Residential Treatment for Children & Youth

What Constitutes Quality in Children's Residential Care?

Ensuring high‑quality residential care for young people is fundamental to promoting their safety, healing, and long‑term well‑being. Yet “quality” in residential care remains a multidimensional and sometimes difficult to measure concept that needs to be informed by evidence, practice wisdom, lived experience, and diverse cultural and organizational contexts.

Developing a shared understanding of what constitutes quality, building robust approaches to measure it, and implementing strategies that reliably enhance it are essential steps toward strengthening outcomes for young people who rely on these settings for care and support. As the field advances, efforts to clarify and operationalize quality not only deepen our collective knowledge, but also drive meaningful improvements in policy, practice, and accountability.

A September 2026 International Summit will be convened at the University of Sussex to discuss quality in children’s residential care. From this event, we will solicit manuscripts to be considered for this special issue of Residential Treatment for Children & Youth. Topics of interest will include definitions and dimensions of quality from diverse perspectives as well as efforts to measure and enhance the quality of care provided in these settings. Examples of the integration of the voices of children, young people and their families into the delivery and planning of residential care will be welcome.