaches to residential care with specific attention to the question of family involvement. It builds on a body of literature indicating the potential of residential care as a positive intervention for young people, and examines the contention that – even when family problems contribute to a young person's accommodation in residential care – family involvement could improve long‐term outcomes. The literature reviewed indicates that family involvement is indeed important. Mixed research findings reflect the diversity of approaches to family‐centred practice, but there is evidence of benefits in relation to a range of child outcomes. However, the literature also shows that family‐centred residential care is not easy to achieve. More than parent–child contact, it entails genuine involvement of parents, in decision‐making and in children's daily lives. Professionals – including social workers and residential care workers – must not only be concerned with the care and development of the child, but also with the role of the parent in their child's development, understood within an ecological perspective.