Violence and Trauma in the Romanian Residential Child Protection
Violence and Trauma in the Romanian Residential Child Protection

Summary/Abstract: The times when the world discovered the images of horrific Romanian residential institutions for children and adults with disabilities belong to the past, and are registered in the collective conscience and scientific literature as the responsibility of the dictatorship under Ceausescu’s ruling of Communist Romania. Never the less inducing changes in residential care settings is a difficult process, due to the characteristics of the total institutions, as conceptualised by Goffman or the disciplinary institution, described by Foucault. Exploring the testimonials collected during a focus group and 45 individual interviews with adult alumni of such institutions the Romanian research team enrolled in the SASCA Project revealed a wide range of forms of violence and traumatic consequences. The descriptions of the finding are followed by discussions around the responsibility for the institutional failure to protect against violence and the subsequent needs in order to heel those, who suffered during childhood within the institutional child protection settings.

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