Long-term placement of dependent children from the client's point of view

This article presents data regarding the backgrounds and attitudes of 396 dependent children in Israel who had been living in boarding institutions for almost three years, and were at least 10 years old at the time of the research interview. Parents of the children were also interviewed, and background [corrected] information regarding the family and its experience with placement was abstracted from welfare department records. This detailed information, collected nearly a decade ago, was then compared with several very recent Israeli studies of institutionalized dependent children and it was found that many problematic features of placement still persist. Among these are lack of long or short-term planning by welfare agencies, poor agency follow-up after placement, and little personal contact with either the child or his family. More older children were accepting placement than were younger children, and the majority of the parents did not contemplate the child's return home, being quite satisfied with placement in the institution. The findings from this study should have direct implications for child welfare policy and practices.