Observation and Social Validation of Staff Behaviours in a Residential Care Setting

Abstract

Eleven residential care staff working in a secure unit with disruptive or delinquent youths were trained to use a variety of behavioural methods and teaching-parent interaction skills as outlined by the Achievement Place Programme. Three months following a 1-month full-time training programme, staff were observed in the work environment using a behaviour coding system. An attempt was made to identify which care staff behaviours influenced the clients' and colleagues' judgements about staff behaviour towards the youths. Staff who frequently asked for information from the youths were rated more positively by both colleagues and youths. The use of praise influenced the youths' judgements of care staff, whereas the expression of affection towards the youths influenced staff judgements of colleagues. Other aspects of conversation or teaching interaction skills did not correlate with boys' or colleagues' judgements of the care staff. Responses such as checking for understanding, requesting practice, giving prompts and feedback were rarely used by care staff. The study provides evidence of social validity for certain staff behaviours as influencing judgements made by clients and colleagues.

Application of cognitive-behavioural family intervention for schizophrenia in multidisciplinary teams: What can the matter be?

“…specific enactive skills, and the absence of individualised skills-attainment measures may have been a major reason for the limited impact of the training on community health practice. Further research that formally assesses these skills as an integral part of the training procedure is clearly required (Binney, 1992;Spence & Lee, 1985;Vallis, Shaw, & Dobson, 1986). As well as the component strategies listed in the program, these measures should cover functional assessment of clients and families, facility in modifying the intervention in the light of these assessments, and ongoing monitoring of change.…”

“…While cognitive-behavioural interventions have demonstrated utility across a range of disorders (Clum & Bowers, 1990;Dobson, 1989;Miller & Berman, 1983;Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980), the application of these strategies to multidisciplinary health settings has offered considerable challenges (Backer, Liberman, & Kuehnel, 1986;Binney, 1992;Paul & Lentz, 1977;Spence & Lee, 1985). There is now an established body of theory and research on the training of nonpsychologists in behavioural procedures and on the dissemination of programs into community settings (Backer et al, 1986;Bernstein, 1984;Martin & Osborne, 1974;Tharp & Wetzel, 1969), and short-term success has been demonstrated in some studies (e.g., Marks, Connelly, Hallam, & Philpott, 1975).…”

Social Climate within an Adolescent Medium-Secure Facility

“…For example, Vitri, Attias, Banayahu, Elharrat, and Hener (2001) measured the social climate within a chronic haemodialysis unit comparing patient perceptions of social climate with those of nurses. Others have measured social climate within psychiatric units (Main, McBride, & Austin, 1991;Melle et al, 1996), forensic psychiatric units (Kirby, 1997;Kirby & Pollock, 1995), residential learning disability services (McGee & Woods, 1978), residential adolescent services (Spence & Lee, 1985), and prisons (Wenk & Moos, 1972).…”