Annual of social work, Vol. 22 No. 2, 2015.
Professional paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/ljsr.v22i2.36
INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND DEINSTITUTIONALIZATION OF INSTITUTIONS FOR CHILDREN WITHOUT ADEQUATE PARENTAL CARE
Irena Sovar
orcid.org/0000-0001-8384-9576
; Service Center in the "Svitanje" community, Koprivnica, Croatia
Abstract
During all of the 20th century, institutionalization of children was the dominant form of care for children in Croatia and Europe. This paper considers the main causes, often interconnected and multiple, and outcomes of institutionalization of children without adequate parental care, as well as the deinstitutionalization process. Even though the purpose of institutionalization was the protection of children and youth, the institutional conditions were unfavourable for a comprehensive development of users. Moreover, such institutions violate children's rights by their mere placement in the institution, as well as by the institutional lifestyle and culture. Faced with poor developmental outcomes of children placed in institutions, Western Europe started searching for and developing alternative forms of care as early as in the 1950s. This process is referred to as deinstitutionalization. It is based on the children's rights paradigm. Every child has the right to live in a family, and as signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the state is obligated to ensure that each child is placed in a family-like environment. The framework for the implementation of the deinstitutionalization process on the level of each institution consists of strategic and operational plans. These documents provide a starting point for the deinstitutionalization process, including provision of care for institutionalized children and their transfer to a non-institutional environment, development of new family-oriented services in the community conceived for the purpose of preventing the removal of children from their families and ensuring adequate treatment of children who do need to spend some time outside their families.
Keywords
institutionalization; institutional culture; deinstitutionalization; children's rights
Hrčak ID:
147581
URI
Publication date:
5.10.2015.
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