The Logic of Group Shelters Doesn't Stand Up to Research Findings

Once again a child had died in appalling circumstances, and once again the government’s response is to put other children directly in harm’s way. The latest case comes out of Arizona, where an emaciated 6-year-old boy died after being admitted to the hospital with a brain bruise and other injuries. While the parents have pleaded not guilty in causing the death, the Arizona Child Protective Services agency (CPS) had five child abuse and neglect reports on file when the boy was hospitalized, two of which were still “under investigation.”

The logical response to such a tragedy – one of several in recent years involving children suffering harm despite prior complaints to CPS – would be to analyze where the decision making went wrong and how the harm of other children could be prevented. Under no circumstances, however, should that analysis lead authorities to repeat the mistakes of the past. Yet that is what Arizona is doing.

Five years ago, under pressure from the Youth Law Center and others, CPS put a stop to its policy of placing infants and young children in group shelters. CPS did this because young children do much better with foster families or responsible relatives than they do in institutional settings. Mountains of research shows that these young children need to establish long-lasting relationships with at least one significant adult, which simply does not happen in the group-care setting. Arizona authorities understood this in 2006, but in the chaos of budget cuts and rising incidents of child abuse, they seem to be forgetting that group care homes are psychologically destructive to children, even when the stays are relatively short.

No one, least of all me, disagrees that physical abuse of kids requires immediate corrective action. But that does not mean that we need to make the harm worse by putting abused kids in psychologically dangerous settings.

Children are not fragile ornaments we can park on a shelf. Young children are growing and changing every day of their lives. They need the nurturance of one primary caregiver who is consistently physically present and available to them so that the child can count on that adult for protection and security. This is not possible in a shelter that is staffed by shift care workers. So removing children from their homes and placing them in shelters while we think of something better to do with them is not a safe alternative.

Shelter providers and other group care advocates say that short term shelter stays are benign. The fact is that we do not know how long is too long for a young child to be without a caregiver. Research available on this site shows that every month an infant, toddler or pre-schooler spends in care, he or she loses ground, cognitively and even neurologically, compared with peers in home-based care. The results of these deficits may not be immediately apparent for years, by which time remediation is much more challenging.

In contrast, many child welfare agencies have been able to keep young children out of group care. Clark County Nevada, which at one time housed over 100 children a day in group care, has virtually eliminated group care for children under six. Clark County (which includes Las Vegas) certainly faces the same harsh economic challenges as Arizona. The difference, however, is a commitment to avoid "destroying the village to save it" by moving children from visibly dangerous situations to ones where the danger is just as severe, but less invisible.

To learn more, read and the articles on research section of this site under group care.