Karin Nijhof

k.nijhof@pwo.ru.nl

Title project:
Children with severe behavior problems: Evaluation of a new residential treatment program.

Abstract:
A growing number of children and adolescents with severe problem behavior is nowadays placed in juvenile detention centres. These youth did not commit any crimes, but there are serious concerns about the home situation in which these adolescents are raised, so that protection against their environment or themselves is needed. Concluding, once placed in youth detention, they come in contact with criminal youth. This aggregation of delinquent and non delinquent adolescents is not desirable. Thereby the non delinquent adolescents receive the same treatment program compared to the delinquent adolescents, while they actually need treatment based on their specific problems (Boendermaker, 2003). The study of Boendermaker (2003) resulted in a new residential treatment program for children and adolescents aged 12 to 18 years with severe behavior problems. Within this new program, adolescents are placed in a residential setting receiving the treatment and interventions they need according to their problems, mostly externalizing as well as internalising. The focus of the present study is to get insight into the four projects, who together form the new residential treatment program. More specifically the following three questions are examined: 1) What is the theoretical background of the program, 2) In what extent is the program carried out in practice as mentioned theoretically and 3) What are the long term consequences of the new program for the adolescents involved? A longitudinal design allows us to look at the long term consequences the program has on de adolescent’s problem behavior. All adolescents as well as their families will be followed during the time they participate in the program and half a year afterwards (follow up), when they already left the residential setting.