Therapeutic Residential Care in Australia : Taking Stock and Looking Forward

Therapeutic residential care is becoming an increasingly relevant out-of-home care option for children and young people with multiple and complex needs. It is a new and developing approach in Australia, one aimed not simply at containment of the “hard cases” - as is often the case in traditional residential care—but rather at actively facilitating healing and recovery from the effects of abuse, neglect and separation from family. In this Issues Paper, therapeutic residential care is described and contrasted with other models of out-of-home care. The theory and evidence supporting the use of this form of care are examined and used to develop a set of key elements, which, it is argued, should guide the provision of therapeutic residential care in Australia.

This growing interest in how best to offer a healing, therapeutic environment within the context of residential care led to a proposal to hold a national workshop, which was endorsed by the Community and Disability Services Ministers’ Advisory Council (CDSMAC) in late 2009. The National Therapeutic Residential Care Workshop was subsequently held in Melbourne in September 2010. The workshop brought practitioners and service providers together with researchers and government policy-makers. This paper, by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, draws on the proceedings of that workshop, Australian and international literature, and information about current models offered by jurisdictions within Australia to provide a picture of the increasing investment in therapeutic residential care and the key elements that characterise this model of care.