NCJ Number
101502
Journal
Journal of Adolescence Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1986) Pages: 29-48
Date Published
1986
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This descriptive, participant-observation study highlights the respective problems of two contrasting approaches to therapy in two halfway houses for emotionally disturbed adolescents in England.
Abstract
The two facilities followed strikingly different approaches to therapeutic community practice. Ashley House staff emphasized collective and individual responsibility with minimal supervision. Beeches House staff, conversely, sought to modify behavior through the creation of an elaborate and hierarchical social structure through which residents were expected to progress to independence and through planned, instrumental interventions designed to improve residents' task performance and maintain the house structure. Ashley's minimal supervision and reality confrontation approach contributed to problems in discriminating among residents, in enforcing house decisions, in staff passivity, and the eventual withdrawal of peer group support from distressed residents with increasing length of stay. The Beeches approach, on the other hand, put strains on staff resources, and the comprehensiveness of the program limited its flexibility. Further, emphasis on task performance over motivation reinforced poor resident self-images and permitted residents to develop an institutionalized adaptation to the program. 13 references.