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7 DECEMBER 2009
NO 1523
Evaluating treatment
One of the most widely publicized reviews of treatment effectiveness with delinquents in the United States carried out before 1967 (Lipton, Martinson and Wilks 1975) stands as a rich source of information supporting many treatment efforts, even though conclusions reached by these authors had the opposite effect. The 'nothing works' argument (Martinson 1974) portrayed the failure of treatment when all the subjects and all programmes of care and treatment under all conditions were taken together. Others (Jesness 1975; Moos 1975; Palmer 1978; Ross and Gendreau 1980) have argued that programmes of care and treatment are not all the same and that when certain differences are taken into account, some treatments do bring about success with some subjects, under certain conditions. There is, therefore, adequate justification for continued practice, careful evaluation, and research.
Neither the 'nothing works' arguments nor the judicial moves to ensure 'fair practices' impede treatment necessarily, so long as 'fairness' allows for public and private purchasers of service to choose a particular treatment that is known to decrease the likelihood of recidivism or future recurrence of a problem. Eventually such practices might encourage families and others to become more involved in choosing which services are best for them and the possibility of moving to an alternative service if a better option is discovered (Moos 1975). Masked in statistics and data on outcome are findings which can only be understood if one takes account of certain differences among the young people who come into care, their families and perhaps communities, programmes of care and custody, treatment methods, techniques of evaluation and research, and the characteristics of counsellors, educators, and care staff.
Researchers have noted the masking effect that occurs when programmes (or courses of action) are evaluated with all the human subjects grouped together (Gendreau and Ross 1979; Grant and Grant 1959; Hunt 1971; Jesness 1965, 1971a; Palmer 1978; Quay 1977). At the same time, attempts to control for these variables across settings, while continuing to account for the unique experience of individual subjects presents one with all the same problems as confronts other research on human behaviour in a social context. What constitutes individual counselling, group or family therapy, life skill development, and even behaviour therapy varies between settings and practitioners. Elsewhere in this volume consideration is given to the organization, provision, and evaluation of group care services for children, whether involving the education, health care, criminal justice, or social welfare resource networks. The subsequent focus of this chapter is on care and treatment planning for individual children and young people who are prone to be admitted or readmitted to group care in the criminal justice or social welfare systems.
One last word, however, is required by way of introduction. This is, that while an understanding of the interplay between people, settings, and conditions is still in its embryonic stage of development, group care centres cannot back down from: the requirement that each will operate from carefully written' descriptions of the services they offer, preferably written for each individual living-unit.2 Some programmes so lack a sufficiently detailed explanation of what they offer that they fail to inform managers and practitioners about whether the mandated service is actually being provided. Other programmes may have clear descriptions of intention but lack the resources and capability as to maintain outcomes over time (Quay 1977) or to monitor "program drift" (Johnson 1981).
GALE E. BURFORD
Burford, G.E. (1985). Personal care and treatment
planning. In Fulcher, L.C. and Ainsworth, F.
(Eds.). Group Care Practice with Children. London and New York.
Tavistock Publications.
REFERENCES
Grant, J. D. and Grant, M. Q. (1959) A Group Dynamics Approach to the Treatment of Non-Conformists in the Navy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 3, 22. pp. 126-35.
Gendreau, P. and Ross, R. (1979) Effective Correctional Treatment: Bibliotherapy for Cynics. Crime and Delinquency October. pp. 463-89.
Hunt, D. (1971) Maturity Models in Education: The Coordination of Teaching Methods with Student Characteristics. Toronto. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Jesness, C. (1965) The Fricto Ranch Study: Outcomes,with Small vs. Large Living Groups in the Rehabilitation of Delinquents. Sacramento. California Youth Authority, Research Report No. 47.
Jesness(1971a) The Preston Typology Study: An Experiment with Differential Treatment in an Institution. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 8. pp. 38-52.
Jesness (1975) Comparative Effectiveness of Behavior Modification and Transactional Analysis Programs for Delinquents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 6. pp. 758-79.
Johnson, V. S. (1981) Staff Drift: A Problem in Program Integrity. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 8, 2. pp. 223-32.
Lipton, D., Martinson, R., and Wilks, J. (1975). The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treatment Evaluation Studies. New York. Praeger.
Martinson, R. (1974) What Works? Questions and Answers About Prison Reform. The Public Interest, 35. pp. 22-54.
Moos, R. (1975) Evaluating Community and Correctional Settings. New York. John Wiley.
Palmer (1978) Correctional Intervention and Research: Current Issues and Future Prospects. Lexington, Mass. D. C. Heath.
Quay, H. (1977) The Three Faces of Evaluation: What Can Be Expected to Work. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 4. pp.34I-54.
Ross, R. and Gendreau, P. (1980) Effective Correctional Treatment. Toronto. Butterworth.
