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Adolescents in secure residential care mostly suffer from serious behavioural problems, often accompanied by trauma and adverse family circumstances. This paper presents findings of a comparison of behavioural problems and risk factors of 255 boys and girls (aged 12 to 18 years) in secure residential care in the Netherlands and their association with behavioural problems. A cross-sectional design and standardized questionnaires were used to measure behavioural problems and individual and familial risk factors. By using independent-sample t tests, the severity of these factors in boys and girls was compared, and by using structural equation modelling (SEM), associations between these factors and behavioural problems were investigated. The findings of the study show that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, maladaptive emotion regulation, impaired perceived competence and internalizing behavioural problems were more severe in girls than in boys. Boys experienced more severe externalizing behavioural problems and more family problems than girls. Maladaptive emotion regulation, PTSD symptoms, perceived competence and parenting problems were related to behavioural problems. The results indicate that treatment for girls should address PTSD symptoms, perceived competence and maladaptive emotion regulation and that extra attention for family problems in the treatment of boys is warranted.

This chapter describes residential care in the Netherlands, a country ranking highest on children’s mental well-being, physical health, and academic and social skills. Residential care represents approximately 50% of all children in out-of-home care. Recent developments include the development of small-scale residential settings, including family-oriented residential care and shared family care. A strong emphasis on residential care research in several leading universities and a longstanding commitment to social pedagogy are assets to the residential care sector. The chapter concludes with the matrix used throughout the book, including the current policy context, key trends and initiatives, characteristics of children and youth served, preparation of residential care personnel, promising programmatic innovations, and present strengths and challenges.

Previous research has shown that social climate (SC) is important for the daily life of youths living in therapeutic residential youth care (TRC). However, little is known on how SC can promote a positive quality of life (QoL) for the heterogeneous TRC population. This study, therefore, investigates how TRC and youth characteristics are associated with SC and QoL. We employed a combination of person-centered and variable-centered approaches in a cross-sectional design using a sample of 400 Norwegian youths. We used previously established TRC and youth classes in a structural equation model, where these classes were regressed on latent SC and QoL. Both direct and indirect effects were analyzed. All youth classes were associated with SC and QoL, such that youth with family problems, incidental problems, and the migrant background class scored higher on SC and QoL compared to the severe problems class. In addition, SC mediated the association of the incidental problems and migrant background classes on QoL. TRC staff should acknowledge that a positive SC can strengthen the QoL of youths with severe problems. Future research should longitudinally investigate these associations to establish long-term effects on QoL during stay in TRC.

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.

Although parental problems and poor parenting are commonly associated with adolescents' admission to secure residential care, few studies examined these parental characteristics. This study aims to identify parental problems and strengths and their association with parenting styles for 64 of these parents. We assessed perspectives of both adolescents and their parent figures shortly after admission. Parents often report high levels of psychopathology for both mothers and fathers, respectively, including depression (54.7% and 39.1%), anxiety (29.7% and 12.5%), substance dependence (14.1% and 26.6%), antisocial behaviour (1.6% and 21.1%), and psychosis (11.0% and 9.4%). Parents also report high parenting stress specifically related to the behaviour of their child. In contrast to our expectations, most parents experience a high quality of life. Living in a 1‐parent family, being unemployed and having debts are most frequently mentioned risk factor combinations. We found limited support for the hypothesis that parents with more risk and less protective factors show poorer parenting. Parents with more psychopathology and parenting stress do show poorer parenting than parents without these problems. Based on our findings, we describe several implications for engaging and supporting parents of adolescents in secure residential care.

The effectiveness of interventions has become an important object of scientific study in child welfare and often a prerequisite for funding of child welfare programmes. Many studies on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at supporting families at risk and behavioural change of youth have suggested that features of the relationship between professional and client, and the characteristics of the professional, are decisive for the interventions' effectiveness. There are, however, few studies of what is important in terms of relational skills, personal characteristics or communication strategies. In this special issue, we focus on the dynamics of relationships between child welfare workers and clients (i.e., young people and/or their parents) by using direct observation and close analysis of naturally occurring processes. The contributions to this special issue have a 'bottom up' and a 'top down' approach in analysing relationships. The first part uses a 'bottom up' approach and reports on conversations between youth and family treatment parents in treatment homes. Using a 'top down' approach, the second part specifically focuses on Motivational Interviewing skills of care professionals in their interactions with youth. The third part covers the interactions between parents and professionals in the context of child protection using a 'bottom up' approach.

Pen picture accounts of four young people in the Netherlands’ care system help to focus attention on the needs of young people and their families. This also highlights issues facing the Dutch care system and how it is organised and funded. In one of the world’s most densely populated countries, the child protection and welfare system in the Netherlands focuses on family preservation and community-based interventions. However, the number of young people in out-of-home care facilities has increased over the past decade and a half. The New Act on Care for Children and Young People which came into effect in 2015 has made far-reaching changes to Dutch child and youth care policy, and administrative and financial practices that are now re-located to municipalities.

Dit rapport 'Je beter voelen' Ervaringen, behoeften en verbeterpunten van jongeren en medewerkers ten aanzien van mentorgesprekken in twee instellingen voor residentiële jeugdhulp is geschreven in het kader van het onderzoeksproject ‘Een betere basis: De ontwikkeling en evaluatie van een interventie voor goede allianties tussen jongeren en professionals in de residentiële jeugdzorg’. Met dit project wordt getracht om in samenwerking met jongeren en medewerkers in de residentiële jeugdzorg een op de individuele jongere gerichte interventie te ontwikkelen en te evalueren, waarmee medewerkers ondersteund worden in hun alliantie met de jongere. De interventie richt zich specifiek op één-op-één gesprekken welke medewerkers met jongeren voeren. Dit rapport brengt de ervaringen en de behoeften van zowel de medewerkers als de jongeren in kaart met betrekking tot deze één-op-één gesprekken., Dit rapport, 'Je beter voelen'. Ervaringen, behoeften en verbeterpunten van jongeren en medewerkers ten aanzien van mentorgesprekken in twee instellingen voor residentiële jeugdhulp, is geschreven in het kader van het meerjarige onderzoeksproject ‘Een betere basis: De ontwikkeling en evaluatie van een interventie voor goede allianties tussen jongeren en professionals in de residentiële jeugdzorg’. Met dit project wordt getracht om in samenwerking met jongeren en medewerkers in de residentiële jeugdzorg een op de individuele jongere gerichte interventie te ontwikkelen en te evalueren, waarmee medewerkers ondersteund worden in hun alliantie met de jongere. De interventie richt zich specifiek op één-op-één gesprekken welke medewerkers met jongeren voeren. Dit rapport brengt de ervaringen en de behoeften van zowel de medewerkers als de jongeren in kaart met betrekking tot deze één-op-één gesprekken.

Pen picture accounts of four young people in the Netherlands’ care system help to focus attention on the needs of young people and their families. This also highlights issues facing the Dutch care system and how it is organised and funded. In one of the world’s most densely populated countries, the child protection and welfare system in the Netherlands focuses on family preservation and community-based interventions. However, the number of young people in out-of-home care facilities has increased over the past decade and a half. The New Act on Care for Children and Young People which came into effect in 2015 has made far-reaching changes to Dutch child and youth care policy, and administrative and financial practices that are now re-located to municipalities.

Research indicates that aftercare services can maintain the gains that are made during residential youth care and contribute to better long term outcomes. However, research also shows that the quality of aftercare services seems to be quite poor in practice. Therefore, this article offers a review about the current knowledge on the outcomes of aftercare services for adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems in residential youth care. In contrast to the expectations, the reviewed studies show little research evidence for the effectiveness of aftercare services following residential care. Several studies in the review indicate that aftercare can have positive outcomes, but the strength of this evidence is limited because of the weak evaluation methodology applied in the studies. In many studies the aftercare programs are not accurately described, so that it is unclear of which components a program consists and which care factors are associated with positive outcomes. Young people completing aftercare programs tend to show better outcomes than young people leaving aftercare prematurely. None of the outcome studies focused on both youth and their families in aftercare programs following residential care, despite the fact that family-focused aftercare especially might improve long term outcomes of residential care. The results point to the need for more good quality research to make clear which aftercare services are successful for whom after leaving residential care.

Despite its relevance and effectiveness in adjoining fields, still surprisingly little attention has been paid to Motivational Interviewing (MI) in the context of residential youth care. This study aims to analyse observed interactions between adolescents and group care workers during one-on-one conversations from a MI perspective. We specifically focused on the MI adherent and MI non-adherent behaviours of care workers on the one hand, and motivation for change in terms of 'change talk' and 'sustain talk' by adolescents on the other. Audio recordings of 27 conversations show that care workers most often use the MI non-adherent behaviours 'persuasion without permission' and 'confronting' when they try to change adolescents' attitudes or behaviours. MI adherent behaviours, i.e. 'being affirming', 'seeking collaboration' with and 'emphasizing autonomy' of the adolescent, are rarely used during the conversations. In terms of motivation for change, adolescents equally use 'change talk' and 'sustain talk' and often respond 'neutrally' to care workers. 'Change talk' and 'sustain talk' by the adolescent do not consistently follow MI adherent and non-adherent behaviours of care workers, and vice versa. The results suggest that MI training of care workers and more research on MI in residential youth care is wanted.

In the Netherlands, adolescents who have committed, or are suspected of committing a crime can be placed in a (residential) juvenile justice facility (JJF). These adolescents often have severe emotional and behavioural problems, and have dealt with aversive experiences in their past. In this paper we look at their perceptions on whether they feel that their views have been taken into account in decision-making processes during their stay in the facility. We held semi-structured interviews with 18 adolescents staying in a JJF. In these interviews we focused on their perceptions of participation. We transcribed the interviews using Atlas ti, version 7. We used both theory-driven as well as data-driven codes to analyse the data. In the results we distinguish between the content and setting of decisions (everyday versus higher order decisions), and the general perceptions of adolescents with regard to their participation in decision-making. Results indicate that within the structured context of the juvenile justice facility, there is a degree of freedom in which the adolescents are actively stimulated to participate. Overall, adolescents express forms of participation (feeling listened to, sharing views). This is both the case with everyday decisions and higher order decisions. However, some of the adolescents do not always feel that their participation is meaningful. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of looking further into the factors that underlie the possibilities of participation within coercive care.

The metaphor of the 'black box' has often been used in recent years to refer to characteristics of residential care that - although of pivotal importance - are not sufficiently transparent or known. Considering its importance for positive outcomes and the lack of research on this topic within the context of residential care, the current special issue focuses on the 'components' that facilitate change in behaviour and well-being of youth in residential care through an explicit orientation towards the perspectives and experiences of young people and professionals. This form of study can be called 'voices research'. The included studies present insights on the aspects of the residential youth care process that are important for the development and well-being of the youth in care and, therefore, the outcomes of care. Topics that will be addressed include the youth-adult relationship in residential care; the adolescents' perceptions of participation in secure care; the experience of pain in secure care; clients' and professionals' perspectives on the quality of care; the threats to the therapeutic milieu aspects of residential care; and the discovered benefits of workers' in-service training according to positive parenting practice models.

Residential child and youth care is not only the oldest but nowadays also one of the least 'sexy' forms of assistance for children and young people in need. Among other things, questions have been raised as to the effectiveness of residential placements, especially in comparison with well-conceptualized non-residential alternatives. The empirical proof for the ascribed lack of effectiveness is small. Outcome studies indicate a moderate-high level of change, i.e. reduction of problem behaviour in children and young people. It is likely that the care and assistance provided by group care workers is a key factor in bringing about positive change. In this article we investigate care worker functioning, their job satisfaction and their working methods in this discipline. Our focus will be on the quality of the social interaction and the working relationship between child and care worker. Research points to the importance of this common treatment factor. In addition to broadening the study of outcomes, in terms of both measurement type and time, we argue for a greater emphasis in research and practice on the status and personal characteristics of residential workers, partly in relation to the needs of children in their care.