Book reviews
| Published date | 20 November 2009 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200900018 |
| Date | 20 November 2009 |
| Pages | 58-60 |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
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highlight the very specific challenges emanating from
the huge political and social upheaval experienced
in both countries. Other chapters, most particularly
those concerning Israel, Botswana and Korea,
emphasise how discourses and cultural values
attached to the different roles of the family and care
institutions influence considerably how policies and
services develop.
As was always likely to be the case in a book
of this nature, some chapters are more successful
than others in communicating clearly a picture of
residential childcare services in specific countries.
The most common difficulty for the reader is
attempting to make sense of the large amounts of
data and statistics provided concerning the level and
characteristics of residential care services in settings
with which they are unfamiliar.
In terms of the stated aim of the book, some
of the most significant analysis is contained in the
concluding discussion, which attempts to draw
together common themes from the different
chapters. Historically, issues of economic
development, religion, culture, political ideology
and notions of childhood and child development
are all identified and this section is successful
in highlighting how these distinct factors, and
others, interacted with each other to influence the
development of residential childcare within particular
national contexts. In terms of current and future
developments, a number of common and important
issues, such as greater family involvement, integrating
educational support, post-care services, staffing issues
and monitoring control, are identified as being in need
of attention in a number of settings.
However, it is hard to conclude that the most
significant learning is not located in the experiences
of Australia. Here, a policy aimed at eliminating
residential childcare services was pursued long
before the Stockholm Declaration in 2003 and most
This book is an edited series of chapters from
scholars based in 11 countries and attempts to
provide an understanding of residential childcare
services as they exist in each location. It grew out
of a series of meetings organised by the Residential
Child Working Group of the International
Network of Children’s Policy Research Centres
and is likely to be of particular interest to all
academics and practitioners involved in research
on children’s services, particularly residential care.
The introduction starts by making reference
to the Stockholm Declaration on Children and
Residential Care, which was developed at the
Children and Residential Care Conference held
in Stockholm in 2003. The declaration took, to
many eyes, a very negative view of residential
childcare, talking of indisputable evidence that
institutional care has negative consequences and a
subsequent need to develop strategies to promote
alternative services and community-based care, as
well as closer monitoring of remaining residential
services. However, in their introduction the editors
acknowledge the continued significant but variable
reliance on residential care worldwide. As such,
the stated aim of this volume is to explore how the
differing use of residential care around the world
can be explained and used to tell us how practice
might be improved.
Chapters are provided from Ireland, the UK,
Sweden, Romania, Israel, Botswana, South Africa,
Korea, Australia, Brazil and the US. Each one
attempts to provide an overview of residential
childcare services in that country, detailing significant
policy and practice developments from the past,
present and future. Much of the information and
analysis provided is genuinely fascinating, albeit often
very context specific. Accounts of the development
of residential childcare services in Romania post-
communism and South Africa post-apartheid
Reviewed by: Graham McPheat
Glasgow School of Social Work, UK
Email: graham.mcpheat@strath.ac.uk
Book details:
Mark E Courtney & Dorota Iwaniec (Editors)
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009
240 pages, £22.99 (hardback)
ISBN: 978 0 19 530918 8
Residential Child Care of Children: Comparative Perspectives
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