Family-centred residential care: the new reality? Esther M. W. Geurts*, Janet Boddy†, Marc J. Noom‡ and Erik J. Knorth§ *Senior Advisor, Child and Youth Care, The Netherlands Youth Institute, Utrecht, the Netherlands, †Reader in Child, Youth and Family Studies, School of Education and Social Work, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, ‡Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden, and §Professor, Department of Special Needs Education and Child Care, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands ABSTRACT This paper considers therapeutic approaches to residential care with specific attention to the question of family involvement. It builds on a body of literature indicating the potential of residential care as a positive intervention for young people, and examines the contention that – even when family problems contribute to a young person’s accommodation in residential care – family involvement could improve long-term outcomes. The literature reviewed indicates that family involvement is indeed important. Mixed research findings reflect the diversity of approaches to family-centred practice, but there is evidence of benefits in relation to a range of child outcomes. However, the literature also shows that family-centred residential care is not easy to achieve. More than parent–child contact, it entails genuine involvement of parents, in decision-making and in children’s daily lives. Professionals – including social workers and residential care workers – must not only be concerned with the care and devel- opment of the child, but also with the role of the parent in their child’s development, understood within an ecological perspective. Correspondence: Esther M. W. Geurts, The Netherlands Youth Institute, Catharijnesingel 47, PO Box 19221, 3501 DE Utrecht, The Netherlands E-mail: info@opvoedenisbijzonder.nl Keywords: family reunification, family social work, family support, outcomes in child welfare interventions, residential care Accepted for publication: January 2012 INTRODUCTION The word ‘care’ is commonly applied to provision accommodating children who cannot be looked after within the family home, but within this broad umbrella term, a great variety of services exist. Chil- dren in care are a heterogeneous population, and ‘there is very little that is true of all the children who are looked after by the state’ (Sinclair et al. 2007, p. 11). This diversity is characteristic of care provision too. In many European countries (see Note 1), foster care remains a preferred option when appropriate, and residential care has tended to be seen as an option of last resort, but it has increasingly been argued that residential provision remains a key com- ponent in the continuum of services available to chil- dren (e.g. Boddy et al. 2008; Knorth et al. 2008). Boddy et al. (2008) highlighted a particular role in continental European countries for residential care as an intervention, for young people with complex and challenging needs that require greater profes- sional expertise than could be offered by foster care. The conceptualization of residential care as an inter- vention has some commonalities with the notion of ‘residential treatment services’ or with therapeutic models of residential care, which, in many European countries, comprise a specialist form of provision within residential care (e.g. Stevens & Furnivall 2007). Residential care itself encompasses diverse provi- sion, not all of which entails therapeutic intervention in children’s lives, and ‘treatment’ or therapeutic models offered in residential provision also vary widely. Treatment modalities available to children could include psychotherapy, behavioural therapy, individual therapy, group therapy, special education, recreational activities, therapeutic milieu, pharmaco- therapy, social skills training and family-oriented doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00838.x 170 Child and Family Social Work 2012, 17, pp 170–179 © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd