When State Childcare Risks Becoming Institutional

I’ve been watching with unease as the Department for Education proudly rolls out its social media
reels, showing how easy it is for parents to drop off two children at school and nursery in the same
place. But here’s the real question: who is this setup really serving?
It certainly isn’t the children.
This is the government’s quick fix to fulfil the 30-hour childcare promise — pumping money into
empty classrooms and schools without addressing what young children actually need. And when we
start making decisions this way, we risk overlooking something crucial: healthy child development.
It wasn’t so long ago that children didn’t even enter Reception until the late 1960s, and even then it
was voluntary (it still technically is, though few realise this). Fast-forward to today, and we’re
facing record levels of anxiety and mental health issues among young people. Shouldn’t we stop toconnect the dots?

A Chilling Echo from the Past

In the 1990s, I worked inside Romanian “orphanages.” I use quotation marks deliberately, because
most of the children there weren’t actually orphans. They had families, but the state had stepped in
— and the system turned child-rearing into something chillingly institutional.
One piece of propaganda from Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime still haunts me. At the gates of state-run
institutions, you’d see a poster:
• A mother hands her baby to state caregivers.
• Later, she is shown walking proudly hand-in-hand with her grown child.
• The slogan beneath? “The state can take better care of your child than you can.”
It was a carefully crafted lie — a visual story that promised nurturing care but hid the reality:
neglect, overcrowding, and children being raised in bulk rather than in relationship.
Now, I’m not saying English schools are orphanages. But when resources are squeezed, the
structures can start to look uncomfortably similar. Overcrowded classrooms. Underpaid staff.
Teachers leaving in droves. Routines that prioritise efficiency over relationships. If we’re not
careful, our childcare can start to carry that same institutional feel.

1. Ratios and Relationships

Early childhood thrives on secure, consistent relationships with adults. In Romania, dozens of
children were left with too few caregivers. Their cues were missed, their cries unanswered, and
many never developed healthy attachments.
In the UK today, staff ratios look fine on paper — but underfunding tells a different story.
Practitioners are exhausted, turnover is high, and there’s barely time for meaningful connection.
Add in staff sickness and mental health challenges, and the danger grows: children are cared for in
bulk rather than as individuals.
2. Institutional Environments

What struck observers in Romania were the rows of cots, rigid timetables, and lifeless spaces.
Children weren’t intentionally mistreated — staff tied them into beds not to hurt them, but to keep
them “safe” in the easiest way possible.
That mindset still echoes today, in subtler ways.
• Nappies changed on a production line instead of in response to need.
• Faces wiped quickly rather than supporting children to do it themselves.
• Days structured around routines rather than play or curiosity.
Not out of cruelty — but out of necessity. When I walk into English nurseries stripped to the bare
minimum of resources, with staff stretched too thin, the vibe feels eerily similar: institutional, not
relational.

3. Developmental Consequences

The Romanian children showed us the cost of custodial care: delayed speech, flat emotions,
impaired decision-making, and lifelong struggles with trust and attachment.
Here in the UK, research already shows children in low-quality childcare settings lag behind those
in high-quality ones. If underfunding worsens, those developmental gaps will only grow — leaving
lasting scars that are harder to repair.

4. Lessons from Romania

Romania has spent decades dismantling those orphanages, replacing them with foster care and small
family-style homes. The lesson was clear: children don’t thrive in institutions — they thrive in
relationships.
That’s the lesson we cannot afford to ignore. If our nurseries and schools are forced, through lack of
funding, to operate more like systems than sanctuaries, then we’re failing children at the most
crucial stage of their development.

The Warning

Childcare isn’t just babysitting. It’s brain-building. It lays the foundations for future health,
learning, and relationships.
When childcare is underfunded, it’s not just parents who struggle. It’s the children who lose out —
because the system shifts from nurturing relationships to managing numbers.
Romania showed us the extreme. And while we’re far from that, the warning signs are already here.
When I step into some nurseries and feel that orphanage vibe, it’s not because staff don’t care. It’s
because they’re being asked to do the impossible: deliver deep, relational care under institutional
conditions.
That should unsettle us all.
Because if we don’t listen to the warning now, we may one day find ourselves repeating history —
in ways we once swore we never would.