The goal was often to place children in a family setting.
Some children remained in the orphanage until they were capable of supporting themselves
Others were bound out. Some children were placed in a children’s home by court order instigated by the overseers of the poor. Possibly because one or both of the child’s parents were dead, although family children from homes with extreme poverty might also be bound out. The overseers of the poor reduced the children that were a public charge by binding them out so that the children earned their own keep.