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This article describes actual UI prevalence and quality of care at Israeli LTC institutions for the elderly. The analysis is based on current regulatory data on 14,406 residents at 196 residential homes, and 8,278 patients at 159 hospitals for the chronically ill. It includes a calculation of summary indices of quality, the percentage of institutions with deficient items and of those showing change, and a description of functional status profiles. Multiple regression explains the deficiency rate variance through independent institutional variables. There is a higher prevalence of severe functional impairment and full incontinence at hospitals for the chronically ill than at residential homes. There were higher rates of deficiencies and lower rates of corrections for structural items than for process items at both. A major improvement occurred for process items (50‐100 per cent). Regarding outcomes, 34 percent of the residents with UI during the first assessment were continent two years later.

Since the reforms started in the Romanian child protection, and in spite of adopting children’s rights, and investing in the professionalization of the child protection staff, research has indicated that children continue to suffer violence in care settings.

This chapter contributes to the literature that documents children’s rights violations in Romanian residential care, before and after the political shift in 1989, including the period after the accession to the EU, by presenting and discussing interview data of 48 adults who spent parts of their childhoods in child protection settings.

The conceptual framework of this analysis is based on the human rights perspective and the transitional justice. The main body of the article presents the testimonials of adults who grew up in institutional care in Romania, as collected in the framework of the SASCA project, funded by the European Union. ¹

In the Netherlands young people with a child protection measure can be admitted to juvenile justice institutions in special cases. Since 2001 there has been a sudden rise in the number of child protection admissions. This article describes a needs analysis of the child protection cases and shows how the identification of need profiles can provide clues for the development of services. An important outcome of the needs analysis is the urgent need for new services for young people with a conduct disorder, with residential as well as non‐residential with (intensive) family interventions as a central element.Due to political and media attention on the subject, the government plans to spread intensive family interventions over the country and finances have become available to develop five new residential settings. The focus on the use of security in handling this group of young people is also discussed.

Research on caregivers’ experiences of and perspectives on preparing young people to leave care in Africa is lacking. A clearer understanding of caregivers’ practice and experience is important for developing improved care-leaving services. The aim of this study is to describe the experiences and perceptions of caregivers providing care-leaving services at one residential care institution in Addis Abba, Ethiopia.

A qualitative description research design was used to examine the perspectives of seven caregivers and three key informants concerning the preparation of female care-leavers for leaving care and their readiness to lead an adult life in Ethiopia. Participants were purposively selected and data were collected through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. The generated data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Caregivers are passionate about their work, seeing it more as a calling than as a job, and think of themselves as parents to the children. Most reported receiving at least some training, albeit informal or ad hoc, and faced challenges because of lack of resources. Regarding their preparation of the girls for leaving care, caregivers reported inadequate success in financial literacy and savings, continued schooling, cooking, cultural literacy and aftercare support.

This study thus underscores the absence of a preparation for leaving care practice guideline and an independent policy that guides care-leaving in Ethiopia. Policy improvement on caregiving that recognises and values the complexity of the job of caregiving, and thus the need for greater education, is highly needed. This paper sheds light on the issue of supporting caregivers’ attempt to mentor female care-leavers in Ethiopia.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on the previous paper in this issue “Changes in the provision of residential care for adults with an intellectual disability: a national longitudinal study”.

The commentary outlines some of the challenges and potential drivers of deinstitutionalisation and community living including the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The paper finds that the UN Convention and the practice of international organisations that fund investments in social care can potentially drive the replacement of institutions with community‐based services for people with intellectual disabilities.

The argument for deinstitutionalisation and community living needs to be maintained more broadly rather than being focused on certain countries or regions. Community living for people with intellectual disabilities should be a global agenda with an emphasis on the human rights of people.

Since the early 19th century, the UK has seen a decrease in mortality rates and increase in life expectancy. This has increased the number of elderly people being put into residential care. Change in British population demography with the arrival of many Africans from the black Sub-Sahara African (BSSA) countries has increased the need of these services. The purpose of this paper is to explore perceptions and attitude of BSSA towards residential care from potential user perspective.

This study was explorative qualitative in nature, using focus group discussions and one-on-one follow up semi-structured interviews. The focus group discussions and interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The Silences Framework was used to guide this study, and the collection of data was done using the thematic analysis approach.

This study found out that the sense of confinement, lack of ownership, non-provision of culturally friendly food, non-provision of culturally friendly personal care, non-provisional of culturally orientated death and dying care, stigma for being neglected and perceived poor inclusivity leading to loneliness were found to discourage BSSA research participants from taking up residential care in the UK.

In future, there is need for cross-cultural comparisons of BSSA communities living in the UK and BSSA communities living in Africa or other parts of the world. This may enhance understanding the differences and similarities based on contextual social, political and economic factors.

There is a need to understand the needs and concerns of new communities in relation to residential care and make necessary changes to enhance diversity and inclusivity. More importantly, the curriculum and professional development courses for staff in health and social care need to factor in the concepts of cultural competency and inclusivity to prepare them for the increasingly changing terrain of social care.

Owing to the changing demography and diversity in the UK population, there is a need to re-orient and re-design residential care services provision to make it diverse and inclusive of new communities from other cultures.

Parents are children's first line of protection. However, millions of children all over the world experience a lack of parental care. The reasons for this separation are varied, such as poverty, being abused and neglected, the death of parents, being abandoned, trafficking, migration, living on the street, being displaced or health issues. From the child's rights perspective, parental care is a priority for a child's best interest. In this respect, most countries have social protection policies to support families with their children. When parental care is not possible, states generally take responsibility by providing appropriate services, including residential care, kinship care, foster care, other forms of family-based care or adoption. Within this framework, this study aims to provide an overview of the world's children who lack parental care in the light of the theoretical background and the latest research.

To describe, analyze, and compare two long-term care (LTC) systems for elders in Germany and Israel.

Secondary analyses of data on LTC beneficiaries, structure of service provision and content analyses of policy documents in a comparative perspective based on the Esping-Andersen welfare state typologies.

Descriptive background of demographic attributes in the two countries; discussion of LTC development laws which in Israel focuses on “aging in place” concept, where in-kind services are geared only to community-dwelling frail elders while in Germany it’s for community and institutionalized elders. Analyses of various service types provided their use, resources invested, and benefits incurred for frail elders and their family caregivers.

The advantages and shortcomings of the two systems were analyzed with recommendations for future developments. Such comparisons across nations can inform social policy debates in Germany and Israel as to how to prepare for population aging. The originality of such comparison can shed light on issues for LTC service development in other countries.

The central argument of this paper is that supported living — enabling people with learning disabilities to live in their own homes, with appropriate support — has a potential strategic role in addressing some of the current shortcomings in community‐based residential services. These shortcomings are described, along with the possible contribution of an approach in which housing and support are separated. Finally some of the current concerns about supported living are briefly addressed.

Although in recent years elder abuse has attracted considerable social and professional attention, it is still in the opinion of many a taboo subject. In this paper the author examines why this is the case and considers what has been learnt. In doing so he considers causation and predisposing factors and the modes of intervention available