Young People and the Care Experience by Shaw Julie;Frost Nick;

Author:Shaw, Julie;Frost, Nick;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1170352
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Therapeutic approaches: the way forward?

Given the challenging nature of the problems presented and experienced by many young people who enter residential children's homes, Stevens and Furnivall (2008, p. 196) argue that it is ‘perhaps an indictment on the state of residential childcare that there are only some types of residential provision which are specifically therapeutic in terms of their practice’. Nevertheless, they go on to highlight how since the mid-1990s, there has been renewed interest in therapeutic approaches to residential care, and argue that a diverse range of such approaches does indeed exist and that ‘they can be used to meet the varied and complex needs presented by children and young people who come into residential care’ (ibid., p. 197). The success of such interventions is often dependent on the quality of staff–resident relationships and as such would appear to provide an appropriate template for practice.

Holistic therapeutic approaches include the therapeutic community which is a specialised residential unit for young people which usually has education onsite and where intervention is organised on the basis of offering planned therapeutic help and support over the long term. Stevens and Furnivall (2008) highlight how the theoretical base of the therapeutic community is explicitly psychodynamic, where the existence of and effects of the unconscious mind are key concepts within the rationale of interventions for these establishments. Therapeutic communities follow many different approaches, with perhaps the one common element being that they are based on the need for staff to understand child development and the impact of early separation, deprivation and trauma.

Campling and Hague (1999) recount how various types of therapeutic communities evolved in the United Kingdom during the twentieth century. The work of such communities is under-researched and in the words of Ward et al. (2003, p. 13), ‘in today's “evidence-based” terms its effectiveness is still technically unproven …’. Little and Kelly's (1995) research into the Caldecott Community found that it provided as much stability as any other option. Figures indicated that children from ‘fragmented families or exhibiting behavioural difficulties’ were the most likely to do well, compared with children who were the victims of long-term abuse (Little and Kelly, 1995, p. 178).

Nevertheless, therapeutic approaches in residential care are not necessarily about an all-encompassing philosophy, such as that practised within therapeutic communities. Indeed, as Stevens and Furnivall (2008, p. 200) put it, ‘the therapeutic use of daily life events in residential settings has been highlighted in the literature and perhaps constitutes a more naturalistic approach than therapeutic communities’. Opportunity-led work (Ward, 2000) or working in the lifespace are approaches which have been utilised at various points. ‘Working in the lifespace’ involves the conscious use of the everyday opportunities that present themselves in residential work, to engage meaningfully with young people about what is happening in their lives. A key aspect is the opportunity for the development of close working relationships between young people and staff, with practitioners building up knowledge and understanding of the young people's personal histories in order to make sense of their behaviours in the present.

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