ARQUA system: a new tool for evaluating quality in residential child care

According to the latest official data, in Spain there are 13.563 children and adolescents fostered in homes of protection (Observatorio de Infancia, 2016). This makes child protection be a matter of great importance,... [ view full abstract ]

According to the latest official data, in Spain there are 13.563 children and adolescents fostered in homes of protection (Observatorio de Infancia, 2016). This makes child protection be a matter of great importance, especially in the area of residential childcare. For this reason, it’s of great interest to know in depth the operation of these homes trough assessments that evaluate the quality of the practices that are being developed in them. These actions must be based on international quality standards of residential childcare: EQUAR (Del Valle, Bravo, Martínez and Santos, 2012). Currently, the Group of Research on Family and Childhood (GIFI) of the University of Oviedo, is being pioneer in Spain to design an instrument that allows to realize assessments of quality. These assessments must involve homes in different levels, composing for specific interviews for each profile (management, technical, educational and personnel services staffs and children) as well as assess the physical resources and its structure by an environmental observation. This makes the evaluation be integral. The main objective of this paper is to present the structure of a new instrument named ARQUA designed to evaluate quality of residential child care according the national Spanish standards.
Del Valle, J.F., Bravo, A., Martínez, M y Santos, I. (2013) Estándares de calidad en acogimiento residencial EQUAR. Madrid: Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad. Edición en CD.
Observatorio de la Infancia (2016). Estadística básica de medidas de protección. Madrid: Observatorio de la Infancia.