What is the alternative to orphanages?

The alternative to orphanages is family and the evidence shows family-based care produces consistently better outcomes for children at a fraction of the cost.

Ending orphanages does not mean abandoning children. It means investing in the systems that keep families together and ensure every child has a committed adult in their life.

This means:

Family support services – addressing the root causes that push families into crisis: poverty, disability, discrimination and lack of access to health, education and social services
Gatekeeping – ensuring no child enters any setting without rigorous assessment and genuine attempts to support the family first
Kinship care – supporting grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives to care for children who cannot remain with parents
Foster care – family-based temporary care for children who need it, with active work towards reunification or permanent family placement
Deinstitutionalisation – the planned, safe closure of orphanages and replacement with community-based family support services

Orphanages can cost nearly ten times as much as keeping a child safe at home. Countries that have invested in family-based care such as Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Rwanda have seen better outcomes for children and stronger communities.

In Moldova, family care costs 14.3 times less per child than orphanage care. In Romania, the institutional population has fallen from over 100,000 in 1990 to fewer than 550 by mid-2026. The Heckman Equation documents returns of approximately 13% per year for high-quality early childhood investment in responsive caregiving (Heckman and Mosso, Journal of Economic Literature, 2014).

The solution is not a better orphanage. The solution is family.

Hope and Homes for Children is the catalyst for the global elimination of orphanages. We close orphanages safely, rebuild family-based systems and work with governments to ensure every child grows up where they belong – Back to Family.

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