Key concepts related to alternative care

• Author: Nordenmark Severinsson, Anna; Lerch, Véronique
• Pages: 53-54

Target Group Discussion Paper Children in Alternative Care

53

Key concepts related to alternative care

Alternative care:

Protective measure that ensures children’s interim safety and facilitates children’s return

to their families where possible. Ideal ly it is thus a temporary solution. Som etimes, it is a

protective measure pending family reunification (…) or pending developments in family

life, for example, improvements in the health of a parent or provision of support to parents.

FRA (2015), p.95

Deinstitutionalisation:

The full process of planning transformation, downsizing and/or closure of residential

institutions, while establishing a diversity of other chi ld care services regulated by rights-

based and outcomes-oriented standards.

UNICEF (2010), p.52

Family support:

A set of (service and other) activities oriented to improving family functioning and

grounding child-rearing and other familial activities in a system of supportive relationships

and resources (both formal and informal).

Daly et al. (2015), p.12

Foster care:

Type of care ‘provided by authorised couples or individuals in th eir own homes, within the

framework of formal alternative care provision’.

Cantwell et al. (2012) p.33

Gatekeeping:

Mechanism in the alternative ca re system capabl e of ensuring that children are admitted

only if all possible means of keeping them with their parents or extended family have been

examined.

Cantwell et al. (2012), p.22

Institutional care:

There are different understandings of what constitutes ‘an institution’ or ‘institutional care’

depending on the country’s legal and cultural framework. For this r eason, the Gui delines

use the same approach as in the Ad Hoc Report. Rather than defining an institution by size,

i.e. the number of residents, the Ad Hoc Report referred to ‘institutional culture’. Thus, we

can consider ‘an institution’ as any residential care where:

• residents are isolated from the broader community and/or compelled to live

together;

• residents do not have sufficient control ov er their lives and over d ecisions which

affect them; and

• the requirements of the organisation itself tend to take precedence over the

residents’ individualised needs.

European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (2012), p.24

Kinship care:

Type of care ‘provi ded by relatives or other ca regivers close to the family and known to

the child. While such arrangements have so far tended to be informal, some countries are

making increased use of formalised placements within the extended famil y.’

Cantwell et al. (2012), p.33