I worked in orphanages for years. I now know there's no substitute for family
“If we all wear these shirts we’ll get to go through the diplomatic line at customs,” my mother said as we packed our bags for a missionary trip to an orphanage in Honduras. It worked – we breezed through customs with the ease of an ambassador.
Volunteer travel: experts raise concerns over unregulated industry
Read more
Just 12 years old, I was travelling abroad for the first time and it was the official start of my association with orphanages. In one short week, I made superficial bonds with children I could hardly converse with, yet the experience was enough to confirm my desire to lead a life of service. I wanted to help other kids have the same opportunities I had.
As an adult, I took several semesters away from college to volunteer at that same orphanage, and later joined the staff as its administrative director. It was a dream come true, or so I thought.
Once on the inside, things started to look different. I watched the performance put on for visitors each time a new group came around – the same one that had pulled me in years before. I saw children who ran away and fell between the cracks, those who were shy and lived forgotten in the shadows, and those who could only get attention by playing up.
Supporting the mother to raise her kids at home would have been the moral and financially prudent thing to do
I also met the parents of these so-called orphans. One poor, single mother had, out of desperation, placed five children in the orphanage. Providing her with financial support to raise them at home would have been the moral and financially prudent thing to do, rather than funding an orphanage.
Nearly three years into the job, allegations of sexual abuse were levelled against the director. He was later tried and convicted of the rape of a minor. Unfortunately, this scenario plays out in orphanages around the world with startling regularity. After serving less than two years of a 15-year sentence, the director won a retrial. He was released in January 2016 and his retrial is ongoing.
The director remained free and continued to run the orphanage until charges were formally brought against him, but most of the donors moved on. The orphanage’s population dwindled from 130 to roughly 50; it was amazing to see how many children suddenly had families once the funds dried up. Those who remained suffered increasingly squalid conditions.
Government officials all gave the same excuse for their inaction: they could not shut down the orphanage because they had nowhere to house the remaining children, not even temporarily.
For those of us who had spent years bonding with the children, it was impossible to look away. A group of former donors and I were desperate to somehow right a wrong in which we felt complicit. We decided to create a new orphanage. I was tasked with leading the project and with finding a permanent director. At the time, the urgency of the situation seemed to compensate for the fact that I had little expertise in youth development.
I spent months researching youth development. The results were clear: best practice is to keep kids out of institutions
To gain insight, I visited supposedly-reputable orphanages. I heard directors brag about how little money they spent per child. One director hardly spoke a word of Spanish. Another boasted of having more than 600 children.
I spent months researching best practices for youth development and institutional care. The results were overwhelmingly clear – best practice is to keep children out of institutions.
We opened the new orphanage, striving to do things differently. We tracked down relatives and fostered familial ties, ultimately reuniting several children with family members. For those children whose options were more limited, we did the best we could under the circumstances. We involved them in the community, promoting positive relationships outside our walls. We focused on education and supported the local schools.
We achieved many commendable results, but despite our best efforts there were always barriers in the way of reaching our ultimate goal – to create a true family environment.
Working with children is often exhausting, and staff turnover at orphanages is high. Despite being one of the few orphanages to fairly compensate its staff and not just its director, it seemed as though whenever the children were getting used to a certain group of caregivers, the time would come to say goodbye to another who was moving on. Many of the staff who stayed on did so out of love for the children, while others did so mostly for their pay cheques.
Out of sight: the orphanages where disabled children are abandoned
Read more
Policies designed to protect the children from future abuses, commonplace at organisations dedicated to youth development, impeded the kind of relationship-building that is paramount to childhood development. Imagine the opportunities to bond that are lost if you are not allowed to be alone with your child at any time. A family is rarely perfect, but it isn’t hindered by the inherent limitations involved in institutional care.
Everyone has heard horror stories about orphanages, but the common refrain is “mine is different”. I said it too. Ours was a contrast to most orphanages, but it always fell short of a family. Unless your orphanage is one of the rare few that is actively reintegrating children with family members and finding adoptive or foster parents for those without, then it is just another spoke in the orphanage cycle. At its core institutional care, and much of what it necessitates and begets, is at odds with the creation of a true family environment.
A family cannot be scaled-up, and except for the most extreme of situations, there is no moral, financial, or scientific justification for the proliferation and perpetuation of orphanages. I learned it all the hard, and harmful, way.
Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow@GuardianGDP on Twitter.