ABSTRACT
Residential care for children and youth is viewed negatively in academia and advocacy, especially in anglophone countries. For many, it must be eliminated. The hostility is not based on solid research. Attributions to research reflect an overgeneralization of research on infants raised in extremely deprived settings. A blanket condemnation of residential care as ineffective and unalloyed support for foster care as an alternative is simplistic and unwarranted. The agenda to eliminate residential care leaves many children and youth without an important option. It stigmatizes children and youth in residential care. It cruelly stigmatizes those who work in residential care. It demotivates attempts to improve residential care. It discourages research on residential care. What matters most is the quality of care a child or youth receives, not the setting in which it occurs. If we are serious about helping children and youth, we need to find the money to provide high-quality care of all types. Decisions about family dysfunction, child removal, entrance into care, and family reunification are embedded in broader issues of poverty, housing, joblessness and job training, divorce laws, child welfare laws, crime, health and addiction, racism, politics, and culture. There is no room for oversimplifications like family of is good; residential care is bad.
