Institutionalization And Autonomy In Adolescents And Youth

The development of autonomy is influenced by different individual and contextual variables, that include socio-demographic and family/institutional (in cases where children live in residential care) background. Hence, the role residential care play in the process of providing children and youth at risk/danger with the adequate skills to prepare them to have an independent adult life is fundamental. A quantitative exploratory study was thus developed to characterize adolescents/young people autonomy (68.8% living in residential care) and to explore individual variables relevance in this area. Most of the participants lived in coastal areas of the country (69%), were female (76.2%) and age ranged between 13 and 24 (17.38±2.33). They completed the Autonomy Questionnaire for Adolescents. SPSS IBM 24 was used for data analysis and statistically significative differences were found (p˂.05): i) between males (with higher results) and females; ii) in functional autonomy according to age (higher scores among the 13-17 year-old group vs. 18- 24); iii) in functional and total autonomy, better in those living in residential care. These results stress the importance of investing in parental education initiatives that may foster the construction of youths’ autonomy in their own families considering the role played by gender and age in intervention. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion