ABSTRACT
For many years now, the tide of opinion has been against placing children and young people in residential care, and there has been a commensurate burgeoning of fostering and adoption services. This opinion has been rooted in the feeling that children need to be in families, a well-founded desire to give children homes, and a prejudice against institutional care, reinforced by a constant flow of scandals in children’s homes. In this chapter I outline why I feel there will always be a need for residential provision for certain children. I then look at some of the issues that besiege children’s homes and make the work so demanding and difficult. Finally, I also reflect on what is needed in children’s homes if they are to provide a containing and therapeutic environment for children to live in.
