Aggressive Incidents in Residential Youth Care

Abstract

It is assumed that group climate can have an effect on aggressive behavior in adolescents living in residential facilities, but it is largely unknown whether there are climate differences between the various types of residential institutions, and whether group climate differently affects aggression incidents among adolescents placed in institutions that differ in levels of security (and openness). In current research, the differences in perception of group climate between open, semi-secure, and secure residential youth care facilities were examined as well as the association between group climate and aggression. In total, 159 adolescents (96 males, 63 females) completed the Prison Group Climate Instrument (PGCI), and (aggressive) incidents were recorded during a period of 3 months. Perception of group climate—including support from staff, group atmosphere among adolescents, possibilities for growth, and repression—did not differ between the various types of residential care, except for possibilities for growth. Adolescents in open and semi-secure institutions experienced more possibilities for growth than their peers in secure institutions. A more positive perception of group climate in open institutions proved to be related to less aggressive incidents at the living group. For semi-secure and secure institutions, no relation between group climate and aggression was found. Also, the longer adolescents stayed in residential youth care, the more aggressive incidents occurred.

Group climate, aggressive incidents and coercion in a secure forensic setting for individuals with mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning: A multilevel study

“…The relation between group climate and coercive measures was significantly mediated by aggression (indirect effect, β = −.11, p = .010). At the between-level, group climate was significantly related to aggression (β = −.82, p = .005), but not Decker et al, 2018;Heynen et al, 2016;Ros et al, 2013;Van den Tillaart et al, 2018), some findings of the present study are inconsistent with earlier studies. The reason for these inconsistencies might be that studies were conducted in different settings, with different populations, and used different group climate questionnaires and measures of aggressive incidents (Robinson et al, 2018).…”

“…By contrast, a closed and repressive group climate is characterized by a lack of structure, unduly strict control, loss of autonomy, absence of mutual respect, boredom, feelings of despair, aggression and lack of perspective (De Valk et al, 2016 ). A range of studies shows that there is a relation between the quality of group climate and the number of aggressive incidents in secure forensic settings (De Decker et al, 2018 ; Heynen et al, 2016 ; Meehan et al, 2006 ; Robinson et al, 2018 ; Robinson & Craig, 2019 ; Ros et al, 2013 ; Van den Tillaart et al, 2018 ).…”

“…The current study examines the association between the group climate, aggressive incidents and coercive measures in a secure forensic setting for clients with MID‐BIF. While there is (preliminary) evidence for the importance of group climate in managing aggressive incidents in residential youth care (De Decker et al, 2018 ; Van den Tillaart et al, 2018 ), secure forensic and psychiatric settings (Robinson et al, 2018 ; Ros et al, 2013 ), and prison settings (Akerman et al, 2018 ), little attention has been paid to group climate and its relation to aggressive incidents in secure forensic settings for individuals with mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning. This is striking considering that aggression in Dutch health care for people with intellectual disabilities (CNV, Zorg & Welzijn, 2018 ) and in forensic healthcare settings in many countries (Robinson et al, 2018 ) is recognized as a significant problem.…”

Measuring Repression in Residential Youth Care: Conceptualization, Development and Validation of the Institutional Repression Questionnaire

“…Sometimes this happened for trivial reasons, such as not participating in a group activity. It is unknown 1 3 how often this really happens because it is poorly registered (Dahl 2017;Van den;Heuvel 2018).…”

“…Examples of items in this subscale are "You have to ask permission for everything" and "These surroundings make me depressive". The reliability of the repression scale is only moderate, ranging from α = 0.61 to α = 0.80, showing great variability among studies (De Decker et al 2018;Eltink et al 2018;Heynen et al 2014;Ros et al 2013;Van den Tillaart et al 2018;Van der Helm et al 2011). This can be explained by the small number of seven highly heterogeneous items (Streiner 2003).…”