Children’s homes: what’s in a name?

Many organisations in Kenya operate institutions called “children’s homes” which they claim provide care in a “family-based setting”.

The operators of “children’s homes” often make the case that the children in their care are somehow different from other children, and so can’t be placed in real families. They argue that the children come from a slum or their relatives are incapable of caring for them or do not want them. The story is usually the same.

But despite their name, can a children’s home replicate the conditions of a family? Let’s take a closer look.

Most, if not all, children living in children’s homes are unrelated. The number of children in a typical home far surpasses the number of children in a typical Kenyan family. Care is given to children by paid staff, greatly impacting a natural routine for a child, or by short-stay volunteers (known as ‘voluntourists’). The lack of stable caregivers denies children the opportunity to bond and form long-lasting and healthy attachments. In this environment, children do not make significant and enduring relationships in the community.

This does not sound like a family. No matter how loving a “children’s home” may seem, decades of research have demonstrated the detrimental impact on children’s well-being, including their health, development, and life chances, of being raised in institutional settings as opposed to families.

Like the majority of children living in institutions worldwide, children living in so-called children’s homes in Kenya have families. There are, of course, cases where children cannot return to their birth families, such as cases of neglect or abuse. However, alternative care which does not involve reliance on institutions has proven to work in many countries, and guidelines for transition to family-based care are well established.

Children can live successfully with extended family or with close family ties in what is known as kinship family-based care. Children can also be cared for by foster or adoptive parents. Unfortunately, for a large number of children in Kenya’s institutions, these alternatives, which would allow them to have a genuine family life, are not widely considered, despite the adoption of the Kenya Alternative Care Guidelines.

Well-intentioned operators of orphanages often claim that their institutions are actually children’s homes, or even families, and not real orphanages..  There is no basis in law or practice which differentiates between a “children’s home” and an orphanage – they are both institutions offering residential, non-familial care to children, the majority of whom have families. Even where children do not have families to return to, alternatives can be sought.

The issue of children growing up without appropriate care is a global problem.  In responding to the problem, however, we must ensure that we do not mistake “children’s homes” for what a child actually needs – a family.

What the no doubt well-intentioned operators of “children’s homes” usually fail to explain is what they are doing to address the conditions which lead to children’s separation from their families in the first place, and what they will do to make their institutions places of last resort, used only in the short-term, and with long term efforts dedicated to the integration of children into families.

Whether they take the name children’s home, orphanage, or rescue center, residential institutions rob children of the right to family and the future they deserve.