Cyprus is not short on good ideas. It is occasionally short on the courage to try them out loud. Proven Elsewhere brings to local decision-makers policies that have already been tested abroad, because someone else has already taken the risk.
In a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, a large white house sits back from the road. A member of staff sleeps there every night and wakes the children at 7am. The kitchen is the heart of the home, and the children help cook the meals. At weekends, their friends can come to stay. Every child has a team of two to three adults following their schooling and wellbeing. This is a Danish children’s home, and the principle behind it is simple: a child in the state’s care should grow up in a home, not an institution.
A system built over decades
Denmark’s children’s homes are often described as the gold standard of residential care for children worldwide. The model was not created overnight. It has developed over more than four decades of steady reform.
A key turning point came in 2007, when a reform made local municipalities responsible for specialised social services, including children’s homes. Since then, the number of children in residential care has steadily fallen. Today most children in care live with foster families, and residential homes are reserved for children and young people who need the most specialised support.
The carers are trained professionals
The backbone of the system is the social pedagogue. In contrast to many other countries, most, if not all, staff in Danish children’s homes are trained as pedagogues through a three-and-a-half-year degree. The discipline draws on child development, psychology and ethical practice.
The training shapes the whole approach. “We don’t have an in-house therapist, but everything we do is therapeutic,” Mads Sørensen, deputy director of a Copenhagen home, told The Guardian. Daily life itself (meals, homework, friendships, family visits) is treated as the therapy.
Trained, valued staff also tend to stay. At Josephine Schneider’s House, one of Copenhagen’s best-known homes, four of its ten pedagogues had worked there for 20 years and two for 30, according to an earlier Guardian report. Children there stayed an average of 13 years, so placements rarely broke down and relationships could last.
Family ties are kept, not cut
Danish homes work actively to keep children connected to the people in their lives. Children are encouraged to have friends to stay at weekends and during the holidays. Homes hold regular parents’ evenings, and families are invited to occasions such as a Christmas banquet. Personal growth and maintaining family ties are treated as central to the child’s care, not as optional extras.
Care does not stop at 18
One of the most significant features of the Danish model is that care does not end abruptly on a young person’s 18th birthday. Denmark has introduced extended care that can continue until the age of 23, in response to research linking leaving care at 18 with poorer outcomes.
In practice, this can mean a gradual transition. At the Copenhagen home described above, residents aged 17 and over live in a semi-independent flat on the top floor, with their own living area and kitchen, as they prepare for adult life.
Who runs the homes
Danish children’s homes operate under a mix of ownership models. Around a third are publicly owned, 42% are not-for-profit and 27% are for-profit. This contrasts with systems dominated by private providers, where profit margins and costs have become a growing concern.
What it would take in Cyprus
Cyprus already has some of the building blocks. According to the Social Welfare Services, 780 children were placed in alternative care in May 2026. That includes foster families, children’s homes and semi-independent living structures for young people aged 16 to 21. As Politis to the Point has reported, 227 foster families look after 347 children, and the state has been working to strengthen foster care as the preferred option. There is also a financial assistance scheme for young people formerly in the care of the Director of Social Welfare Services after they turn 18.
What the Danish model suggests Cyprus would need is less about buildings and more about people and continuity:
- A recognised profession for residential carers, with degree-level training in social pedagogy
- Small, homely units where staff stay for years and children build lasting relationships
- Structured family contact built into everyday care
- Extended support up to 23, rather than a cliff edge at 18 or 21
- Clear municipal or local responsibility, so each child’s care is planned close to home
Experts caution that the Danish system reflects decades of development and cannot simply be copied wholesale. But its principles can be adopted step by step.
Denmark spent forty years learning how to raise the children it is responsible for. Cyprus does not need to start from zero. It needs to start.
Have a good practice worth bringing home? If your country, company or institution does something Cyprus should be trying, we want to hear about it. Send your ideas to peggy.s@politis.com.cy. The next instalment of Proven Elsewhere could be inspired by you.
With information from The Guardian, Children & Young People Now, the International Journal of Social Pedagogy, Lancaster University and Cyprus Social Welfare Services
