The Orphanages: Welcome

ROMANIAN ORPHANAGES

The Romanian orphanages problem was one of the first big signs and extended studies on the effects of neglect on a young child’s brain. Inside of the orphanages, children suffered “‘from inadequate food, shelter, clothing, medical care, lack of stimulation or education, and neglect’” (Corina). A child is newly developing, and those vital years where the brain is absorbing its surroundings and forming so many new connections is so crucial to the development of the child. Unfortunately in Romania, the “dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu was overthrown, and the world discovered that 170,000 children were being raised in Romania's impoverished institutions” (Weir).
Neglect is an extremely impactful part of children’s lives. This became relevant when Romanian orphanages were discovered for the neglect they caused children, and the effects that the neglect had on the child’s brain. Neglect is common in children who enter foster care, and this neglect that children face at such a young age is extremely detrimental to the brain and can cause a list of issues “poor impulse control, social withdrawal, problems with coping and regulating emotions, low self-esteem, pathological behaviors such as tics, tantrums, stealing and self-punishment, poor intellectual functioning and low academic achievement” (Weir).

The Orphanages: Text

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The Orphanages: Image

In Romania, children were kept in cribs unable to walk and move and were deprived of any human contact; “the babies laid in cribs all day, except when being fed, diapered or bathed on a set schedule. They weren't rocked or sung to. Many stared at their own hands, trying to derive whatever stimulation they could from the world around them. ‘Basically these kids were left on their own,’ Fox says.” (Weir). Children who were disabled or had disabilities were treated even worse. Many were malnourished, diseased, tied to their own beds or dangerously restrained in their own clothing. This neglect and trauma created detrimental developmental problems and showed many researchers what happens when a child is denied normal human relationships. The extreme neglect had lasting impacts and caused changes and harm to the brain. Romania orphanages had great lack of care for children, and then also foster care homes had some neglect just based on the inability to help the children with the special needs that the neglect had caused them. Even though the foster care homes were not perfectly equipped for these kids, the children who were moved into foster care had a brighter future and more hopeful life.
Today only a small number of Romanian children are housed in orphanages maintained by the state, and now the children have received the care needed for their developmental needs. Many of the problems that occur today with the orphanages is connected back to Ceausescu. Ceausescu’s communist views and ways of leading led to the state orphanage system growing. Many parents believed that the state was able to take care of their children. Even though today the orphanages seem to be better equipped, the mentality of Romanian people doesn’t seem to change completely. The state pays the foster parents a salary to pay the children. Instead of being large orphanages with little to no care, the children are now in “family-type homes” where five or six children grow up together. Romania had remaining institutional buildings which were called placement centers, but under the findings of the impact of these bad facilities “the government has made a public commitment to close them all by 2020” (Cozens). Overall, many countries in Eastern Europe are fighting to decrease their orphanages.

The Orphanages: Body

The Orphanages: Video