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18 APRIL 2008
NO 1287
Community
The need for a close relationship between
agency and community is underscored by data presently available from a
variety of sources. For example, the landmark study on the effectiveness
of residential treatment by Allerhand, Weber, and Haug (1966) suggests
that, except for those children at both extremes of the continuum (those
so resilient that they can overcome the effects of a less than desirable
postinstitutional placement and those so disturbed as to mitigate the
effects of even the most positive environment), the greatest determinant
of successful community adjustment will lie in the postplacement
experience. Other studies of residential care appear to confirm the
critical nature of the community experience in determining success
(Cavior, Schmidt, and Karacki, 1972). Interestingly, Wolins' (1974)
study of group child care facilities in four countries strongly suggests
that social integration within the larger community is positively
correlated with success. Support for
the notion of building strong ties between communities and group care
programs also comes from the recently completed national study of group
care conducted by the Child Welfare League of America, which places
considerable emphasis on the development of a linkage system (Mayer,
Richman, and Balcerzak, 1977, pp. 155-192). The work of Garbarino
(1977a, 1977b) suggests that many of the families of troubled children
are isolated from potent support systems and require a fair amount of
advocacy in mustering needed community services. This would be
particularly true of a family attempting to reintegrate a child recently
returned from residential care. There is a small but growing literature
on building community support systems for troubled children. Apter
(1977) describes a multidisciplinary program involving problem-oriented
summer camping and follow-up community advocacy for behaviorally
disordered children. Dokecki and Hutton (1977) describe the "liaison
specialist" role – an outgrowth of the liaison teacher role developed in
the Re-Ed Project (discussed in Chapter Three). Gatti and Colman (1976)
describe "community network therapy" with families of troubled children,
and Collins and Pancoast (1976) present a strategy for identifying and
utilizing "natural helping networks."
Another major reason for building community linkages is organizational survival. Quite apart from the kinds of community support needed to increase the likelihood of success with any particular child, group care agencies themselves require a certain amount of what Wolf (1976) has called "social validity" or Bronfenbrenner (1977), in a larger sense, refers to as "ecological validity." As group child care programs move toward a community orientation – group homes, day treatment, community outreach – their need for community integration increases. The whole thrust toward the "normalization" of children's services – including the provision in many special education statutes (and sure to extend to other areas of services as well) that service must be offered in "the least restrictive environment" – means that child caring programs will have to have much more involvement with the communities that support them (Wolfensberger, 1972).
For structural and historical reasons, the need for community linkages presents a formidable challenge to the group care agency. As mentioned earlier, funding tends to follow chil dren in full-time care; day treatment, aftercare, and community work with families enjoy considerably less support. Such policies can have the effect of maintaining children in residence longer than they need be, simply because that is the only way to maintain a level of funding adequate to provide services to children and families. More fundamentally, child caring institutions have, by design, been separate from their host communities – an arrangement which served both the need for isolation from presumed pathogenic community influences and also provided a measure of obscurity from community vision: out of sight, out of mind. One commentator described the problem as follows: "The institution is threatened by its tradition of isolation. It may tend to remain, as it has so often been in the past, a collection of social outcasts, juvenile and adult, who for reasons of their own or of others have been brought together to live under highly artificial conditions euphemistically described as "family life" (Coleman, 1940, p. 8).
Clearly, in nearly forty years things have changed. Residential treatment centers are more closely related to their host communities than previously. Also, the traditional notions of what constitutes a family have broadened to include other than two-parent, intact units, making it easier for group care settings to justify themselves as child rearing environments. It is well to remember, however, that, in building bridges between the group care program and its surrounding environment, one is going against what for a great many years was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Left alone, child caring institutions could develop their own culture of treatment designed to insulate the child from the influences of the community. All needs could be met in the milieu, making for ease of institutional operation. At discharge, the hope was that the child had been properly strengthened and immunized sufficiently to survive the environment to which he or she was to return. At the same time, the community could point with pride to its clearly segregated and encapsulated institutions, which stood as irrefutable evidence that something was being done about the problem of troubled and troublesome children. Whatever the logical and obvious flaws in such arrangements – and they are numerous – one can scarcely overestimate the degree of emotional commitment on the part of both institution and community in maintaining things as they were. The task, therefore, of building community linkages and community support may well be the most difficult task of all.
JAMES K. WHITTAKER
Whittaker, James K. (1979). Caring for Troubled
Children. San Francisco, CA and London. Jossey-Bass. pp. 124-127.
REFERENCES
Allerhand, M.E.; Weber, R. and Haug, M. (1966). Adaptation and Adaptability: The Bellefaire Follow-up Study. New York. Child Welfare League of America.
Apter, S.J. (1977). Family Advocacy in the BRIDGE Program. Paper presented at 85th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 7. pp. 513-532.
Cavior, E.C.; Schmidt, A. and Karacki, L. (1972). An evaluation of the Kennedy Youth Center Differential Treatment Program. Washington D.C. U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
Coleman, J.V. (1940). Institutional child-care: Some principles. Social Work Today, 7.
Collins, A.H. and Pancoast, D.L. (1976). Natural Helping Networks. Washington D.C. National Association of Social Workers.
Dokecki, P.R. and Hutton, R. (1977). The Liaison Specialist. Paper presented at the 85th convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco.
Garbarino, J. (1977a). Child abuse and juvenile delinquency: The developmental impact of social isolation. Unpublished paper. Boys Town, Neb. Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development.
Garbarino, J. (1977b). Studying the human ecology of child maltreatment: The role of isolation from potent support systems. Unpublished paper. Boys Town, Neb. Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development.
Gatti, F. and Colman, C. (1976). Community network therapy: An approach to aiding families with troubled children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 46, 4. pp. 608-618.
Mayer, M.F.; Richman, L.H. and Balcerzak, E.A. (1977). Group Care of Children: Crossroads and Transitions. New York. Child Welfare League of America.
Wolf, M.M. (1976). Social validity: The case for subjective measurement. Paper presented to the Division of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, American Psychological Association. Washington. D.C.
Wolfensberger, W. (1972) Normalisation. New York. National Institute on Mental Retardation.
Wolins, M. (Ed). (1974). Successful Group Care: Explorations in the Powerful Environment. Chicago. Aldine.
