OUR IMPACT

Learn the Facts About Family-Based Care

Up to 80% of children living in institutions have living family.

Many of these living family members love their children and would raise them at home, but they lack the material resources or social access needed to sustain their children’s lives.

Studies show that institutionalized children experience lifelong higher risks of material poverty, abuse, early death, or the inability to form healthy adult attachments with self or other.

Institutional care costs significantly more than family-based care and social services. In a recent study, our team found that family-based care was both operationally more effective and led to better outcomes for children. Consider the data below.

The red bars reflect developmental outcomes for children in residential care, versus the yellow bars for children in family environments.

This research demonstrates positive results from family-based care for both an organization and child.

Children in institutional care were not able to reach 50% on three out of four developmental milestones. In contrast, children raised for their first 18 months outside of an institution were able to realize 85% or above on three of four milestones, and above 65% on all milestones.

- “Case Study on Family-Based Care,” Alliance for Children Everywhere, Oct. 2020.