INTRODUCTION​​
​Maintain Hope believes that it is not appropriate to place children in live-in accommodation in orphanages, rescue centres, rehabilitation centres or children’s homes. Residential accommodation should be a last resort and should be as close to a family setting as possible.
Maintain Hope believes that unskilled short-term volunteering in these settings harms children and supports a system which is bad for children.
Maintain Hope believes that volunteering in these settings should be aimed at building capacity to lead to responsible deinstitutionalisation.
There is overwhelming evidence that institutional settings lead to bad outcomes for children and young adults. Eighty years of research point to the negative effects of institutionalisation on children.
Of the 8,000,000 children in orphanages worldwide, at least 80% have at least one living parent.
A survivor of a residential institution is 500 times, yes, 500 times more likely to take his or her own life.
A survivor of a residential institution is 40 times more likely to acquire a criminal record.
A survivor of a residential institution is 20 times more likely to be trafficked into the sex trade.
Maintain Hope works to reunite institutionalised children with their families or place them in foster or kinship care.
We are committed to supporting  vulnerable families to enable them to provide for their children.
We are committed to working with Community Based Organisations to respectfully and discreetly support families and their children.
Maintain Hope is committed to working with other NGOs under the auspices of COMHLAMH  to develop strategies and policies to prevent family breakup, to reunite separated children with family or kin and to help institutions to transition away from the current residential model of care-giving.