Global Perspective: Negative Impact of Institutionalization on Children's Development, Summaries of Architecture

Download Global Perspective: Negative Impact of Institutionalization on Children's Development and more Summaries Architecture in PDF only on Docsity! INSTITUTIONALIZATION ON CHILDREN 0 —3 YEARS for every child REPUB! Eighty years of research worldwide has shown the negative impact of institutionalization on children’s health, development and life chances, as well as a high risk of abuse. Babies growing up in orphanage suffer extreme emotional neglect. In reaction, they produce high levels of the stress hormone cortisol that damages the architecture of their brains at a crucial stage in their development. That is the reason why the younger the child enters an orphanage, the more profound the damage to the child’s developing brain. As a consequence, children raised in orphanag- es experience delays in terms of IQ, language, speech and vocabulary. A meta-analysis of 75 studies covering over 3,800 children in 19 coun- tries found that children raised in orphanages had, on average, an IQ 20 points lower than their peers who were growing up in foster care. They also experience delays in physical growth – including height, weight and head circumference. Analysis of growth data from a variety of orphan- age systems in Romania and China has shown that children lose one month of physical growth for every three months spent in an orphanage. Another consequence for those children is the struggle to form positive relationships/bonds with other people. Residential homes are especially damaging for very young children (0 – 3 years), as they do not provide the child an opportunity to bond with one constant (primary) attach- ment figure. Exposure to silence at a young age can have devastating McLaughlin, KA; Zeanah, CH; Fox, NA & Nelson, C. (2012) Attachment security as a mechanism linking foster care placement to improved mental health outcomes in previously institutionalized children Journal of Child IQ of Children Growing Up in Children’s Homes. A Meta-Analysis on IQ Delays in Orphanages. Marinus H. van IJzendoom. Maartje P. C. M. Luijk. Femmie Juffer. Leiden University, MERRILL-PALMER RESIDENTIAL HOMES FOR CHILDREN IN GHANA According to the 2018 Mapping of Residential Homes for Children in Ghana, in a sample of 24 orphanages, 10% of the 944 children were under 3-years. ‘Orphanages’, are assumed to be there to support orphans, but it has been found that over 80% of children living in orphanages have a living parent, including children in institutions in Ghana. Poverty is the main driver of child institutionalization in Ghana. Par- ents who cannot afford to feed, clothe or send a child to school often believe they have little choice but to send their children to an or- phanage where they can access food, shelter, education, health and other basic services. In Ghana children with disabilities, or children with special needs often ends up in an orphanage, because families do not have access to the right support services or because there is luck of inclusive ed- ucation across the country. MOGCSP & UNICEF, Mapping of Residential Homes for Children in Ghana, 2018 CARING FOR CHILDREN IN GHANA • Although some residential care homes are well-resourced with ded- icated staff, they cannot replace a family. • Due to the usually high ratio of caregiver to child, residential home caregivers can only care for children by feeding, dressing and wash- ing. • Caregivers are unable to give enough attention and respond to the emotional needs of children. • As a result, babies can be left alone for long periods of time as care- givers have many children to take care of. • If toddlers lay quietly awake in their cots, this does not mean they are “good” children or content. Their silence means they have given up asking for their needs to be met. • In many residential homes for children across Ghana, babies have learnt not to cry because they realized no one will comfort them. They’re ignored. Forgotten. Silent. And many children are also sitting by themselves rocking. • Children raised in residential homes experience delays in terms of IQ, language, speech and vocabulary. • Research has shown that a baby’s brain can form more than 1 mil- lion new connections every single second- a paced never repeated again. • Every moment matters, which is why the right food, stimulation and care are essential to the baby’s brain development in the first 1,000 days of life. • Children make those connections through stimulation, interaction with an adult who can give them loving and individualized care. • Without human interaction, without early exposure to all the differ- ent sights and sounds that caring parents offer to soothe or engage their babies, children’s brains fail to develop in the way that they should.