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Background: In residential youth care, group care workers and teachers often serve as a mentor for individual adolescents. Although favorable mentoring relationships are associated with positive adolescent outcomes, few studies examined the role of mentoring in residential youth care. Objective: The present study aims to assess adolescents', care workers' and teachers' mentoring relationship needs in terms of their one-on-one conversations during residential care. Methods: We conducted structured interviews with eleven adolescents, ten group care workers and two teachers and content analysis to assess the data. Results: All respondents are rather satisfied with their conversations, which are often concerned with how the adolescent is doing. Adolescents mostly consider their family and home-situation as difficult topics, while care workers mostly consider sexuality as a difficult topic to talk about. Although 'improvement' with the youth is often the aim, most adolescents report that they do not (know if they) show changes because of these conversations. Moreover, only one of the twelve professionals thinks that it is his core task to achieve "behavior change" with the adolescents. According to the professionals, conversations often aim at building a good relationship, coaching, determining treatment goals, and gaining insight into the adolescent. Adolescents prefer a mentor who is calm, has respect, listens, and is reluctant in giving advice. Most professionals do not use a specific method and doubt whether they want to have conversations according to a manual or support tool. Conclusions: Despite being rather satisfied, adolescents and professionals indicate several points for improvement of one-on-one conversations.

\nPractical implicationsThe working alliance between families and professionals within the context of child protection faces substantial challenges from a variety of factors. At the same time, it plays an important role in accomplishing positive outcomes. To gain insight into what might contribute when establishing positive alliances between parents – undergoing formal parenting assessments – and family coaches, we interviewed 22 parents about their experiences with a Dutch family residential treatment (FRT) program. The majority of parents considered the approaches used in the program effective. A central theme identified concerns the importance of a connection between parents and coaches. Characteristics of professionals that promote this sense of connection include humanity, respectfulness, availability and responsiveness, and good communication skills. A sense of connection can help parents develop a relationship of trust in which they eventually feel safe enough to share their stories, insecurities, questions, emotions, and thoughts, all of which play an important role in achieving positive change within the family. Especially, parents valued individual conversations with coaches with whom they felt connected. They identified several strategies applied by the FRT-professionals as having helped them to make changes in parenting. We organized the key themes into a conceptual model for establishing positive working alliances promoting change. For parents there must be a match with the professional and personal qualities of family coaches in order to feel a connection with them.When insufficient connection is experienced, the model we developed can be helpful to find out what can be changed.According to parents, it is helpful to build a good working relationship if family coaches are not too “formal.”Interventions focusing on developing a good collaborative relationship between parents and coaches can be effective to restore parents’ trust in others and themselves.The environment of 24-h family residential treatment is ideally suited for the development of positive working relationships.For parents there must be a match with the professional and personal qualities of family coaches in order to feel a connection with them.When insufficient connection is experienced, the model we developed can be helpful to find out what can be changed.According to parents, it is helpful to build a good working relationship if family coaches are not too “formal.”Interventions focusing on developing a good collaborative relationship between parents and coaches can be effective to restore parents’ trust in others and themselves.The environment of 24-h family residential treatment is ideally suited for the development of positive working relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are often referred to art therapy. To investigate what works in art therapy with children with ASD, the tacit knowledge of 8 experienced art therapists was explored through interviews. Promising components were arranged into the Context and Outcomes of Art Therapy (COAT) model. According to the respondents, art therapy with children with ASD contributes to becoming more flexible and expressive, more relaxed, and more able to talk about their problems in the therapeutic setting as well as in their home situation. Considering the evidence in this study, further empirical research into the process and outcomes of art therapy with children with ASD is strongly recommended.

Long-term behavioral change is often difficult to achieve with adolescents staying in residential youth care. To achieve long-term behavioral change, we developed the Up2U training program to enhance these adolescents' intrinsic motivation for change. Based on motivational interviewing and solution-focused therapy, Up2U is designed for conducting one-on-one conversations with adolescents in residential youth care. The aim of this study is to evaluate the experiences that adolescents and care workers have had with Up2U. The results of semi-structured interviews show that, in general, the care workers were satisfied with Up2U. They identified the clarity, conciseness, and sample questions as positive elements of Up2U. In contrast, the care workers regarded the extensiveness and the implementation of Up2U as less positive. The adolescents also seemed to be positive about the use of Up2U during one-on-one conversations. In conclusion, although both care workers and adolescents were generally satisfied, there is still room for improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Statements about potentially effective components of interventions in child and youth care are hard to make because of a lack of a standardized instruments for classifying the most salient care characteristics. The aim of this study is to present an empirically developed taxonomy of care for youth (Tocfy) which is feasible for use in daily practice, including an explanation of the developmental process itself. Methods: The development procedure, comprising of different stages, contributed significantly to the foundation of the taxonomy. Results: The operational version consists of six domains: (1) contents of the intervention; (2) judicial context; (3) duration of the intervention; (4) intensity of the intervention; (5) intervention recipients; and (6) expertise of professionals. The terminologies used to describe treatment programs and the levels of classification were standardized for each organization participating in our study. By doing so, the feasibility and manageability of the taxonomic system in daily practice increased. Discussion: Using tocfy in daily practice provides the opportunity to gather information on care and treatment characteristics within care organizations. The strength of tocfy is that its framework can be extended to other care organizations within child and youth care. Replication of the findings of our study in other child and youth care settings is needed, because this study only covered one province in the Netherlands. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Background: Although secure residential care has the potential of reducing young people's behavioral problems, it is often difficult to achieve positive outcomes. Research suggests that there are several common success factors of treatment, of which the client's motivation for treatment and the quality of the therapeutic relationship between clients and therapists might be especially relevant and important in the context of secure residential care. Objective: The objective of the present study was to explore the association of these potential success factors with secure residential care outcomes. Methods: A repeated measures research design was applied in the study, including a group of adolescents in a secure residential care center that was followed up on three measurements in time. Interviews and questionnaires concerning care outcomes in terms of adolescents' behavior change during care were administered to 22 adolescents and 27 group care workers. Outcomes in terms of adolescents' treatment satisfaction were assessed by the use of questionnaires, which were completed by 51 adolescents. Results: Adolescents reported some positive changes in their treatment motivation, but those who were more likely to be motivated at admission were also more likely to deteriorate in treatment motivation from admission to departure. Treatment satisfaction was associated with better treatment motivation at admission and with a positive adolescent-group care worker relationship. Conclusions: The results suggest that outcomes can be improved by a more explicit treatment focus on improving the adolescent's treatment motivation and the quality of the adolescent-care worker relationship during secure residential care. (Contains 6 tables.)

The files of 419 children in family foster care and kinship foster care were used in a retrospective longitudinal design study that examined their placement histories in child welfare. Significant associations were found between the number of placements on one hand, and the prevalence of attachment disorders, severity of behavioral problems, and breakdowns of new foster care placements on the other hand. It appears that a breakdown can be predicted to a certain extent, the implications of which are discussed. (Contains 1 footnote and 3 tables.)

This article presents a selective inventory of treatment methods of aggressive behavior. Special attention is paid to types of intervention that, according to research, are frequently used in Dutch residential youth care. These methods are based on (1) principles of (cognitive) behavior management and control, (2) the social competence model, and (3) influencing the peer culture. Suggestions are made as to how the treatment of aggressive adolescents may be realized in residential settings. The article concludes that more attention should be paid to the involvement of parents and to the part played by the peer group in the treatment of aggressive behavior. (Contains 1 figure.)

Information obtained from 419 case files was used to investigate the associations between the foster child's adjustment to the foster family and factors in the histories of the child and the parents, as well as factors in the relationship between foster children and their biological parents while they are placed in foster care. Problems in the foster child's prior history, particularly attachment disorders and the experience of replacements, affect the extent of adjustment to the foster family. In-home visits by the child and the absence of parental permission to stay with the foster family are two factors related to the parent--child relationship that impeded adjustment. In general, parental problem factors did not affect adjustment. The fact that many foster children come from problem-laden backgrounds raises the question of whether foster parents are always sufficiently equipped to cope with these problems. Keywords: foster care, foster children, behavior problems, adjustment DOI: 10.1037/a0016598

(1) Background: 'Images of Self' (IOS) is a recently developed and evaluated art therapy program of 15 sessions to reduce difficulties in 'sense of self', 'emotion regulation', 'flexibility', and 'social behavior' of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In this paper, it is explored whether change in the child's behaviors corresponds to the therapist's actions during IOS and 15 weeks later. (2) Method: In a repeated case study design, twelve children and seven therapists participated. Art therapists monitored their own and the children's behavior by applying two observation instruments: the OAT (Observation of a child with autism in Art Therapy) and EAT (Evaluation of Art Therapist's behavior when working with a child with autism). Child behaviors during art making were—individually and as a group—compared with therapist's actions at three moments during the program. (3) Results: Ten of twelve children showed a substantial or moderate positive behavior change considering all OAT subscales at the end of the program and 15 weeks after treatment. Improvement of 'social behavior' stood out. Halfway treatment art therapists most prominently showed support of 'emotion regulation', 'flexibility', and 'social behavior'. Clear one-on-one relationships between changes in children's behavior and actions of therapists could not be identified. (4) Conclusion: The study provides new insights in the AT treatment process by monitoring children's and therapists' behavior. The art making itself and the art therapy triangle (child, art making, therapist) offer opportunities to improve verbal and nonverbal communication skills of the child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]