and reach thousands of daily visitors
1 February
NO 1259
Residential treatment
Residential treatment is here to stay. However sophisticated our therapy skills become, however extensively we are able to establish community-based support services, I cannot imagine a time when there will not be court-ordered placements, or when there will not be children, adolescents, and parents who find it impossible to live together for the moment, or when there will not be families that require a period of distance for the sake of safety or sanity. Services that seek to prevent residential placement, such as intensive family based services (Kinney, Haapala, & Booth, 1991), are an important addition to the mental health and welfare field; however, their proponents are clear that these services do not mean that placements never occur.
A degree of skepticism about residential placement is probably helpful. Admitting a young person into a residential program too quickly is a sure way to reinforce views of failure and/or pathology, and ignores the fact that most families (with or without professional help) can find a way out of their difficulties. Wanting "a break," or seeking someone else who will "fix the problem," is an understandable and natural reaction to escalating difficulties within the home. Nonetheless, most families can find the solution to their impasse if helped through the crisis. Having said this, I do not believe that residential placement is inevitably a second-best solution. The residential situation is one that can provide some space, and some input, to allow families to begin the process of taking some control over their lives. That it seems not to do so in many instances is not a reflection on the inappropriateness of residential treatment as a form of intervention but perhaps an indictment of our ideas about change, about families and about people's strengths and resources in the residential arena – and the way these are reflected in staffing policies and agency structure.
MICHAEL DURRANT
Durrant, M. (1993). The Context of Residential Treatment. Readings in Child and Youth Care for South African Students. Cape Town. National Association for Child Care Workers. p. 24.
