and reach thousands of daily visitors
3 SEPTEMBER 2010
NO 1623
Control versus treatment
Since most children in residential centres are involuntary participants, their perceptions and experiences of treatment are markedly different from those of the voluntary client (Oxley 1977). They frequently perceive themselves to be controlled; and, in testing out this hypothesis, they effectively coerce the residential staff into establishing controlling structures and imposing authority (Dahms 1978). Since many children in residential programs appear to have external loci of control orientation to begin with (Friedman et al. 1985; Nicholson 1979) the inherent dangers of a controlled environment are self-evident. Experience suggests that programs that strive primarily to control behaviour tend to induce the dreaded state known as institutionalization; they foster mechanistic Child and Youth Care approaches that leave little scope for personal development and autonomy. Additionally, the pressure to control the behaviour of children is often imposed from external community sources (Mayer and Peterson 1975), particularly where delinquency is assumed to be a primary area of concern.
Paradoxically, it is in this arena that Child and Youth Care has faced one of its greatest challenges and, perhaps, made one of its greatest contributions. The primary task of the residential worker is to create in each child a belief in personal efficacy and autonomy. More than any other single factor, this appears to be the key to successful treatment in a residential setting. ln our experience, it has taken the growth of professional Child and Youth Care to help to realize that this can be accomplished within a residential environment, since the pathway to freedom is, in fact, a transition from control to autonomy.
THOM GARFAT AND GERRY FEWSTER
Garfat, T. and Fewster, G. (1993).
Residential
Child and Youth Care. In R. Ferguson, A. Pence and C. Denholm.
(Eds.). Professional Child and Youth Care, 2nd ed.
Vancouver,
B.C. University of British Columbia Press.
p. 33.
References
Dahms, W.R. Authority versus relationship. Child Care Quarterly, 7. pp. 336-344.(1978).
Friedman, R; Goodrich, W. and Fullerton, C. (1985). Locus of control and severity of psychiatric illness in the residential treatment of adolescents. Residential Group Care and Treatment, 3. pp. 3-13.
Mayer, G. and Peterson, J.C. (1975). Social control in the treatment of adolescents in residential care. Child Welfare, 54. pp. 246-256
Nicholson, L. (1979). Locus of control in a residential treatment centre. Unpublished manuscript. William Roper Hull Home. Alberta.
Oxley, G.B. (1977). Involuntary client's response to a treatment experience. Social Casework, 58. pp. 607-614.
