Outcomes among young adults placed in therapeutic residential care as children

Abstract

specialises in research on child protection and looked after children, but also carries out studies into child victimisation and child welfare more generally. Adam Green is a qualified social worker and was a manager in a private organisation providing therapeutic residential care to severely maltreated children. He now works as an independent social work consultant to a range of children's organisations in the public, voluntary and private sector. AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank all of the young people and adults who took part in this study for their willingness to discuss their lives in The Orchards and their lives currently; thereby making this important research possible. We would also like to thank all those who helped facilitate contact with these young people and adults. This aim of this paper is to advance knowledge concerning outcomes among the former residents of therapeutic children's homes, especially those located in England. Sixteen young adults who had been resident in one of seven therapeutic houses took part in interviews. It appeared, from the information they gave in these interviews, that their outcomes were good in terms of their emotional and behavioural well-being, physical health, accommodation, and absence of early parenthood and substance use. Some of the young adults also had good outcomes in respect of their education and absence of criminal convictions. A small number of the young adults did less well on these latter two measures but few of them were particularly poor in either of these respects. The young adults had limited contact with their family members. The evidence from this research is that young adults who have been in therapeutic residential care can have good outcomes. Summary• Young adults placed as children in therapeutic residential establishments can have good outcomes in terms of their emotional and behavioural well-being, physical health, accommodation, and absence of early parenthood and substance use.• Some of these young adults can also have good outcomes in respect of their education and the absence of criminal convictions but for other former residents these outcomes are not as good, although none are very poor on either of these measures.• The young adults have limited contact with family members.• Policy makers and practitioners should continue to consider the placement of children in therapeutic residential establishments, especially where those children have acute emotional and behavioural needs that arise out of severe maltreatment.

The effectiveness, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for maltreated children and adolescents: an evidence synthesis

“…Indeed, for some maltreated children their experiences of maltreatment, combined with adverse care experiences, may mean they cannot be managed in substitute home-based care settings, such as adoption and fostering. A variety of specific interventions are used in the therapeutic residential care studies included in this review, among which are therapeutic parenting, life story work, 553 trauma-focused psychological therapy, 551 addressing cognitive distortions, improving impulse control, social skills training, risk management, sex education and behaviour modification, 557 as well as preparation for independence for older adolescents. 562 Therapeutic day programmes aim to meet the developmental needs of children in terms of fine motor, language, and social and emotional skills.…”

Social pedagogy-informed residential child care

“…RCC has various treatment philosophies and tends to adopt 'generalist' knowledge, a 'milieu-based' orientation and a variety of pedagogical approaches. For example, the content of RCC work is defined as ordinary homelike (Laakso, 2009;Shealy, 2002;Ward, 2006;Whitaker et al, 1998), therapeutic care (Whittaker et al, 2015), as a form of home education (Heim, 2002;Gunder, 2011) featuring parenting skills (Gallagher and Green, 2013) and using methods of RCC workers'own choosing (Fyhr, 2001). This constitutes a broad education and learning approach (Cameron, 2016) in which daily life is the most important context of care and change (Grietens, 2015).…”

“I’ve made that little bit of difference to this child”: Therapeutic parent’s experiences of trials and triumphs in therapeutic children’s homes

“…Additionally, research exploring the effectiveness of TCHs is underdeveloped and limited (Butler et al, 2009;Gallagher and Green, 2013). However, from the scarce literature available, the effectiveness of TCHs for young people is mixed, with some studies highlighting the efficacy of TCHs (e.g.…”