Abstract

Children's institutes are not suitable places for the development of a child, because of the difficulty of assuring within them a preferential caregiver-child relationship, therefore generating severe and lasting difficulties. The present paper is a review of the studies on this topic, with a particular focus on the present conditions of minors in Russian and Romanian institutes. It was possible to evidence deficits in different areas of child development (psychological, social, relational, emotional and behavioural), showing that the most predictive effect regarding future outcomes is the "quality of care" given to the children, other than the length of the experience.