This monograph reviews the research, practice, and policy literatures pertaining to children without permanent parents, most of whom spend their early months or years in institutions.

Robert B. McCall is Co-Director of the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development and Professor of Psychology. He has studied perceptual-cognitive and attentional development in infancts, play in infants and toddlers, developmental changes in general mental performance, and communicating research information to the general public practitioners, and policy makers.

Marinus H. van IJzendoorn is Professor of Child and Family Studies, Centre for Family studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands, Research Professor of Human Development at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. His scholarly interests include studies of attachment across the life span; cross-cultural dimensions of parenting and child emotional development; applied studies on child maltreatment, adoption, and preventive interventions.

Femmie Juffer is Professor of Adoption Studies at the Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Her research interests include international adoption and foster care, parental sensitivity and attachment in adoptive families, attachment-based interventions, adopted children's development, and child rearing in institutions.

Christina J. Groark is an Associate Professor of Education and Co-Director of the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development. Her expertise includes leading numerous large-scale collaborative projects providing innovative services to children, youth, and families, especially of those in urban and low-income communities and isntitutionalized settings.

Victor K. Groza is the Grace F. Brody Professor of Parent-Child Studies at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve Univesrity, Cleveland, Ohio. He is a licensed social worker and has a doctorate in Sociology. His research in international child welfare focuses on two areas: an examination of the instituionla care of children; and family, children, and service system issues in domestic, older child adoption, and international adoption.