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A Case for Residential Schools for Economically Disadvantaged Youth
Alex Schuh ABSTRACT. Responding to the widely recognized dismal prospects for success of socially and economically disadvantaged youth in America, this paper addresses two major questions: (1) Can residential schools increase the academic and social success of disadvantaged youth in America? and (2) What would be required to develop a successful academic residential school for those youth? Reviews of research and theoretical work support a positive answer to the first question. Additional analysis finds rich empirical and theoretical support for developing a model for a successful academic residential school. A brief description of one such model, Children's Academies for Achievement, is provided.
Many children residing in America today are in crisis. With each passing year, young members of lower socio economic groups face increasingly limited prospects for becoming successful, productive members of society. As these children struggle to grow and learn, many are surrounded by environments characterized by high rates of violence, high incidence of substance abuse, low educational achievement, child abuse and neglect, poor nutrition, and limited health care that frequently impede their chances for high academic and occupational achievements (Carnegie Corporation, 1988; Children's Defense Fund, 1994; The Washington Post, 1994). Most child and youth development experts currently agree that, in order to help these young people to succeed, approaches that focus on altering only one debilitating factor in a child's environment, such as retraining teachers, must be abandoned in favor of a more ecological approach that attends to the character of the total environment surrounding the child (Beker & Feuerstein, 1991a; Bogenschneider, Small, & Riley, 1991; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Huston, 1991; Klerman, 1991; Werner, 1993). The physical and social qualities of each child's surroundings, according to the ecological perspective, need to be oriented such that the child will develop a strong attachment to his or her community and benefit from an atmosphere that is conducive to academic study and achievement.
Intentional HIV Contraction: A Policy Change for Youth in Care
Peter Tompkins Rosenblatt, MSW
ABSTRACT. When we think of suicide we do not usually think of someone knowingly and willingly contracting HIV. This paper recommends expanding our consideration of suicide to include intentional contraction of HIV. Reviewing the current evidence of this phenomena and considering the complex reasons for intentional infection, recommendations for specific actions and policy changes will be made to better assist the on line child and youth care practitioner in their assessment and intervention regarding suicide for youth in care.
A Change for the Agents of Change David Kennard
Staying Alive in a Changing Environment
Hendrik C. Seur
ABSTRACT. Many institutes of mental health care face threats to their existence, and this also applies to therapeutic communities in Britain and the Netherlands. The author of this article worked at four different institutions, before he started working in a centre for residential psychotherapy. Three of them did not succeed in staying alive in a changing environment, and the fourth one, an institute for outpatient mental health care, is still struggling to find its form. In this article the history of this last institute is analysed, using psychodynamic, groupdynamic, and organisational points of view. The author extrapolates his experiences with organisation and reorganisation in the setting of residential psychotherapy and gives some recommendations, which are relevant to staying alive.
Can Therapeutic Community Principles Survive Within a Traditional Hospital Setting? Jay Smith, MD
Key Elements of Agency Survival
W.R. Cozens, Ph.D., MBA
ABSTRACT. This paper describes the results of a small, four question phone survey of two RTCs regarding survival in today's atmosphere of shrinking resources, increased competition, greater accountability, and higher expectations. These two agency's were selected primarily because of the author's long term, on site knowledge of their capacity to not only succeed but thrive in this increasingly difficult environment. Also important in terms of criteria for surveying, was the diversity of these programs in terms of clients, location, size, clinical approach, and attitudes regarding managed care. The results of this survey are presented along with commentary regarding their implications for RTCs.
Client Characteristics Contributing to the Frequency of Physical Restraints in Child Residential Treatment of Males
Kathleen J. West, PhD
ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to investigate client characteristics along with related milieu variables that contribute to the vulnerability of being physically restrained in child residential settings. The relationships between eleven client characteristics; Full Scale IQ, Verbal IQ, Performance IQ, Verbal Comprehension, reading level, age, height, weight, externalising behavior, length of institutionalized time, and history of abuse; with regard to the frequency of physical restraints were examined through the use of a one way multi analysis of variance, and followed up with a discriminant function analysis and individual F tests. The experience of direct care staffÔ O) 0*0*0*°° Ô was also examined with regard to the frequency of physical restraints, through the employment of a Pearson product moment correlation.