Child Feelings of Safety in Residential Care: The Supporting Role of Adult-Child Relationships

For children in residential care, safety and supportive relationships, particularly with direct care staff, are critical to recovery, growth, and development. The association between children's self-report of feeling safe and of the quality of relationships with staff was examined in 715 children ages 8-21 receiving care in 24 North American agencies. In total, 64% of children report usually or always feeling safe, 16% report never or rarely feeling safe, and 20% feel safe sometimes. The percentage of children reporting never or rarely feeling safe varied from 0% to 57% across agencies. Staff perceptions of child safety were greater than those of the children. After controlling for child and agency covariates, the quality of the relationship with staff as perceived by the children was highly associated with the extent to which the child reported feeling safe. No child demographic, service history, or agency characteristics were associated with children perceptions of safety in the linear mixed model that included quality of relationship with staff. Staff practices, fostered and sustained by organizational support, that improve the quality of their relationships with children may increase children's feelings of safety and thus their capacity for benefiting from therapeutic residential care.