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Warehousing our children

An apparent shift toward more institutional care of foster kids has some child-welfare advocates worried that America is straining against 100 years of research.

By Mary Wiltenburg | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

..."The orphanage never really went away," says child welfare expert Richard Wexler. "It sort of metamorphosed" into the system of shelters, group homes, residential treatment centers, and residential educational academies that provide the bulk of institutional foster care in the US today. "But they couldn't change the facts: Institutional care is bad for kids."

Mr. Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR), is among a growing number of analysts drawing attention to what he calls a "back to the orphanage" movement now under way. The population of American foster children in institutional settings is quietly growing, they say - not due to any concerted social or legal effort, just a pieced-together system that affords comparatively few services to families in need but offers fiscal incentives to take children away....