ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a foundation for proposing practice and policy directions for the future of residential child care. It argues that while residential child care has faced a series of crises, it is possible to re-create residential child care as a positive alternative. The chapter describes quality residential child care needs to be seen as part of a wider system of provision for children and young people. At the individual level, empowerment suggests that each child and young person can be supported in achieving more control, having more power, over their own lives. Such collective organisation will enable young people to be empowered to influence policy and practice at a macro level, that is, to have a voice and campaign on all pertinent issues in relation to the provision for young people in care. Empowerment has a number of advantages as a theoretical and practice framework.
